Germinal

Rating:
Summary: French classic.
Review: A very deep and exciting work of a great French classic.

Rating:
Summary: a complex tale of labor and strife, told with efficiency
Review: After "L'Assommoir" and "Nana," I was accustomed to Zola's "naturalist" style of reporting the details and constructing a story to make a point about Second Empire society. But "Germinal" surpasses those two, mainly due to Zola's efficiency. Middle-class readers in his day were likely to have invested more time than contemporary readers in reading (no search engines or video games in the late 19th century), so it's understandable why "Germinal" is so saturated with detail. That being noted, this is a masterfully written and passionate book that makes for fast reading. Zola is at his best evoking the coal elevator, the movements of an enraged crowd, the gossiping wives of miners, etc., giving the reader a clear description of the sights, sounds and smells of the moment.

A few reviewers have interpreted this is a tale of oppresive capitalism. While much of symbolism (the mine that eats the workers, the sufferings of Catherine and so on) could give that impression, this is story of disasterous ideology. Set in 1866-1867, when the Civil War in the U.S. exacerbated the coal industry's overcapitalization in France, Etienne falls in love with the proto-socialist movement (instead of Catherine) and sets off catastrophe. The episode in which Etienne, Chaval and Catherine wait underground for their rescuers is a potent metaphor for his relationship with the miners.

There are a number of very interesting characters in this book, who evolve to the decaying situations around them and often end up doing some very shocking things. Sprinkled with references to Darwin, "Germinal" features multiple characters that seems to revert to animal-like behavior. Whether Zola was not into economic progress as some suggest here is debatable, but there can be no mistake that he wanted to show the tremendous sacrifices that are involved. The change to the timbering rules by the company, the charge by the miners to Jean-Bart, and the act of sabotage by the Souvarine all have their disasterous unintended consequences. And it has been unintended consequences that defeated Marxism. In this way Zola was prophetic.

Chaval is mostly portrayed as a cruel man who represents the natural urges that Etienne constantly battles. A very good website by a professor at Washington State mentioned that "Chaval" resembles "cheval," which means "horse." So the practicality, beast-of-the-mines existence of Chaval is linked by name to the very sympathetic horses in this story. In this way Chaval is a fully-developed character in "Germinal."

Does this book have contemporary interpretations? During the week that I read this, there were two newspaper stories about coal mining. One in the weekend Milwaukee paper, told of a labor shortage in American coal mines, where in Pennsylvania and Ohio, veteran miners are returning to the towns they once had to leave. Soon afterward, the N.Y. Times described a tragic collapse in a coal mine in the central Henan province of China, showing a picture of thin, grey-clad family members crowding a building next to the entrance to the mine, waiting for names of the survivors and the still missing. Given the (capitalist) history of the U.S. and the (Communist) history of China, would Zola be surprised by the content of these two newspaper stories in 2004?

Coal mining in the U.S., of course, is a segment of the economy of which many environmentalists disapprove; its fate may be decided by the upcoming presidential election. Zola's "Germinal" is a masterpiece (I enjoyed the translation by Leonard Tanock), but its lessons may not be as simple as some readers may hope.


Rating:
Summary: Oh God help whoever has to read this!
Review: After about 200 pages of redundant descriptions of the working class conditions things start to happen, and they aren't worth reading either. I'm in college now, and would like nothing more to castrate my professor who assigned this tortorous assignment.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: Émile Zola's Germinal is a disheartening account of many people who work in the mines of the town of Montsou in France. In the beginning of this account, a young man called Étienne comes in to Village 240 in Montsou looking for a job that he finds in the Le Voreux coal mine. Here he meets the Maheu family. But during this work of fiction, Étienne becomes an instigator of a strike of the mining workers. This all due to the sneaky wage cut made the Grégoires mining company. The company has changed around the payment to make it look like the workers are getting the same amount of money, but the workers realize that it is a wage cut and end up striking. Almost all of the workers in the mine are already in terrible poverty and it only gets worse.

In the first part of the novel, Zola explains in great detail the condition and appearance of the mines. Also, we hear about the experiences' of the characters in the story, such as Grandpa Bonnemort always coughing up black !saliva. Additionally, we meet Levaque, Pierrones, and Mouque who are fellow miners. In Part Two, we are introduced to the wealthy Grégoire family in great descriptiveness as well as other top executives in the mining company. During Part Three, we meet Souvarine, a Russian who is a violent anarchist who wants to destroy many things. This begins the line of tragedy for the Maheus.

The story begins and ends in the spring; beginning in March and ending in April. These parts all show the germination of the characters in the story. In the beginning, many people were surviving with what they had. Even though the company decreased the wages, it would still be more money than the people made striking. During the 1880s in France, times were hard and things didn't change very quickly. The strike didn't make things any better for the workers; it just made things worse.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking
Review: Emile Zola reminds me very much of D.H. Lawrence. Both authors were deeply affected, and sympathetic to, the plight of the working class, particularly the colliers. Unlike Lawrence, Zola appears to have actually spent some time either working in, or studying, the actual physical experience of being underground. His descriptions of these excursions into the "earth's belly" are so affecting, that you actually begin to feel clausterphobic.
I've never read anything so descriptive to actually cause a physical sensation of pure repulsion.

This is an excellent story about the dismal, grinding poverty of the working class in 18th century France, where the miners had
seemingly no options, no political support, no social safety-net or regulatory body established for any sort of protection against exploitation. The sheer inhumanity of their situation is appalling - this is an excellent read, and intertwined is a love story that is equally compelling. I highly recommend this classic.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: Émile Zola's Germinal is a disheartening account of many people who work in the mines of the town of Montsou in France. In the beginning of this account, a young man called Étienne comes in to Village 240 in Montsou looking for a job that he finds in the Le Voreux coal mine. Here he meets the Maheu family. But during this work of fiction, Étienne becomes an instigator of a strike of the mining workers. This all due to the sneaky wage cut made the Grégoires mining company. The company has changed around the payment to make it look like the workers are getting the same amount of money, but the workers realize that it is a wage cut and end up striking. Almost all of the workers in the mine are already in terrible poverty and it only gets worse.

In the first part of the novel, Zola explains in great detail the condition and appearance of the mines. Also, we hear about the experiences' of the characters in the story, such as Grandpa Bonnemort always coughing up black !saliva. Additionally, we meet Levaque, Pierrones, and Mouque who are fellow miners. In Part Two, we are introduced to the wealthy Grégoire family in great descriptiveness as well as other top executives in the mining company. During Part Three, we meet Souvarine, a Russian who is a violent anarchist who wants to destroy many things. This begins the line of tragedy for the Maheus.

The story begins and ends in the spring; beginning in March and ending in April. These parts all show the germination of the characters in the story. In the beginning, many people were surviving with what they had. Even though the company decreased the wages, it would still be more money than the people made striking. During the 1880s in France, times were hard and things didn't change very quickly. The strike didn't make things any better for the workers; it just made things worse.

Rating:
Summary: A window to the oppression of 19th century capitalism.
Review: 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:
Summary: Zola's Masterpiece
Review: 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:
Summary: A graphic blast of naturalism
Review: Germinal, like many works grouped together as examples of literary naturalism, is not a novel one generally reads for enjoyment. It portrays the dark and oppressive world of 19th c. French coal miners and their attempt to free themselves through political awakening. The main character, Etienne, whips the miners into a socialist frenzy, leading them to strike against the company. As events unfold, Etienne begins to care less about the everyday details of the miners' existence and more about larger issues of socialism, anarchy, and world revolution. Etienne leaves the book a student of politics who has graduated. The miners return to their jobs -- with the hint that they will rise again. Germinal alludes to the works of Marx and Darwin, but detailed knowledge of those works is not required to get the point. The events are dark, sometimes base, and sometimes brutal. This is a book to be read, pondered, and (hopefully) discussed rowdily over beer. Start it and stick with it. It is not a particularly hard read, but it is a classic work that is not for wimps. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Emotion-Free Epic
Review: Having previously read Zola's NANA and THE MASTERPIECE, along with a number of short stories, and enjoyed them thoroughly, I was very disappointed by GERMINAL. Too much agit-prop and not enough psychology. Maybe I found myself identifying more easily with the urban worlds of the other two novels. I must say though, that the opening sequence detailing precisely how coal is mined is fascinating and horrifying in a kind of journalistic way, and the last sequence (I won't give anything away) has an undeniable epic splendor. A lot of the middle is kind of muddled, and the characters are too numerous to really get to know or feel for.