Theo Austin-Evans’s Reviews > Germinal > Status Update

What're you thinking of this so far? I read it a couple months ago and loved it.

Michael wrote: "What're you thinking of this so far? I read it a couple months ago and loved it."

Zola's descriptions of the coal mine as being some kind of blind and eternally devouring god are absolutely perfect, and of course the descriptions of the drudgery the workers go through are wonderfully hellish - a horse condemned to be forever labouring under the pitch black tunnels with their precarious walls is so goddamn depressing you could almost cry. It's one of a number of books I've been meaning to read for years now and I'm so glad I've finally got around to it. I've got La Terre and La Bete Humaine around here somewhere so I'll be reading them pretty soon as well. What stuck out to you about it?

Well said. Definitely the description of the exhaustive toil of working in the mines stuck out to me. The last fifty or so pages of the book are exquisite and I won't spoil it, but it really stuck out to me. It's also a fantastic description of alienated labor... these miners are working out of a politically imposed necessity and their labor does not belong to them. A scene in particular that I remember is towards the beginning of the book, when they first descend into the mines, the description of the elevator they use to get down into the tight, narrow spaces is superbly horrific. It also made me very grateful that the work I do isn't mining, or anything terribly physical. I am but a humble office worker, and the worst parts about office work pale in comparison to something as hellish as mining in 19th century France... It also really puts into perspective that a large majority of humanity for the last who knows how long have spent their lives in exhausting toil and poverty. Which also brings to mind that the descriptions of poverty also stuck out to me. Yes, the book is very depressing, but an accurate depiction of the plight of the worker...