Germinal

Rating:
Summary: you will not put the book away until you're done with it
Review: It is a classic in France. They impose it to you in school ; but it is only later on in your life that you will be able to read it & appreciate it. So powerful that you will read it from beginning to end without stopping ! I read this book every year & it still takes my breath away. MUST READ

Rating:
Summary: A gut-wrenching and soulful experience.
Review: It should be illegal for certain books to be translated into film. I pity the person who does not read, who for whatever reason, cannot create in the mind the vivd imagery laid down in this incredible novel. No movie can come close. I was about a third into "Germinal" when, coincidentally, my union of grocery clerks called for a strike. Of course, almost any similarity between the well-fed and well-compensated clerk of today and the starving, wretched lot portrayed in the novel are absurd. The thing that struck me most were the character representations of both the workers and the owners. The stakes were different, but the mood was exactly the same. I saw first-hand, the leaders, the followers, the sabotuers. I saw those who would settle at any price, and those who would hold out at any cost.

Emil Zola was the kind of writer we just don't see anymore. He risked his career and his freedom to help a Jewish army officer unjustly accused. In "Germinal," he created one of the most dismal landscapes ever put onto paper. As research for the book, he allowed himself to be lowered into a mine shaft, so he could understand a little of what the miner felt as he dropped down into the darkness. Surely these were the pits of Hell. Writing about a labor strike is no easy task, especially if the author is wont to take sides, which Zola undoubtably did. The most remarkable thing about "Germinal" is Zola's even-handedness in his characterizations. Neither side is presented as wholly in the right or the wrong. There are quite a few bizarre character twists, such as the owner Hennebeau who winds up in envy of the workers as he realizes the emptiness of his own existence. Few novels are able to convey the brutality of life for the extremely impoverished, and Zola presents it with authenticity and with relish. There are scenes which will remain in my mind for a lifetime. The characters are as real as any that can be found in the world.

No summation, no casual review can even give a sense of the power of this one book. "Germinal" is anything but casual. It haunts me like few books have. If it is entertainment you desire, read "Jurassic Park." If your soul wants to be touched, read "Germinal."

Rating:
Summary: it sucked
Review: it sucke

Rating:
Summary: iT was an ok book, considering it was for school.
Review: Man oh man. I actually liked this book. You do not understand how much I hate to admit this little fact. I got so attached to the characters and I literally cried when Catherine died at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Probably my favorite novel.
Review: Mind you, I've only read five of Zola's books (I'd be plowing through the rest now, if not for the bane of schoolwork...grrr), so it's possible that the man's written something even better, but it's hard to imagine how that would be possible, really.

Germinal is such an amazing, multi-faceted piece of work that it seems difficult if not impossible to encapsulate the whole thing in a paltry review. If the concept of a novel based around a coal miners' strike in nineteenth-century France sounds off-putting to you, be assured, it's much more accessible than you think. Frequently depressing it certainly is, but it's never less than gripping, and with such a dazzling array of characters and scenes, you'll be riveted throughout. Who can forget the allegorical Russian anarchist Souvarine (who I always picture as looking like Xellos from Slayers, for some reason)? The lugubriously tortured sexual longings of M Hennebeau? Or the horses who work in the mine, doomed to live a life entirely devoid of sunlight? I don't think think anyone short of Tolstoy is capable of doing animals this well. And let's not forget about the awe-inspiring closing paragraph.

Germinal is frequently a melodramatic novel, but never in a propagandizing way--while Zola's sympathies clearly lie with the miners, he is careful not to pile the whole of the blame for their living conditions on the owners, instead making most of them into sympathetic, or at least comprehensible, people. The blame lies with the entire system, and Zola's determination not to resort to simple-minded scapegoating makes the novel all the more real.

Admittedly, Zola's writing and use of imagery isn't exactly subtle (how often does he characterize the mine as a devouring maw--or words to that effect--in the first chapter alone?), but he has a rare gift for portraying large, panoramic scenes, as well as endowing smaller ones with a great deal of atmosphere (which latter talent is really more evident in Nana--also highly recommended)--his strengths are well-suited to the story he's chosen to tell, and the strong focus prevents it from meandering, as his later--somewhat comparable--novel The Earth sometimes does.

I can't recommend Germinal highly enough. If you read just one nineteenth-century French novel, you really ought to be doing more reading. But if you're that determined to limit yourself to just one, make sure that it's Germinal.

Rating:
Summary: The classic fiction of capitalism and its effects
Review: Now part of the canon, this story of a failed coal miners' strike is truly evocative of the wretchedness of life of the lowest of the low on the social scale. It paints a dire picture of work far below in the mines balanced against the misery going on above. Life is nothing but having desultory sex and scraping a living for the miners and their families, with no room for sentiment. The life of the mine-owners is also shown for all its inequality.

Zola manages both the individual character studies - wretched Catherine, who at 15 moves to live with her cruel lover for if not him, it will just be another; Etienne, the stranger who comes to town and in his grasping to advance his position in society drags a township down; and a town full of individuals - contrary, differing and very much alive. Zola also writes brilliantly of the thinking and actions of a mob. It is almost as though the mob has its own individual character and actions.

This is a brilliant, if pessimistic tale of the evils of capitalism in which the author also explores important universal themes - love, power, suffering, individuals and communities, the purpose of existence. Sadly, this book is as relevant today as the day it was written.

Rating:
Summary: Down Deft and Dirty
Review: One of the beauties of this book is the utter unpredictablity of the plot and the fortunes of book's characters. Novels too often mark their characters for happiness or tragedy early on. The reader's puzzle is then divining their fate. In Germinal one needn't try -- it's much like life -- too random to make good predictions. And so one relaxes and lets the story take its course.

Writing description for Germinal called for tons of research and was hard work -- something like Melville had to do for Moby Dick. Germinal is richer though -- Zola's characters have more choices and more chances to screw up than Melville's. It's also social history the way it should be written, viz., why people did what they diid,

Rating:
Summary: Germinal by Zola
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: "A lament rising from the darkness of Hell"
Review: Reading Germinal is like receiving a hefty punch in the face, albeit in a good sense. I can only imagine what Zola's contemporaries must have thought as they finished it. It's a very brutal book in numerous ways - I was expecting the sentiments of Hugo, and man oh man, was I surprised. Germinal is a prime example of the burgeoning "naturalism" movement. And yet, it's hard to believe that Zola approached it scientifically, as he claimed to, since it's so utterly jam-packed with passion. In many places, the book is mind-numbingly brutal, shocking even today. Indeed, while many of Zola's contemporaries poetized the working class, Zola was careful to tell the truth about them - they are illiterate, brutal savages. Now, that fact is not their fault, as they have been raped by the system since birth, but it is nonetheless a fact that the author makes no effort to hide. Numerous scenes will leave the reader amazed at the senseless cruelty - the sorry end of the shopkeeper Maigrat, for instance - but this cruelty is not limited to any one side, giving the (correct) impression that it's inherent to the _system_, not any of the people.

But all of the politics would seem hollow if the book wasn't filled with unforgettable people. Monsieur Hennebeau's life of luxury is sharply contrasted with the lives of the starving workers - and yet one simply _cannot_ dismiss the aching, naked loneliness he feels every second as the pettiness of a rich man. It's real and it's terribly sad. Likewise, the repressed love that Etienne and Catherine (as well as Bebert and Lydie - now that was one of the most touching scenes I've ever read...) feel for each other is poignant beyond words. And while La Mouquette is certainly quite the ribald slut, she's also one of the book's most warmly sympathetic characters, and the love she bears Etienne is one of the purest feelings anyone feels in the book. And pure feelings seem precious to a reader when a lot of the book is filled with such disturbing depravity (Jeanlin's senseless abuse of his friends and ultimately senseless crimes, for instance).

Though the book makes a point that the horrible conditions of workers' life _cannot_ go on for much longer, it also very accurately shows the flaws of socialism - its description of the fall of the International, in hindsight, also fits the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as that of any other fallen ideal. In essence, the book pits two extremes against one another - the ideals of liberty/equality/fraternity versus the blackest form of corporate atavism, and the result is apocalyptically harrowing, and almost unbearably bleak. Zola's hope-filled ending in fact seems a little forced in lieu of all the shattering events of the rest of the book. That aside, it's definitely a classic in its own right (quite the page turner, too - I finished it in two days), and definitely deserves to be read.

Rating:
Summary: A Depressing Masterpiece
Review: This brilliant novel depicts the endless struggle between rich and poor, here personified by coal miners and mine owners. Etienne, a down and outer, arrives at the mining village begging for work. Within a year he has convinced his fellow miners to go on strike. The company refuses to back down. The miners slowly starve and after a confrontation with the militia, which results in the death of many of the main characters, the striking miners give in. They have won nothing.

Catherine, the main female character, elects to return to work in the mines regardless of pay or conditions because the alternatives of starving or working in a brothel are worse to her than pushing heavy wagons underground. Etienne decides to go with her. They are both trapped when the pumping mechanism of the mine breaks down and the mine is flooded, trapping them both. After many days Catherine dies but Etienne is eventually rescued.

A well written and well-plotted book that in its narration of an unsuccessful workers' strike and its' aftermath brilliantly depicts the endless struggle between rich and poor, and also puts are present day petty problems into painfully stark relief.