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Title: Germinal (Oxford World's Classics) by Emile Zola, Peter Collier, Robert Lethbridge ISBN: 0-19-283702-8 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (36 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Zola's Masterpiece
Comment: Germinal is generally considered the greatest of Emile Zola's twenty novel Rougon-Macquart cycle. Of these, Germinal is the most concerned with the daily life of the working poor. Set in the mid 1860's, the novel's protaganist Etienne Lantier is hungry and homeless, wandering the French countryside, looking for work. He stumbles upon village 240, the home of a coal mine, La Voreteux. He quickly gets a job in the depths of the mine, experiencing the backbreaking work of toiling hundreds of feet below the earth. He is befriended by a local family and they all lament the constant work required to earn just enough to slowly starve. Fired up by Marxist ideology, he convinces the miners to strike for a pay raise. The remainder of the novel tells the story of the strike and its effect on the workers, managers, owners and shareholders.
Zola weaves a strong plot line along with a multitude of characters. The hallmark of this novel is the wealth of people who populate the pages. The miners are not the noble poor but men and women who live day to day, cruel in some ways, generous in others. The managers are owners are not evil, greedy men but complex characters who in some ways envy the freedom of the miners from conventional morality.
As with most Zola novels, don't expect a happy ending. But the reader can expect to be transported to a world and a way of life almost unimaginable for its brutality and bleakness. Like other great works of literature, the novel explores the thoughts and actions of people who suffer the daily indignities of poverty and injustice. Germinal is different however because the thoughts and actions are not noble and the consequences of their actions are felt by all. I would strongly recommend Germinal as one of the major novels of the 19th century but one that transcends time and place. The issues evoked in the novel regarding labor versus capital are just as relevant to today's world.
Rating: 5
Summary: A window to the oppression of 19th century capitalism.
Comment: Emile Zola's Germinal tells of the class conflict between the miners of the Montsou Company and its' owners during the Industrial Revolution of France. Life for the workers had been continuing with mute suffering for generations until a newcomer named Etienne arrives, and becomes one of the countless workers who must endure the conditions of the mine to get his fortnights' pay. The tensions keep building as wages are lowered, and the catalyst that instigates the situation comes in the form of Etienne's zealous attitude to socialism. Germinal keeps accurate to the history of the time when new politics for the worker were being introduced; the International Working Mans Association is constantly referred to as a symbol of hope. Lastly, Germinal is a wonderfully detailed book which not one part of the dreariness of the worker's life is missed, one part of the superfluous luxury of the affluent is forgotten, and most importantly every emotion is expounded upon.
Rating: 5
Summary: Germinal by Zola
Comment: Published in the 1880s, this book was one of a series of
works which Zola created over a 25 year period. It depicts the
struggles of coal miners in a classic pitting of the interests
of owners as against the workers. The author puts the
controversy well when he asserts that "the worker is the
victim of the facts of existence-capital, competition,
industrial crises ...
In the late 1860s, Zola set out to document societal conditions
in a number of important contexts including the principal
professions, trades, classes, political, religious, artistic
and so on. The idea was to craft a scientific or rationally
documented picture of every level of society during the
French Second Empire which ultimately lead the writer to
develop the character of Etienne Lantier. Zola's object was
to study the coal miners and extrapolate inferences for the
working class conditions in general. In the process, the author
attempted to draw fine distinctions in the historical
clashes between capital and labour. Zola commences with the
first days of work in the life of Etienne including a
description of the mining pits, the plight of workers, living
conditions and a wide circle of circumstances which beset
everyday miners in the conduct of their work. Zola is not
happy with merely demonstrating the dynamics of a socialist
theory of trade unions. He attempts to draw a universal theory
about human nature, the dynamics of self-interest, survivalist
motives and self-preservation which concern social scientists
up through Maslowe. Zola attempts to be fair. He criticizes
both rich and poor for laziness, bad faith and uncontrolled
vices. The book ends almost as it begins with a description
of Etienne travelling through a coal-mining territory in the
hustle and bustle of the early morning.
The book would be important reading for literary critics,
historians, economists, political theorists and a wide
constituency of readers in formal academia. It is
geared for students in late high school or early collegiate
studies in world literature or foreign language studies.
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Title: Nana. by Emile Zola, George Holden ISBN: 0140442634 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1972 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: L'Assommoir: The Dram Shop (Penguin Classics) by Emile Zola, Robin Buss ISBN: 0140447539 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola, Leonard W. Tancock ISBN: 0140443274 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: August, 1977 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Earth by Emile Zola, Douglas Parmee ISBN: 0140443878 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1980 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Debacle (The Penguin Classics) by Emile Zola, Leonard W. Tancock ISBN: 0140442804 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: March, 1973 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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