Germinal

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Les plus minuscules détails de la vie misérable d'Etienne : la vie d'un mineur écrasé comme l'étaient les français à l'époque. Creuser et fondre... (show more)

Les plus minuscules détails de la vie misérable d'Etienne : la vie d'un mineur écrasé comme l'étaient les français à l'époque. Creuser et fondre dans les profondeurs rocheux pour manger du pain. Espoir et Rage révolutionnaire sont le coeur de "Germinal" (show less)

 

 

by Zineb El Boukili

No, it's a flop!

Un classique. Interressant mais pas forcément passsionnant. Un classique à lire pour la culture, pas forcément pour le divertissement.

 

 

by Facebook-gebruiker

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  Germinal is a book built upon a revolutionary’s radical hopes, encompassing ideals of a working class community, and the more codified ethics of a united socialist front. The protagonist makes an inconspicuous appearance in the beginning and the first scene is a spectacle of pity as it carries a poignant feeling of isolation- numbing cold, razor incisive wind, and aimless wandering through a vast and empty expanse. One man and the world; he walks forward without any particular direction, and ... (show more)

  Germinal is a book built upon a revolutionary’s radical hopes, encompassing ideals of a working class community, and the more codified ethics of a united socialist front. The protagonist makes an inconspicuous appearance in the beginning and the first scene is a spectacle of pity as it carries a poignant feeling of isolation- numbing cold, razor incisive wind, and aimless wandering through a vast and empty expanse. One man and the world; he walks forward without any particular direction, and his only desire is to get out of the cold and into someplace warm, but he has no idea of just how heated things will soon become.

  Lucid imagery painted in brushes soaked black and red, coal and blood, create bleak scenery throughout the introductory chapters, and the vivid natural description is a blatant contrast to the brashness and dullness of industrial stability. The underlying irony is the narrative form employed; the reactionary back down into earth state technique used to explicate a more progressive and destructive system disemboweling the earth. Flaubert step aside there is more than just flowers.

  This grave parody focuses on rebellion and existence and the process through which an oppressed working class attempts to liberate itself from an inequitable capitalist system. It draws the reader’s attention towards the monotony and unhappiness that follows ceaseless and unrewarding work, and the precepts of existentialism. Ideas loom over personalities; passionate speeches kindle crushed dreams; enigmatic individuals all search for their version of a utopian ideal, which they believe will eradicate class structure and which will ultimately lead to the redistribution of wealth, through blood and through fire, the cross of the workers struggle emerges and in its wake burnt out ideologies and the ashes of civilization are overstepped.
  
  A piece flawless in scope and in plot formation, brilliant in its use of symbolism and conceit, Zola switches between the use of aesthetics and the application of sociological analysis as if the two went hand in hand. Complex political theory is deconstructed into simple and evocative dialogue. The historical significance of resistance is unreservedly examined. W.B. Yeats must have been influenced by this book. For the plot is gyrical. The continuity of class antagonism is gyrical. The inevitableness of the seasons is gyrical. But beyond the impartiality of the gyre lays death, the center of gravity and a creator of the denouement. The gyre cannot hold death be told. A part of the duality of the beginning-end, a start, things fall apart. So it unfolds.
  
  You would be hard set reading this piece without a pencil by your side to mark the prose that unconsciously drifts into poetry. Zola masterfully, nearly, justifies murder through a utilitarianistic perspective. Hegelian philosophy is let rampage as bodies hit the floor and the means become inconsequential, when the unobtainable quest for Heaven on earth drives the mob into an insatiable blood lust, a frenzy of suppressed psychology erupts, until more blood is shed. The worker ants will still need to work, they should have said. (show less)

   

  by Arsalan Isa on Apr 26, 2009 at 08:47PM

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  This novel is crudely showing the life in the north of France in the second half of the 19th century. It shows the hard life of miners and their family in opposition with sweet life of the "bougeoisie". Some are dying for a piece of bread while the others are eating cakes for breakfast. It also shows that both classes have opposite goals in life and that they could not understand each other. It depicts a very poor "Coron" (a city built by mine companies to shelter their e... (show more)

  This novel is crudely showing the life in the north of France in the second half of the 19th century. It shows the hard life of miners and their family in opposition with sweet life of the "bougeoisie". Some are dying for a piece of bread while the others are eating cakes for breakfast. It also shows that both classes have opposite goals in life and that they could not understand each other. It depicts a very poor "Coron" (a city built by mine companies to shelter their employees) and their inhabitants. Etienne Lantier will guide us through this book full of true friendship, love and hate. He will rise as a contestant leader during the strike and endure the failure and loss of an impossible love. This book is a real masterpiece of french literature and deserves to be read by anyone with a sense of justice. This book will leave you a strong desire for social equity and human rights. (show less)

   

  by Jean-Luc Chatel on Jan 29, 2009 at 10:38AM

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