A review by pascalthehoff
Germinal by Émile Zola

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Germinal is a novel about working-class culture in a mining town; about people living at the mercy of the wealthy bourgeoisie, who never reach out to help even in the direst of circumstances; and about the excuses that are used to justify why the working class deserves to suffer as it does. 

 

The narrative of the actual class struggle at the heart of the novel, with strikes and violence, but also famine and betrayal, isn't even the main highlight. 

 

Instead, Germinal stands out for its very detailed human portrayal of the people who suffer and toil in this kind of culture. It vividly shows the toll that the dangerous daily work in a mine takes on the workers' health, and why simply working harder isn't an answer to a better life. 

 

Their wages are squeezed through loopholes and rhetoric that blames the working class, leading to complex infighting. Such differences among the workers themselves, the hidden hierarchies within a company's workforce that deflect anger away from the real culprits, are also abundantly clear in the story. 

 

What impressed me more than anything, though, was how quickly I became invested in the fates of the many characters. The main family of 10 alone is more than most other novels could carry with such relative ease. Reading Germinal is like breathing the coal-dust-laden air of a 19th-century French mining town through the ink. And that is its greatest achievement, impossible to describe in a short review.