jgwc54e5 's review for:

L'Assommoir by Émile Zola

5.0

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Devastating and depressing yet quite brilliant. Zola shows working classes lives in all their highs and lows (mostly lows). Hard work, poverty, alcoholism, starvation, domestic violence (it’s impossible to read about poor little Lalie without tears), and so much cruelty and crudity. As usual, there’s lots of detail. You can smell the filthy laundry and feel the heat as the women do the washing and ironing in Gervaise’s laundry. Coupeaus dangerous work as a roofer above the streets of Paris. The forge and the making of bolts by hand gradually being replaced by machine. It’s a vivid picture of a city as it changes over 20 years and the gradual degradation of the lives of Gervaise and Coupeau.