Germinal

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: This novel contains some of the best writing anyone has done anywhere at anytime. The characters are as full of as much stark reality as is possible to be found in a piece of literature. I've never encountered such raw violence and sensuality in a piece of serious literature and there were times that I didn't quite know hot to react to it.

But Zola portrays his characters and their social structure with great intelligence. There are two sets of characters, on the one hand the miners and on the other hand the mining company managers and shareholders. The miners work under horrendous conditions, long hours, very hazardous conditions, starvation wages and low life expectancy, child labor and stunted growth, and so on. The company allows this to happen, of course, because it helps their profit margin and there is no one to restrain them, France in the late 1860's, the novel's setting, practicing unrestrained capitalism. The miners live in cramped houses provided by the company, which are grossly inadequate as many of them produce hordes of children in the hope that they might be able to work and provide a paycheck when they are old enough. The only respites from their hard life that many of them utilize are sex and alcohol. This is especially true of the children, most of whom lose their virginity at a very young age, and a great many of them spend their evenings in secluded spots in town and in the cornfields engaging in carnal activity, not caring if anyone sees or hears them. The life is hard, with virtually no hope of making it better and not uncommonly this results in child abuse, spousal abuse and other forms of violence.

But the main character Etienne Lantier changes their lives. At the beginning of the book he is homeless and wandering Northern France looking for food and work which he finds at a mine. After the first day he finds it to be such hell, that he resolves to leave it and get back to his tramping. But he also feels intense solidarity with the miners and decides to stay on. He eventually becomes one of the most skilled workers and perhaps the most popular among his mates. He also begins to correspond with a former coworker of his who has become active in the Workers International and to read leftist literature which he does not comprehend very well but he uses his influence to inspire his coworkers in the belief that they deserve a great deal more than their miserable lives, that they, the ones who actually produced the wealth, should own it, not the speculators and profiteers. They are suddenly awakened with the idea that they are worthy, that they deserve to live a life without malnourishment, violence and death. After a draconian wage cut and other outrages the miners finally decide to strike, egged on by Etienne's feverish speeches. Etienne is filled with sincere beliefs but he also has a sort of messiah complex, full of dreams that he one day will lead the workers of France and abolish capitalism and create a just and equal society, and so on. He believes that the miners will be able to bring the company to its knees, mostly using the resources that supposedly could be provided by the Workers International in London, but their help is very meager. The rest of the book is full full of severe hardship for the miners, the violence and pillage of desperate people and lost children like Jeanlin, a couple of murders, a massacre and a dead man getting his penis pulled off and paraded around on a stick. The miners in the end are defeated but their conscience has been fully aroused and Zola intelligently notes at the very end that they are full of solidarity and hoping to build up mass organizations so that they may one day fully take control of their lives.

I think Zola's treatment of the mine manager, Monsier Hennebeau, and his wife, the Gregoire family, one of the major shareholders, and the rest of the rich people in the book is somewhat inadequate. The Gregoire family live in great luxury and are very genial people. They view the miners off whose slave labor they have made an obscene fortune as nice little people who recognize that their place in life is proper and sincerely believe that the miners live very prosperously, and would be much better off if they wouldn't spend so much on alcohol and didn't have so many children and so on. Hennebeau's wife thinks similar thoughts only she hates and fears the miners. Monsieur Hennebeau seems to recognize at some level that he is a scoundrel as when he admits that the workers are correct to be angry because the company has chosen to cut their wages instead of increasing production to lower the coal price. I would have liked Zola to deeper into that line of thinking. I would also have like to get a little deeper into the overall mind of Hennebeau, other than his anguish when, at the heighth of the labor violence, he discovers that his wife is sleeping with his nephew Negral who is also his assistant. The same with Deneulin, the manager at the Vadame mine.

Like almost all great novels, I think that this book has its flaws. I felt that Chaval, Catherine's barbaric husband was not covered well enough and that Catherine herself, after seeming intriguing at the beginning becomes rather disagreeable until the very end. I also thought that Negral's embrace with his enemy Etienne at the end after he helped save the latter's life is a bit odd and would have liked to know what happened after that. And then there is the raw brutality of the book, which can get a tiny bit mind-numbing at times. But overall this book definitely is near the top of the first rank.

Rating:
Summary: Unveiling the proletarian's world
Review: This penetrating, almost lurid novel, exposes the brutish life of the coal miner in late nineteenth century France. This well-written, detailed story, exposes the appalling conditions of the workers, at a time when labor was just starting to organize. The failure of organized labor to ameliorate these conditions, at the time, made many, including Zola, feel that a socialist revolution, if not inevitable, was certainly desirable.

Zola has been referred to as the father of literary "naturalism". His literary vision captures life as it exists for the majority of the persons then alive, rather than the elite, whose lives had been the subject of most literature written up to this point. Germinal vivdly portrays the monotonous, near hopeless, life of the laborer: long hours; miserable working conditions that considerably shorten life expectancy and routinely cause medical problems early into middle age; and the almost common manner in which many young girls encounter their first lover (and often future husband) in non-consensual circumstances- in the mine, behind the barn, etc. Many readers were shocked or even outraged.

Zola's characters are fairly well-developed, and their patheticness is disturbingly believable. The plot (which seems secondary) details the counterproductive attempt to strike by the organized coalminers. The book is peopled with aristocrats and bourgeoisie as well as workers; but its most salient and revolutionary aspect is its primary focus upon the miserable lives of the oppressed. The particulary egregious plight of the workers in this story may slightly overstate the plight of Zola's contemporary workers, but the detailed and informed nature of Zola's description of the coal mine's operation leaves little doubt that the oppression faced by this generation of workers was all too real.

As a work of fiction, it is marred only by its incomplete, or unresolved ending, and the feeling that the development of the main character, Etienne, has not been fully realized, for better or for worse.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Historical Fiction
Review: This was one of those books I picked up from the bookshelf on my way out the door to catch a plane for a week-long trip. It made the 5 hour lay-over at DIA seem like 5 minutes. I was exhausted the entire trip because I stayed awake in bed with a flashlight into the wee hours of the morning reading. The descriptions and character development are unsurpassed. I also highly recommend the video by the same title - view only AFTER reading the novel. Zola strikes me as the French Dickens. Also fabulous - Zola's THERESE RAQUIN.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimately satisfying
Review: Unfortunately, Zola's Germinal initially came across as contrived to me. Clearly, he spent a lot of time in the mines and with the miners, but his recall of details--at least initially--felt like a third person accounting/reportage. This is in contrast to the authenticism of someone like D.H. Lawrence, who knew intimately the life of a miner, and whose depiction of that life seems more effortless. The novel ultimately becomes satisfying, however, as we get to know Etienne and his comrades, and hope for their success in their revolt against the shareholders of the mines.

Rating:
Summary: Oh my God!!!!!
Review: Well into middle age and a leftist for the last thirty-odd years I don't know how I never found time for Zola. This novel is completely engrossing. I don't know what book to pick up next because I don't want it to be disappointing after this massive sprawing work. Dozens of images stick in my mind and I think always will. Too short but there are still 19 other novels in the series at least.

Rating:
Summary: Human Life as an Experiment
Review: When Emile Zola wrote about exprimental novel, he wasn't just talking about experimenting on style and literature. He was also talking about the novel as being a social laboratory for the human kind. So he wrote Germinal, and we are thankful that he did. Since it was written, Germinal attracted many criticism, more negative than positive due to the way he is experimenting on the hunman condition in the mines of Montsou.

This is a very powerful novel about how the misery in the lives of the French miners led them to test and taste revolution in the disguise of a strike and how the clash between classed led inevitable violence.

This is a must read story of human life in the mines, with all its misery and evil... But remember there is always hope, because it is "germinal."

Rating:
Summary: A glimmer of hope for the oppressed
Review: Why do we have labor laws? Why do we accept nuclear energy and the oil industry? Why did the rich countries become so prosperous? "Germinal" shows you why. Often considered Zola's greatest work, it is indeed a truly epic story skilfully blended with penetrating political and economic analysis, not least of the mixture of motives that push people to stand up for their rights or those of others. Take John Steinbeck's "The Grapes Of Wrath", multiply it by ten or twenty and you won't even come close to this book. Deeply moving, shocking, but ultimately uplifting, for in the wreckage of the miners' crushing defeat after their strike Zola, for once, offers a glimmer of hope. Better to have fought and lost than to have done nothing. The seeds of a new, fairer world have been sown. And one day........

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking
Review: Zola's examination of life as a coal miner in 19th century Northern France is a thought provoking examination of humanity's endurance, socioeconomical divisions and the difficulty of the human experience. While one might assume such a setting would induce a dull read, on the contrary this is one of the more gripping tales I've read. Zola's portrayal of a group's passionate yearning for a better life, as well as each person's struggle to live from day to day is not only educational but also urges one to question one's own place in the world and one's contribution to society. An excellent read.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly corrupt and oppressed to the max.
Review: Zola's Germinal represents a sad struggle for the rights of humankind. The oppressed workers find an identity within them and rise up. With the help of a young vagrant, the town at Le Voreaux was able to show the world that the subservient workers were not going to take anymore abuse from their oppressors. The period of this novel fits perfectly into the timeline of history. The industrialization of Europe came without a set table of rules that were equal or fair. Men were forced to work long hours and in terrible conditions. Zola captures this torture within the bounds of his novel. The reader is compelled to feel compassion towards the workers, as they are paid low wages to suffer and die in the coal-mines. The passion within the workers in neatly typed words as expressed through Zola's steady flow of language. Zola creates the darkened attitude of the novel through his imagery and writing. The coal-mines are harsh and cruel, something man has to reckon with, and something man does challenge. Much applause is given to Zola for his brilliant effort in writing such a tragic, yet realistic account of the problems during the industrialization of Europe.

Rating:
Summary: The Result of Pacifist Socialism.
Review: Zola's wonderfully written tale of the struggles and trials of the coal miners of Le Voreux stresses the utter futility of passive socialism. After a lengthy strike, the miners are still cheated by the company, only they are more bitter and disillusioned. Enter Souvarine, the Russian exile who turned their bleak world topsy-turvy. A nihilist by choice, he reflects a fine mix of Dostoyevsky's Peter Verkovensky and Turgenyev's Bazarov. In the end, only the destructive whimsey of Souvarine accomplishes anything remotely productive.