Reviews

Germinal by Émile Zola

lacommunarde's review

5.0

Magnificent! Poor Maheude! And poor Etienne (particularly when one realizes that Paris is about to go through the little 5 month Siege of Paris - basically starving Paris for 5 months, and then the Paris Commune with its bloody ending). Zola is an utterly brilliant author.

jess_mango's review against another edition

4.0

3.5 stars

Before reading this book I was 99.99% sure that I wouldn't want to be a coal miner in the 19th century. This book made me 100% sure. :)

The book is set in Northern France in the 1860's and the central characters are coal miners. We clearly see how wretched the conditions they live and work in are. The workers are basically slaves. They get paid by the mine but then have to pay the mine back for their food and other goods.

The coal miners go on strike and Zola sides with the plight of the workers vs. the rich business owners. However, everything is not all black and white...there are definite shades of gray where the owners aren't "all bad" and the workers aren't "all good". The book is weaved through with lots of social commentary regarding capitalism vs. socialism and other issues.

This was not an uplifting read. The story was bleak. The setting and story itself was more often than not dark.

I could appreciate the quality of the writing but the book didn't fully connect with me. There were a lot of meandering parts with long descriptions and passages that I found unnecessary. That and the bleak, depressing story made this one drag for me.

teokajlibroj's review

4.0

Well that was dismal. Obviously a book about a coal mine strike in the 19th century is going to be bleak and this certainly was. I was really surprised at the casual and frequent mention of sex, that's not typical for a 19th century book. It dealt with rape and domestic violence is a very frank manner. The characters were much better developed too, usually at that time they would be either pure good or pure evil, yet there was more depth than I was expecting. Most of the characters including those we sympathise with, were very brutal.

I did feel that by the end the author stopped caring and just wanted to kill everyone off.

f_cvsx's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

esile_22's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

mayam330's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Best book I 've ever read

zeyski's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful informative inspiring tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

madeleinebabin's review

medium-paced

4.5

jeanneaime's review against another edition

dark inspiring tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

robbie_904's review

3.0

It was good dont get me wrong but the ending was so predictable for me. Getting to the middle of the book I felt that it got really slow as well. The first half was a lot of fun to read especially if you love reading world building.