This was a perversely enjoyable read. While I spent much of the book wanting to slap the Abbe silly, I recognized the tale as Zola's fable pitting love of intellect/religion against love f all that is natural, passionate of feeling, delight in the sensual. Considered quite shocking in his own time, Zola doesn't hold a candle to current-day explicitness, but his sensual language and imagery are, to me, very evocative.