Recently I've read Germinal and I should say it was one of the masterpieces and you can feel the life of the poor people better and empathy with them.... poverty is the worst thing that might be happened to anybody, it would take humanity from you
Hello Sam, thanks for writing. It's nice to hear there are some other Germinal fans out there. I really loved that book, one of the best of 2024 for sure!
It's nice to take a little break. I've been feeling a bit under pressure to keep reading and reading. The last school semester started, and there will be a lot of reading. I won't have any time to do any reading of my own for a few months. I'm worried about my 2024! I still have three left.
Hello Steve, Is that the one called L'Assommoir? I also have that one and after Germinal I am excited to get to it. But I still have three books on my 2024 TBR, as well as a new semester of university books to read! That might have to wait for next year. But the more Zola I read, I simple want to read more and more. I am thinking of printing the family tree for all these characters so I can see how they relate to one another. Not that is makes a difference while reading it, but as I understand it, most of the principal characters from the novels are from the same family. I can't really say, I've only read Germinal and The Masterpiece, but I think I saw somewhere that the two main characters from these two novels are cousins! Which blew my mind.
Bravo! Makes me want to read the book again. I read the Penguin with that exact same cover. I've always thought Zola anticipates cinema in his descriptions because when he was writing photography was becoming more socially influential. Photography and impressionistic painting. Your comment about the dinner was quite insightful. I cannot recall the specific scene because it's been so long but the two levels going on, really interesting. There's so much food in his novels, which seems kind of a thing with French literature, they linger on food, but there was definitely more intention with his depiction of that scene as you pointed out. I loved the scenes of the miner's home, the guy coming home for lunch and getting a little action from the wife. I remember the shopkeeper more of a baker -- a Jewish baker -- who traded bread for sex, which is interesting in light of the whole Dreyfus affair. The riot at the end, where if I recall the baker is castrated, it always reminded me of The Devils by Dostoevsky, as significant. Because Moby Dick is so singular, I put Melville in a separate strata making Zola the greatest 19th century Novelist, certainly the equal to Tolstoy and for my tastes, far above Dickens. Reading the cycle in order is an ideal dream, the novels Truth and Lourdes which he wrote after are incredible. Dr. Pascal, the last novel goes through the whole family line, he has this insanely brilliant theory of family madness and touches on all the novels and everything goes up in flames. L' Assomoir is brillaint, one of my favorite novels, but the Belly of Paris which is about the food business I remember as funny and A Priest in the House and Father Mouret's Sin I really liked as well. Those are the shorter ones, whereas Germinal looks at mines and he did the same for the Railroad, Department Store, etc. Thanks for inspiring some Zola pondering!
Hello Timothy, my apologies for not reading your comment sooner. I guess things have been a little crazy around here. The end of Germinal gets quite wild. After 3-6 months of the miners being on strike, they are starving and decided to get some revenge on the companies. It is written quite well, perhaps a little frustrating, because the mob is really quite undecided as to where they will go, who they will get their justice from, and exactly how far they are planning to go. They go back and forth across the countryside for most of a day before they finally settle on the baker as the target of their revenge. It was a bit of hard reading, waiting for this action that never seems to materialize, but Zola was one for realism, and that couldn't have been written more realistically. I'm enjoying Zola a whole lot. This is my second, and he is now right up there with Balzac. You should see the fear in the eyes of my university professors when they ask me what I've been reading lately! Hope you are doing well!
@@grantlovesbooks If you asked me back in the day who I liked more, it would've been Balzac. The Grande Illusion felt like my life, he's more of a poet and Zola is more of journalist. Both are in the same boat for me in that I would pick up everything I could find. Zola though is more of a personal influence all these years later. I think about his books more than I do Balzac. I love minimalist writing,. Carver is a hero, but that style which you see in Hemmingway's short stories and Camus, I I feel was first invented by Huysman, who was a protegee of Zola. It's interesting how you see Zola in Dreiser and Steinbeck or like Sinclair Lewis, yet you also that attention to the telling detail and the importance of setting and milieu you see in minimalism -- using the term as broadly as possible -- you also see in Zola, except he goes into the psychology and thoughts of the character whereas minimalist invoke the inner life though description and action, using fewer words natch!
Great, i have Germinal in my bookshelf but have a lineup of books to be read first. Maybe next year. By the way, i'm finishing Durrell's Mountolive. I find it the most fast paced of the first three and so far, i have no idea which novel of the quartet i like the most. How each novel lets you know that nothing is what you thought it was when you finished Justine. A true masterpiece. Great review and video, take care.
Hello Carlos, I'm happy you enjoy Mountolive, the series gets better and better as it goes along. Constantly adding new elements, and re-framing things from the previous books. I always feel a strong sense after finishing Clea that I want to go back to Justine and read that once again. It is really quite good, to see the simple story from the beginning again. Germinal is a big one, but I think you will be happy once you get into it!
@@grantlovesbooks Oh i know i will. I love those nineteenth-hundred novels. I just started The Woman in White last night and its great so far. Take care!
Hi Grant. As I listen your video I'm thinking of my current read, Upton Sinclair's _Oil!_ The setting is not mining, but oil drilling and refining in southern California. The oil workers go on strike, too, but there's there is Marxism in the air. The central character is the son of a sympathetic oil tycoon. Dad tries to square his agreements with the Oil Federation with his desire raise his employees' wages. The son goes off to college and is exposed to "dangerous ideas", and there's trouble due to the "reds". I'm about 1/2 way through this 525 page novel, and Dad's partner is now making contributions to Warren Harding's campaign, and the Teapot Dome scandal is dead ahead. I'm enjoying it.
Hello Ned! Thanks for writing. I haven't heard the name Upton Sinclair for some time. I had to check, he was the one who wrote The Jungle! I knew that name rang a bell loud and clear. I will keep my eyes open for Oil! It's fun reading those old American books where the political agenda was so strong. It was almost as though the Socialists and the Communists were really going to make a difference for a while. It seemed like it was really there, in the air, but somehow it just failed to materialize. 525 pages, Yipes! That sounds like a heavy one. I'm starting my last semester at university and suddenly have a pile of books to read. It might take me some time to get round to this one! (Not to mention all the books I bought randomly that are sitting there!)
You do make this title sound interesting, but I sort of burned out on long French novels with the Jean Valjean escapades--which don't by comparison sound so harsh as your recommendation here. I set my sights on reading the whole Proust chronicle someday, but perhaps I should give Zola a try. I'll never have the time in this life time to finish the literature of the nineteenth century anyway. Time's running out. . All the best to you as always.
Hello Sal, Just take one novel at a time. Try The Masterpiece before you jump into this one. It's about artists, and felt very easy to read, and extremely enjoyable. This one is more of a grand epic, and it you are not sure, maybe it isn't the best place to get a grip on Zola. I always forget about that series by Proust, that must be waiting for me as well. I never felt I was too big on the 19th Century, but I'm really having fun with a few of these old books. I think I really did get lucky reading The Masterpiece first, as it was the first one I found in the used shop. Hope you are well!
@@grantlovesbooks You're probably right about this selection. If I come across it, I'll pick it up. I've had my difficulties with the 19th century, but oddly enough have found great pleasure in earlier work like Sterns and Cervantes. Perhaps humor helps transcend all time.
@@TheSalMaris I was completely surprised how funny Don Quixote was. You are probably right about humour. With Germinal, if you are unfamiliar with how ridiculous safety practices were 100 years ago, it might seem like reading science fiction. Those miners really gave their lives for that miserable and badly paid work.
Just finished the book. Absolute masterpiece!
Hello Panko! It really is, the more I think about that one, the more I love it.
Recently I've read Germinal and I should say it was one of the masterpieces and you can feel the life of the poor people better and empathy with them.... poverty is the worst thing that might be happened to anybody, it would take humanity from you
Hello Sam, thanks for writing. It's nice to hear there are some other Germinal fans out there. I really loved that book, one of the best of 2024 for sure!
I haven't been reading much these days. Enjoy your reviews. Thanks.
It's nice to take a little break. I've been feeling a bit under pressure to keep reading and reading.
The last school semester started, and there will be a lot of reading. I won't have any time to do any reading of my own for a few months. I'm worried about my 2024! I still have three left.
Congratulations, Kim!
Haven't heard from her yet, hopefully soon!
Hello Grant coincidentally I’m reading the drinking den by Zola at the moment and I’m enjoying it I will put Germinal on my list too cheers Steve
Hello Steve, Is that the one called L'Assommoir? I also have that one and after Germinal I am excited to get to it. But I still have three books on my 2024 TBR, as well as a new semester of university books to read! That might have to wait for next year. But the more Zola I read, I simple want to read more and more.
I am thinking of printing the family tree for all these characters so I can see how they relate to one another. Not that is makes a difference while reading it, but as I understand it, most of the principal characters from the novels are from the same family.
I can't really say, I've only read Germinal and The Masterpiece, but I think I saw somewhere that the two main characters from these two novels are cousins! Which blew my mind.
@@grantlovesbooks I’m not sure what the french name is
Bravo! Makes me want to read the book again. I read the Penguin with that exact same cover. I've always thought Zola anticipates cinema in his descriptions because when he was writing photography was becoming more socially influential. Photography and impressionistic painting. Your comment about the dinner was quite insightful. I cannot recall the specific scene because it's been so long but the two levels going on, really interesting. There's so much food in his novels, which seems kind of a thing with French literature, they linger on food, but there was definitely more intention with his depiction of that scene as you pointed out. I loved the scenes of the miner's home, the guy coming home for lunch and getting a little action from the wife. I remember the shopkeeper more of a baker -- a Jewish baker -- who traded bread for sex, which is interesting in light of the whole Dreyfus affair. The riot at the end, where if I recall the baker is castrated, it always reminded me of The Devils by Dostoevsky, as significant. Because Moby Dick is so singular, I put Melville in a separate strata making Zola the greatest 19th century Novelist, certainly the equal to Tolstoy and for my tastes, far above Dickens. Reading the cycle in order is an ideal dream, the novels Truth and Lourdes which he wrote after are incredible. Dr. Pascal, the last novel goes through the whole family line, he has this insanely brilliant theory of family madness and touches on all the novels and everything goes up in flames. L' Assomoir is brillaint, one of my favorite novels, but the Belly of Paris which is about the food business I remember as funny and A Priest in the House and Father Mouret's Sin I really liked as well. Those are the shorter ones, whereas Germinal looks at mines and he did the same for the Railroad, Department Store, etc. Thanks for inspiring some Zola pondering!
Hello Timothy, my apologies for not reading your comment sooner. I guess things have been a little crazy around here.
The end of Germinal gets quite wild. After 3-6 months of the miners being on strike, they are starving and decided to get some revenge on the companies. It is written quite well, perhaps a little frustrating, because the mob is really quite undecided as to where they will go, who they will get their justice from, and exactly how far they are planning to go. They go back and forth across the countryside for most of a day before they finally settle on the baker as the target of their revenge. It was a bit of hard reading, waiting for this action that never seems to materialize, but Zola was one for realism, and that couldn't have been written more realistically.
I'm enjoying Zola a whole lot. This is my second, and he is now right up there with Balzac.
You should see the fear in the eyes of my university professors when they ask me what I've been reading lately!
Hope you are doing well!
@@grantlovesbooks If you asked me back in the day who I liked more, it would've been Balzac. The Grande Illusion felt like my life, he's more of a poet and Zola is more of journalist. Both are in the same boat for me in that I would pick up everything I could find. Zola though is more of a personal influence all these years later. I think about his books more than I do Balzac. I love minimalist writing,. Carver is a hero, but that style which you see in Hemmingway's short stories and Camus, I I feel was first invented by Huysman, who was a protegee of Zola. It's interesting how you see Zola in Dreiser and Steinbeck or like Sinclair Lewis, yet you also that attention to the telling detail and the importance of setting and milieu you see in minimalism -- using the term as broadly as possible -- you also see in Zola, except he goes into the psychology and thoughts of the character whereas minimalist invoke the inner life though description and action, using fewer words natch!
Great, i have Germinal in my bookshelf but have a lineup of books to be read first. Maybe next year. By the way, i'm finishing Durrell's Mountolive. I find it the most fast paced of the first three and so far, i have no idea which novel of the quartet i like the most. How each novel lets you know that nothing is what you thought it was when you finished Justine. A true masterpiece. Great review and video, take care.
Hello Carlos, I'm happy you enjoy Mountolive, the series gets better and better as it goes along. Constantly adding new elements, and re-framing things from the previous books. I always feel a strong sense after finishing Clea that I want to go back to Justine and read that once again. It is really quite good, to see the simple story from the beginning again.
Germinal is a big one, but I think you will be happy once you get into it!
@@grantlovesbooks Oh i know i will. I love those nineteenth-hundred novels. I just started The Woman in White last night and its great so far. Take care!
@@carlosbranca8080 Thanks Carlos, you too!
Hi Grant. As I listen your video I'm thinking of my current read, Upton Sinclair's _Oil!_ The setting is not mining, but oil drilling and refining in southern California. The oil workers go on strike, too, but there's there is Marxism in the air. The central character is the son of a sympathetic oil tycoon. Dad tries to square his agreements with the Oil Federation with his desire raise his employees' wages. The son goes off to college and is exposed to "dangerous ideas", and there's trouble due to the "reds". I'm about 1/2 way through this 525 page novel, and Dad's partner is now making contributions to Warren Harding's campaign, and the Teapot Dome scandal is dead ahead. I'm enjoying it.
Hello Ned! Thanks for writing. I haven't heard the name Upton Sinclair for some time. I had to check, he was the one who wrote The Jungle! I knew that name rang a bell loud and clear.
I will keep my eyes open for Oil! It's fun reading those old American books where the political agenda was so strong. It was almost as though the Socialists and the Communists were really going to make a difference for a while. It seemed like it was really there, in the air, but somehow it just failed to materialize.
525 pages, Yipes! That sounds like a heavy one.
I'm starting my last semester at university and suddenly have a pile of books to read. It might take me some time to get round to this one! (Not to mention all the books I bought randomly that are sitting there!)
One of those transformational novels I've read (so far). Currently reading Dickens' Barnaby Rudge which I think, maybe, another.
Thanks for letting me know, I will have a look and see if it goes on the list. (Just joking, everything goes on the list!)
You do make this title sound interesting, but I sort of burned out on long French novels with the Jean Valjean escapades--which don't by comparison sound so harsh as your recommendation here. I set my sights on reading the whole Proust chronicle someday, but perhaps I should give Zola a try. I'll never have the time in this life time to finish the literature of the nineteenth century anyway. Time's running out. . All the best to you as always.
Hello Sal, Just take one novel at a time. Try The Masterpiece before you jump into this one. It's about artists, and felt very easy to read, and extremely enjoyable. This one is more of a grand epic, and it you are not sure, maybe it isn't the best place to get a grip on Zola.
I always forget about that series by Proust, that must be waiting for me as well.
I never felt I was too big on the 19th Century, but I'm really having fun with a few of these old books.
I think I really did get lucky reading The Masterpiece first, as it was the first one I found in the used shop.
Hope you are well!
@@grantlovesbooks You're probably right about this selection. If I come across it, I'll pick it up.
I've had my difficulties with the 19th century, but oddly enough have found great pleasure in earlier work like Sterns and Cervantes. Perhaps humor helps transcend all time.
@@TheSalMaris I was completely surprised how funny Don Quixote was. You are probably right about humour. With Germinal, if you are unfamiliar with how ridiculous safety practices were 100 years ago, it might seem like reading science fiction. Those miners really gave their lives for that miserable and badly paid work.