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Book Review By David Loftus
Germinal by Emile Zola

It's a very cold, early spring morning in about 1867 when 21-year-old Etienne, a mechanic who lost his job in the south for slugging a foreman, chances into a coal mining job in the north of France. He soon learns the ways of the poor mining families of Montsou, especially the children of Maheu, with whom he lives for a while, and the 15-year-old daughter Catharine, who becomes the subject of a bristling romantic rivalry between Etienne and another young miner, Chaval.

Able to read and possessed of a little education, Etienne naturally wants to help the miners better their situation, and he is swayed by a traveling union organizer as well as retired miners who run the local shops. But the more he rises in the organization, the more he is torn between his sympathy for his fellow workers and a desire to get beyond their dirty, dangerous life.

Zola's 1885 novel is the 13th in a great series of 20 books that covered the multiple lives of several French families over many decades, and this was one of the best. It details the working conditions in a mile-deep coal mine, the grinding poverty of the workers, the various levels of bourgeois managers and owners above them. Germinal was surprisingly frank about the sexual mores of the rural people of the time, as well.


Plot & Themes
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1600-1899
Political/social activism Yes
Plotlet:
Life of a profession:
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Job/Profession/Status story Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Nationality

Main Adversary
Identity: - an organization

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 ()
Europe Yes
European country: - France
Small town? Yes

Writing Style
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references only - descript of kissing - impregnation/reproduction
Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog
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