La Bête Humaine by Juan Luna

                                               La Bête Humaine by Juan Luna         


The book held by the beautiful lady commands more attention than herself. It is the novel of Emile Zola, La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast), part of a series or a cycle of stories chronicling the lives of two families Rougon-Macquart as they march to events in French history. La Bête Humaine has this intriguing reputation for it deals with subjects such as displaced sexuality and the psychotic tendencies of man. 

The plot involves a character named Jacques Lantier, who has an inborn madness, that hereditary trait to kill, ergo he is the human beast in the novel. Themes of sexuality in psychoanalysis come as Lantier also has to deal with his erotic attraction to an object, of all things, the train engine he drives. All these themes of madness, infidelity, and the bestial qualities of a man rolled in the plot. This brings to the kind of life Luna lived. Remember, he shot his wife in a fit of jealousy, afterward released by the French justice system, declaring him a "sauvage."

But then why paint that dark book with a lovely lady. Who is she?

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