Sudeshna Bora’s Reviews > The Fortune of the Rougons > Status Update

I feel sad for Felicite.
A woman in a man's world. With high aspirations and entitlement of what she deserves but shackled by her gender.
She has been for so long trying to fulfill her hopes and ambition via her husband, father and now her sons.

Second, it breaks my heart to see such selfish, "evil" albeit characters (it amuses me that I have become so good and evil, my palette has constricted). This book was written almost 200 years ago and it feels same, petty, selfish, entitled people doing better in life.
Petty of me, but I felt such mirth seeing them not succeed or even fail.

The undercurrent of sexism is shown beautifully. I love Emile Zola and the way he writes his characters, no doubt about it, but I do have my grips.
First, Adelaide was a unique, never seen before character for me, it annoys me that he didnot want to explain her or her motivation. I wanted him to dig deeper.

Sevitte Character Analysis end of chapter 1:A young lad with glorious ideas of revolution.Fighting the system to get better deal out of life.He is like 1000s of other poor villagers who want a good life and has taken up arms for it.He believes his goal,motivation are superior than Mitte indignation.I think he is not significant character in this series.He is either going to die or just disappear into insignificance.

Nice first chapter.
Right in the middle of an uprising through the eyes of kids with unbridled positivity. I cannot but compare it with what I read in Germinal and it feels same. The same optimism, the same "we can make change" attitude of the working class.
This feels like the mood of the series or the populace.

The writer takes his own sweet time , relishing each moment in its entirety. So slow, so in the moment. I despair of that.
He spent a half a dozen pages to explain the graveyard turned gypsy camp ground over the ages, then spent half a dozen pages talking about this love of Servitte and Miette, though I know those people will part never to meet again and are also an inconsequential part of this story.

Second, the lofty cloak he makes his mission wear whereas mocking her for feeling anger at her humiliation.
Both are same, both are mocked and degraded by society for their position but for one it is selfish and for the other it is not. The irony.
The idea we get from this is not only are "LA Chantegreill" poor and mocked by the poorer class, they are also infamous and have been a subject of collective justive.

Two lines stand out to me :
"You are wrong Miette; yours is bad anger. You should not rebel against justice. As for me, I'm going to fight in defence of our common rights, not to gratify any personal animosity"
This grates me a lot. But we get to know more about the characters (which I suspect are not going to play any relevant role). First, why is a adolescent guy deciding what she feels is selfish.

Part 1: LA Chantagreill -> So I understand Miette is kind of mocked by the society at large. She belongs to some family of disrepute called "Chantagreill" (though had no idea it is a proper name). The urchins even mock her which means she is lower than the urchins.
Similarly, Sirvette is also poor , downtrodded and his extended family frown at him or keep him at a distance.

Finally we know the year- 1851. The year France had a coup. The year France turned from a Republic to an Empire. The year we will have the resistance against this. So, we know what Silvere is trying to join. The flux, the political charged atmosphere etc.
I find unnerving is the author's push to consider the love between Silvere and Miette to be that of siblings when they are clearly lovers. :D