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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: 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: I loved it!
Review: I read this book one summer at a pool and was so engrossed that I failed to notice anything around me! It is a superb human interest story about how miners were forced to work in dangerous conditions facing black lung to earn a meager living to buy food. If you enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath or Upton Sinclair's The Jungle you will truely enjoy this book!
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: 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 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Not light reading
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: 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."
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