....fuck
Lovingly detailed descriptions of underage titties
>>25441187You now realise that Etienne used the pit village to boot his career as a political bureaucrat. "The Beast in Man" indeed.
why didn't they just eat Chaval?
How dark is it compared to say, Salammbo?I really want to get into french literature and Zola but I'm such a goy all I read is manga.
>>25441823Not as dark as Salammbo but a few senseless deaths
>>25441823>I really want to get into french literatureRead some Hugo, then. Or Dumas. Much better than Z*la.And if you're not ready for Dumas just yet, give Maurice Leblanc a try. You know, the creator of Arsène Lupin, the French Raffles. His books are very light reads.
>>25441848What do you have against Zola?I've only really read Salammbo, half of the Three Musketeers and the first chapters of les mis but from what I've heard Zola is a fairly respected writer and Germinal is his best novel by far.
>>25441823can't make a comparison because i haven't read salammbohowever, germinal is a realistic, albeit fictional, account of coal miners going on strike because of pay cuts when they were already starving, and it goes about as well for them as you'd guessit's really fucking depressing. shit just goes from bad to worse and worse and worse.
it's also really fucking good and a page turner for sure
>>25441858>What do you have against Zola?Teachers forced us to read some of his stuff when I was a wee lad. It was SHIT!I had to read some Balzac, too. That hack.
>>25441871but why was it shit anon
>>25441891I mostly remember being bored by it.
>>25441187Fuck, indeed. Easily the most mature political novel I've read. My favourite of Zola's.
>>25441823Not comparable to Salammbo at all. And Salammbo is barely a narrative anyway, it's mostly descriptions. Zola is surprisingly modern in how he describes stuff, it's not often the typical "head to toe" description of 19th century, but more like the "specific detail" modernist description.As much as Flaubert is realist and even "pornographic" for 19th century society, Zola puts him to shame. And it's exactly becouse of the focus on detail. He knows and tells the details that only someone extremely familiar with the subject would know (that's becouse he lived in the poor part of Paris). And becouse of deterministic beliefs of naturalists it's the details that shape the characters and the narrative.Nana is my favorite of his, where he deconstructs french Marianne in prostitute Anne, through this one person and her life he showcases the whole picture of second french empire and it's hypocrisy and moral collapse. I hold firm belief that Nana is early symbolist novel.The books are also absolutely brutal when necessary, he does not shy away from anything. In shock value it's comparable to Christiane F. or Ryu Murakami, but Zola is on high-school reading lists all over the world. Finally: Zola didn't write to be popular, he wasn't Dickens. However his books are far bigger page turners than Dickens. He also has far higher artistic value than Dickens or anything that's written to be popular. However (and this is big however) his books often have a filter built in, often they are front heavy, where they introduce all the characters (tens of them) in first chapters. Again deterministically he first creates the world, the surroundings for his character.
>>25441187Makes Steinbeck look like a joke. I still like Steinbeck, but my god...
>>25441187Emile Zola will always sound like a Gundam pilot name to me
why didn't they just eat alzire?
>>25441865I’d rather be a starving french miner in the 19th C than a trans
>>25441187Read this last year, it became, and has stayed, my favorite novel. The mastery of the medium displayed by the author is staggering. It's poignant, suspenseful, and timeless. It tackles the thorniest problems in economics with an authenticity and ruthlessness that has driven people to label him both a Marxist and a Capitalist sympathizer. The characters represent their individual backgrounds and modes of thinking so well that you can see the rationale for every character's proposal for how the group should proceed. It never shies away from the darkness of the situation, and paints the plight of coal miners in the exact shade and detail required. Honestly, no book has had such a haunting effect on me, whole scenes and emotions sweep up on me occasionally from my memory.I've gone on to read Therese Raquin, which shows a similar mastery, although the subject matter ends up being a little less interesting, it still ranks highly in my regard.
>>25443377Can you think of any other author which measures up to Zola?
>>25443481Personally my other favorite author is Tolstoy, but he is such a vastly different author in style and tone it's impossible to compare them directly. Someone ITT mentioned Steinbeck, and I'd say The Grapes of Wrath would be a good comparison, but Zola maintains a kind of surreal intensity that heightens the impact of events and creates suspense and thrill while maintaining depth to the story. I do quite like Thomas Hardy who also tends to write about people who get down on their luck and endure hardship which allows the gleam of humanity to shine through, amplified by stark contrast with the dirt and blood it's cake in, but Zola is unafraid to draw the full picture of horror where Hardy maintains a kind of decorum about it. I will second the anon who said Zola has a bit of a filter, early in his novels, Germinal included, he tends to paint too many details of everyday life to the point where it can become tedious. I do believe this is necessary context, and it is sprinkled with thematic symbolism (the elevator down to the mine is constantly compared with the insatiable maw of a great beast which devours men), but some readers might not get through it to the real payoff later in the works. For example, in Germinal, he basically depicts one full day of a miner early on, from the meals, to the long slow trek down the mine shaft and to the coal face, to the mining and transportation of the coal, etc.
>>25443481>Can you think of any other author which measures up to Zola?Zola is didactic and puerile, so Orwell.
>>25443878I'm going to guess you are an Ayn Rand enjoyer lol
>>25443896No, I'm a communist, not a simp for bourgeois red liberals.
>>25443933You're a LARPer, and a bad one at that,
Why didn't they just eat Trompette?
>>25441823The particular book in OP is poverty porn with a depressing bias and, worse, social commentary (which is always easy to do in fiction where teh writer controls everything that happens). It is very different from the dark parts of Salambo which feature extravagant, fantastical cuelty.
Why didn't the just eat Bonnemort?
too depressing book for me, I liked parts of it but I really prefer Money over this any day
>>25445062Does the writer control things in order to push an agenda though? Or do things work out as might be expected given the circumstances? This, for me, is one of the prime merits of the novel, the author is honest about the various factions at play in a standoff between a union and a mine owner. Again, you could make a strong case that the Marxist make the situation vastly worse in the novel. Or you could make the case that the owners are the only villains. Or you could blame the government response in the novel. I really don't think there is any social commentary beyond shining a light on how people in this situations had to live and what their options were.
>>25441187I like zola author
>>25443878Zola is anything but didactic, you dipshit.
>>25443933
>>25443377>to label him both a Marxist and a Capitalist sympathizerHe was a moderate, which allowed him to portray the evils of both sides.Zola puts his own words in the mouth of a minor, character, Rasseneur, and only briefly. At the public meeting, he pleads for conciliation and mutual understanding. That's literally all the commentary you'll find in the novel.
>>25447389>Posts his boyfriend againWe don't care, pink-nazi.
>>25447441>critics of gommunism must be nazisWow, original. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
>>25447743Nazis are hired goons by the Epstein/Rothschild class. Liberals. >Star Wars reference.I do see the varying degrees and camps, but this world has us believing in just the two stupid camps of "right/left". When the real story is freedom v. control, and all that's in between.
>>25447759>Nazis are liberalsWow, you keep getting more retarded. Impressive.
>>25441187>ZolaI remember reading The Earth a couple of years ago and losing the will to live for a good week. It's a great book, don't get me wrong, but upsetting as fuck.
Holy shit, what a pretentious pseud: >>25441848.
>>25447385>Zola is anything but didactic, you dipshit.Rougon-Macquart is a proof of his bio social theories of French development. Read L'Assommoir and tell me it isn't didactic.
>>25447389Literally me in the background wearing twig antlers.
>>25447761didn't they steal jewish children to raise them properly because they didn't believe in genetic essentialism? sounds very liberal to me
>>25441187when you about to bust>germinal
I didn't care for this book. Surely poor people aren't so outrageously loose and promiscuous? It feels like fetishism, hon hon hon, I go to le village de mineurs, hon hon, and les filles des mineurs, they suck on le pénis, hon hon. People are not really like this.
>>25448376I am a working class man, let me take you to my working class town. You will misapprehend sucking a bloke's cock in a public toilet for amphetamines as debauched. For me it is just Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.
>>25448399Well far be it from me to tell a man how to spend his Tuesday.
>>25448399Homosexuality is despised among the working class. They have always been socially conservative.There's a reason why you can call a lower-class man a bugger, and an upper-class one a bastard, but not the other way around.It's because the lower-class male is likely to be an actual bastard, and the upper class one an actual bugger.
>>25448376What kind of monastery do you live in? People, especially young people, have sex. And if you live in a one room hut with 10 family members, it means you gotta go have sex in a field or on a roof. The reality is poor people are exactly the same as any other people, just with less options.
>>25448376Perhaps it is a commentary on what happens when industrial capitalism ushers in an age of bleak materialism, and that this is a reason for revolting against the new aristocracy?A timely tale, what with the Epstein files partial reveal exposing them all once again.
>>25441823>I really want to get into french literature and ZolaI read "the ladies' paradies" or "shop girls of paris" (same book, idk how it's translated in english and google is being retarded) when I was in high school and I remember liking it, which is shocking because you can expect most books that are mandated to be read by your school to be awful.If I remember correctly I loved it because the environment was described particularly beautifully and felt truly "real"
>>25448356i replaced all instances of the word "germinating" in my copy with "germinalating" because i needed some comedic relief from the relentlessness of the story
>>25448761>Homosexuality is despised among the working class.>[I have never been to a pub on a friday, or urinated in a truck-stop.]Nice one PUNCHY, you've got FUCKEN ciggie butt brain.
>>25450332>disassociated schizo rambling
I've only read Thérèse Raquin but I enjoyed it a lot
>Miners constantly abused by the corporation>"But one day comrade we'll finally germ ACK*">*WW1 starts*>*Outsourced to Africa*>*Import Africans*Pretty good book slightly better than The Jungle, the horse at the end was probably the worst thing to occur. Made me look into the UKs mining reports and how horrific their conditions were.
>>25451852Have you read Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier? He goes and lives the life of a coal miner and documents the whole experience, plus adds in contemporary reports regarding fatality rates, wages, etc.
>>25441811because it would have been way too corny and on the nose, given the themes of the book. Was pleasantly suprised that zola didnt go that routestill>i could have saved her
isn't this just communist shit that emotionally manipulates into thinking street level criminals deserve free stuff
>>25452860how about reading the book?
>>25452869>read liek a 1000 pages of propogandanah i'd prefer not
>>25452884it's spelled propaganda
>>25448376>Surely poor people aren't so outrageously loose and promiscuous?That's just how the French are.
>>25452966That anon doesn't appear to be terribly concerned about not sounding retarded.
>>25452860No. In fact the communists in the book are portrayed as aloof, ineffectual, and detached from the real concerns of workers.So read the fucking book, you dumb twat.
>>25452334Orwell is viscerally disgusted by how working class people eat and shit. At least Zola has the grapes scene in L'Terre. I love a girl who shits while I fuck her.
OK OK OK OK OK OK WOULD YOU BANG GERVAISE COUPEAU?!
>>25454251Only in tremens.
>>25441187Still need to read it but loved other Rougon-Marquat books I've read like The Kill>>25441823>I really want to get into french literature and Zola but I'm such a goy all I read is manga.Almost all of them have very readable new translations by Oxford World Classics. If your not a regular reader though just read one of the more popular ones first rather than tying to read in order. The quality from novel to novel is quite variable.
why didn't the just eat ramen?
>>25448332>Rougon-MacquartI didn't know that Germinal was part of a 20 book series when I started reading it.I don't have any other of Zola's books.Any opinions which ones in the series are particularly good/bad?
why didnt they just get a job in an office
>>25458777>Any opinions which ones in the series are particularly good/bad?Earth. The knockout shop. Nana. The Debacle. Ladies' Paradise. The belly of Paris.
>>25460477Thanks for the recs. If there any substantial continuity between the books? I heard Etienne shows up in another book.
