« Le feu aux graisses » : la chair sarcastique dans Le Ventre de Paris

Abstract

Le Ventre de Paris is usually regarded as « the novel of the flesh » : fat women, pulpy fruit, food in abundance... the novel however doesn't describe an erotic but a political flesh. Far from being a rabelaisian story where food and flesh are closely connected, Le Ventre de Paris excludes all desire and considers the flesh only as the expression of what is in the shopkeeper's unconscious : desire is nothing more than desire for castration, even the flesh turns into an object of sacrifice, that is essential for the life of the city. Le Ventre de Paris has been too often regarded as a novel describing a lavish flesh, whereas it seems to be a novel describing a « sarcastic flesh » in the double meaning of the word : as a synonym of « satirical » on the one hand, but above all, in the etymological meaning of « what is able too tear the face to pieces », sign of a sacrified flesh that is a constant theme in Zola's novel.