Germinal by Zola

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Germinal by Zola

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1rebeccanyc
Jan 2, 2013, 4:21 pm

I thought I would post my review, since I've already read this.

Germinal is the seventh month of the French revolutionary calendar, falling from late March to late April, when the world is starting to germinate. It is what the 50,000 people who followed Zola's funeral procession through Paris shouted. And it is the first novel by Zola I've read, but it will not be the last.

In Germinal, Zola vividly depicts the almost unbelievably harsh work of mining coal and the equally almost unbelievably harsh living conditions under which the miners and their families (who are often employed by the mine company themselves; women and children both work in the mines) live. The reader feels the biting cold and the biting hunger, the heat and danger in the mines, and much more. At the same time, Zola creates interesting characters who despite their shared suffering emerge as individuals. He engages the readers in the debates between what could probably be called Marxists, anarchists, and gradual socialists. Most importantly, perhaps, he has written an exciting, at times thrilling and scary, at times appalling and enraging, dramatic and at times almost melodramatic, story.

Briefly, the novel tells the story of how Etienne, a young man related to others in Zola's Rougon-Macqart series, with no money, no job, no food, and inadequate clothing comes upon the coal mines at Montsou, by chance gets a job, meets various people, ends up leading a strike, finds himself in a romantic triangle with violent undertones, and ultimately moves on. In some ways, the novel is the story of his growth as a human being. But in the course of this plot line, Zola paints an all-encompassing picture of life in a coal-mining town in the early 1860s, from the the mine and the miners, to the supervisors and bosses, to the bar owners and shopkeepers, to the local bourgeois, the hired mine manager, and an independent mine owner, as well as various political hangers-on including a revolutionary who has fled from Tsarist Russia. While the miners, and their plight as the labor that produces profits for the owners and stockholders without earning enough to live on themselves, are the focus of the novel, Zola doesn't demonize all the owners and business people; like the miners, they are characterized fully, with all their pluses and minuses.

Zola did a lot of research on mines, and it shows in the many scenes set deep down in Le Voreux, the voracious mine that swallows men, women, children, and horses every day (actually the horses live underground; as Tolstoy does in Anna Karenina, Zola gets inside the heads of the horses). It is scary to think of the many dangers that the miners faced, from water seepage to rock slides to bad air, among others, and the harrowing conditions under which they worked for minimal pay. The miners seem inured to their fate, as their parents and grandparents were, and as their children are, and their grandchildren will be, until a change in payment method and the encouragement of Etienne and others lead them to strike. Of course, the strike doesn't work, and the descriptions of their essential starvation are horrifying. But when, after some terrifying mob violence, with a violent official response, they go back, after six weeks, their troubles are far from over.

Another aspect of the story is the effects of everyone living so close together, and the rampant sexual activity, occasionally referred to as "like animals". According to something I read, this has not actually been documented in mining villages, but sexuality is very much part of the story: young (very young) women expect to be be taken advantage of by the young men and to have lots of children; some men are violent to the women and some exploit them; and some women take advantage of their sexuality for fun or profit. All of this is endlessly and often maliciously gossiped about. I believe Zola is trying to show that the the submissiveness of the women is somehow analogous to that of the workers, and that both result from their exploitation and that both could change with education and more autonomy for the workers. However, although Etienne is moving on at the end of the novel, the miners themselves are stuck in their endless cycle of poverty and oppression.

I was interested in reading this book for several reasons. Not only had I never read Zola, but another LTer recommended this book to me because I had read GB84 which deals with the 1984 British mining strike, and then I read in Ngugi's Globalectics that this novel "has affinities" with Ousmane's God's Bits of Wood, which is about an African railway strike. I found it not only fascinating for the world it depicted, but a terrific story.

As a final note, the edition I read had a very helpful introduction by the translator, Roger Pearson; although I found some of the British slang he used in the translation a little distracting, he discusses the difficulties of translating slang in a translator's note.

2lriley
Jan 2, 2013, 5:10 pm

Very interesting review. I've also read both David Peace's GB84 which is a great work and Sembene Ousmane's God's bits of wood.

There is a movie--in French--of Germinal by the way--Gerard Depardieu is the biggest name--and it is quite good at following the story.

3rebeccanyc
Jan 3, 2013, 2:54 pm

Thanks. I haven't been able to track down a copy of the movie of Germinal; Netflix doesn't even know it exists. Funny that Depardieu is just in the news today!

And yes, GB84 is a great work.

4lriley
Editado: Jan 3, 2013, 3:30 pm

Looked on Half.com for the movie version. No dvd. It's only VHS. I have it in VHS by the way. Checking around it can be purchased ($9.99) or rented ($2.99) off of iTunes. On youtube you can see the entire movie as well (without subtitles) but in Spanish. Anyway if worse comes to worse and you want to borrow it I could send it your way.

5rebeccanyc
Jan 4, 2013, 8:47 am

Thanks. I'll check out iTunes -- at least I could watch it on my laptop. Not sure if our VHS still works -- we have a combo DVD/VHS player.

6StevenTX
Jan 5, 2013, 12:51 pm

Here is my review from a couple of years ago. Looking back over Rebecca's review, I'm pleased that I was already planning to read God's Bits of Wood for the Reading Globally "Francophone" theme, and I've just ordered a copy of GB84. As I've said elsewhere, Germinal is one of my all-time favorite novels.

Germinal opens in the pre-dawn darkness with Etienne Lantier, out of work and penniless, making his way into France's coal mining country looking for a job. Though the industry is struggling, he is lucky enough to be hired on the spot to work with a team of miners headed by a man named Maheu. Etienne's first day at work takes up almost a fifth of the novel and takes us through a typical day in the life of the Maheu family as well. It is a memorable portrait, not only of the dangers and rigors of mining, but of the desperate poverty in which the miners live. Every family member able to do so works in the mines, boys and girls included, none with any prospect but working in the mines until they die.

Etienne eventually becomes a leader among the minors, and the ideas he has brought from the outside of socialism and organized labor movements take hold once the mining company announces that is is reducing the miners wages that were already at starvation level. The conflict that ensues will be deadly and catastrophic for almost all concerned.

Zola's portrait of the coal mining community is not limited to the miners themselves. The engineers, managers and shareholders are shown in a sympathetic light as well; social injustice damages those at both ends of the scale. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the novel, however, is its pervasive and explicit sexuality. The miners live in such close quarters as to be almost devoid of modesty, and they are openly promiscuous from the earliest possible age.

Germinal depicts and decries injustice and exploitation, but does so in a thoughtful and even-handed way that makes it a timeless classic rather than a period piece. It is also a steamy romance and an exciting story of conflict, survival and rescue.

7socialpages
Jan 6, 2013, 12:01 am

I wasn't sure which of Zola's novels I would read first but after Steven03tx and Rebeccanyc's wonderful comments and reviews of Germinal there can be no other choice. I've checked Audible and Germinal is available as an audio book, how do you think this book would work on audio? Or would it be better to stick to the print version?

8rebeccanyc
Jan 6, 2013, 7:24 am

I haven't listened to an audio book in decades, so I'm not the best judge of this. The only thing I would caution is that there are a lot of characters and it might be helpful to be able to flip back through the pages to remind yourself of who someone is. I also found the notes to the edition I read, a Penguin Classics edition, extremely helpful, and you wouldn't have these with an audio book.

9socialpages
Jan 7, 2013, 4:26 am

Thanks for the heads up. Lots of characters are hard to keep track of in an audio book. So I will save my Audible credits for another day and read the print version courtesy of my local library.

10rebeccanyc
Jan 7, 2013, 8:33 am

If your library gives you a choice, I recommend getting a modern translation of Germinal rather than the older ones, which were notoriously bowdlerized (as were all the original translations of Zola).

11StevenTX
Jan 7, 2013, 10:29 am

I'll just echo what rebeccanyc says. I've never listened to an audio book, but I don't think it would be a satisfactory experience with Zola. And I strongly recommend getting a modern translation. It's well worth the additional cost.

One thing I've noticed is that some free or cheap ebooks (and probably audio books as well) of 19th century translations are advertised as "unabridged" and "unexpurgated." They may not have edited the translated edition, but that doesn't mean that the translation itself wasn't abridged or bowdlerized. And in Zola's case this means not only removing sexual references but some of his more radical political ideas as well.

12lriley
Jan 7, 2013, 1:01 pm

Don't think anyone can read Zola with attention and not get that his sympathies were towards socialism--at least what passed for it in his day--and/or for those who had to struggle throughout their lives. FWIW in becoming famous he became pretty wealthy. His taking a stand during the Dreyfus affair was quite an extraordinary thing though. He was forced to flee his country in the dead of night. They were going to throw him in prison for defending a person he didn't even know and he was antipathetic towards people of the Jewish faith to boot--which in his day in France and many other places wasn't all that uncommon and Dreyfus had a somewhat wooden militaristic kind of character and showing gratitude was not one of his strong points.. Nonetheless Zola couldn't keep silent about what he considered a gross injustice. Most people then--or even today would not put their reputations or freedom of movement on the line in such circumstances whether famous or not. I always found that to be quite admirable. The big deals in the military and conservative politics in France would never forgive that and Zola's death from carbon monoxide poisoning is thought at least by some to have been an assassination--not an accident.

13socialpages
Jan 13, 2013, 1:18 am

#10 & 11
I have started reading my library copy of Germinal - it is a 1994 Vintage Classic translated by Havelock Ellis - so the translation shouldn't be bowdlerized. The edition has Gerard Depardieu on the cover with the bayonet of a gun pointing at his chest and group of miners behind him. It's a great cover. However, because it's an edition published to coincide with the film there are no notes like Rebecca's Penguin edition. There's not even a translator's note.

I'm a little intimidated by the size of the novel but will jump right and start tonight. Just have to stop staring at Gerard and open the book.

14lilisin
Jan 13, 2013, 1:42 am

Rebecca -
I feel like you have single-handedly added the word "bowdlerize" to everyone's vocabulary if it wasn't there already. I know I had to look up the word several times to know what it meant! I question though why you didn't just use the word "censor". Thoughts? Although I see how specific the word bowdlerize is. A good word to know.

15rebeccanyc
Jan 13, 2013, 7:44 am

Glad I could add a word to your vocabulary, lilisin -- I think it's one I learned from my father a long long time ago. It comes from a man named Bowdler in the early 19th century (?) who took "objectionable" parts out of Shakespeare. I see "bowdlerize" as different from "censor" because it refers to an individual or publisher, whereas "censor" at least implies government action. It also often, but not necessarily, refers to taking out sexual or "vulgar" material. Of course, a censorious government may lead a publisher to be extra cautious, even if the government itself isn't editing the book. It is my understanding that British laws about sexual material were much more prudish than those in France at the time Zola was writing, so the translator and publisher were making sure they wouldn't run into problems with the law. In that sense, the books were implicitly censored as well.

16boleslasditboby
Jul 31, 2018, 12:52 am

Pour ce qui est du film, j'ai moi même été mineur , fils et petit fils de mineur dans le nord de la France, J'ai été très déçu par ce film, si il montre assez bien ce qu'était le monde de la mine à l'époque de Zola, il est bien en dessous de l'esprit du roman.

17SassyLassy
Ago 31, 2018, 4:18 pm

>16 boleslasditboby: J'essaie en français: Merci pour votre pensées sur le roman et le film. Je vois que vous avez plusieurs titres par Zola. Lequel est votre préféré? Je crains que je n'ai jamais vu le film, bien que Depardieu soit un de mes acteurs préférés. Veuillez continuer de faire vos remarques - je lis mieux que j'écris!

18SassyLassy
Ago 31, 2018, 4:24 pm

This group appears to have gone dormant, and sadly neither StevenTX nor rebeccanyc is here anymore. However, since several people are reading Zola currently over in Club Read 2018, I thought I would bump up this thread and add my review of Germinal from March 2017, hoping others will do the same.



Germinal by Emile Zola translated from the French by Peter Collier
first published in serial form in Le Gil Blas from 26 November 1884 to 25 February 1885
finished rereading March 5, 2017 -- first reading translated by Leonard Tancock

When Emile Zola died, fifty thousand people took part in his funeral procession, among them a delegation of miners offering their own tribute to the author of Germinal.* Falling on the social history side of Zola's intention to write a natural and social history of a family by exploring the roles of heredity and environment in his Rougon Macquart series, Germinal looks at the exploitation of miners, a topical theme then and now. In La Bête Humaine (62 above) Jacques Lantier was possessed by the dark demons he believed were part of his inheritance. In Germinal, his brother Etienne Lantier only occasionally worried about his family's darker side. Instead, he looked at the world around him and believed by improving it, he could improve the future.

Etienne was a radical, even a revolutionary. This is signalled right away, for the very title of the novel, Germinal references the calendar of the French Revolution, in which Germinal was the seventh month, March 21-April 19. Like most radicals, Etienne didn't start out with such views. He had a trade as a mechanic, but the economic decline that had swept northeastern France had left him and so many others unemployed. Walking the countryside at night, desperate for work, he came upon a coal mine. Zola gives his first picture of the gloom and hopelessness that pervade the novel:
...he was suddenly brought to a halt by the sight at ground level of a great shapeless heap of low buildings topped by the outline of a factory chimney rising from its midst; here and there a lonely light flickered through a filthy window, five or six lanterns were hung up outside on brackets whose blackened timber projected mysterious silhouettes like giant scaffolds, and, from the midst of this fantastic apparition, swimming in smoke and darkness, there rose a lone voice, the prolonged loud wheezing of a steam engine exhaust valve, hidden somewhere out of sight.
Then he recognized it as a pit-head. A feeling of defeat came over him.

At first it seemed there was no work, even here, but a sudden death created a vacancy right as a new shift was beginning. Etienne had a new job.

Maheu led Etienne's team, and Etienne boarded with Maheu's family. Each member from the grandfather racked by silicosis down to the youngest starving infant depended on what the mines could provide. Except for the baby, all the children slept together, from twenty-one year old Zacharie, through fourteen year old Catherine, down to the four year old, and it was in this room that Etienne slept too. Cold and hunger were pervasive. Etienne met a Russian refugee in a local tavern, a man who lent him books. They spoke of Marx, Bakunin and Proudhon. Etienne drew from each, forming his own amorphous theories. What did ring true was the need to somehow break the cycle of bosses and workers as antagonists, with the workers like beasts of burden, animals promiscuously reproducing to feed their masters.

The descriptions of life underground provide a physical hell parallel to the spiritual hell above ground. Packed into cages, the miners descended each shift into unbearable heat and dark, with always the threat of a cave in, only to be released from these same cages after their ascent at shift's end. Part of the job of those who actually worked at the coal face was to keep the wooden supports in shape, replacing those with rot from the constant seeping of underground water and building new supports for every two metres the tunnel advanced. When the company announced it was reducing the price for a tram of coal and no longer paying for time spent working on supports, the miners balked.

Strikes and unions were illegal at the time, so any efforts at organizing were clandestine. Zola highlighted this with his description of an enormous rally held in the woods at night, a rally addressed by Etienne, from which he emerged as the de facto leader of the workers from the local mines. Set up in opposition was Chaval, a miner who had taken Catherine to live with him; a man who saw in Etienne a rival on all fronts. The miners and their families spent a brutal winter, having refused to work. The horses, the real animals below ground in the mine, lived better, being fed and cared for each day. Miners from Belgium were brought in, along with soldiers to guard them. Finally the families of Montsou felt they had to go back to work or die, for death from cold and starvation was already making inroads among them.

Meanwhile, those who owned and supervised the mines had as little understanding of the miners' position as the miners did of theirs. Zola deliberately showed them as victims themselves of the system, writing "I must make the bosses humane so long as their direct interests are not threatened" and "...the bosses are not deliberately vindictive". In the end, they might not have faced starvation, but they too paid a heavy price.

Zola used revolutionary references to heighten the sense of struggle. The novel ends in April, the old month of Germinal. Etienne addresses his comrades as "Citizens". The well meaning ladies from the families in charge of the mines fail to see starvation in a "let them eat cake" fashion. Workers fruitlessly appeal to soldiers to join them in the struggle.

The last hundred or so pages of the book, read in one sitting, rushed toward the cataclysmic finale, brought on by a completely unexpected event, but one completely in character with its perpetrator.

This is a novel that has lost none of its ability to shock and energize. By coincidence, my reread was bracketed by a rewatch of John Sayles's Matewan, about the 1920 coal miners' strike in West Virginia, and by the news that the Donkin coal mine in Cape Breton, extending kilometres under the Atlantic Ocean, will reopen after fifteen years, under the management of Kameron Coal and the Cline Group, whose mines are not unionized and whose safety record is poor. Perhaps more people should be reading this novel.

____________________
* from the introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition by Robert Lethbridge

19lriley
Ago 31, 2018, 7:52 pm

#18--it's a great book. Some years ago I went through the entire Rougon-Macquart series of 20 books. Not in the right order. I read them as I could find them and several of them were very old--as in pre WWI editions. Several of them are outstanding and Germinal is one of them--at least IMO. My favorite of all though was 'The Earth'. The Debacle, The Ladies Paradise and L'Assommoir were three others I thought that were superb. There were a few I didn't like much at all but generally the quality of most is very good.

20boleslasditboby
Set 2, 2018, 1:52 am

Germinal est mon préféré, mais en général et pour moi, les Rougon Macqart ont été mes compagnons de vie, j'irai même jusqu'à dire...ma famille

21boleslasditboby
Set 2, 2018, 2:07 am

Quand comme moi tu as été fils et petit-fils de mineur élevé dans les corons du nord de la France, de lire Germinal, si tu sais lire, même sans voir été à l'école , ce roman te prend aux tripes, et il est là le génie de Zola parce-que dans ses mots c'est de moi qu'il parlait, de mes voisins, de mon père, de nôtre misère, de nos espoirs, de nôtre chaleur et qu'elle ambiance, quels paysages, qu'elles couleurs, c'était à croire qu'il avait vécu au milieu de nous, qu'il était un des nôtres, un de nos voisins, invisible certes, mais si vrai, si présent......Je suis un Maheu