Germinal

"Germinal" (1885) is the thirteenth in Emile Zola's cycle of twenty novels about the Rougon-Macquart dynasty. It tells the story of Etienne Lantier, from the illegitimate Macquart branch of the family, who arrives in the mining settlement of Montsou, and witnesses at first hand the appalling conditions in which miners live and work. Gradually becoming embroiled in a bitter dispute between the miners and their employers, he eventually leads the strike which is the centrepiece of the novel. But this is more than the struggle of labour against capital. It is also the struggle of the hungry against the well-fed, against the passivity and resignation passed down over generations of starving people, and ultimately against hunger itself, represented by the fantastical devouring monster of the mine, which swallows up men, just as the beast of the modern industrial economy relentlessly swallows up capital. This apparent pessimism about society is offset by the possibility of rebirth and regeneration. For all the inherited misery of the downtrodden, the old order may some day be overturned. AUTHOR: Emile Zola was born in Paris on 2nd April 1840. In 1858, the Emile and his widowed mother moved to Paris, where Émile's childhood friend the painter Paul Cézanne soon joined him. Zola started to write in the romantic style. His widowed mother had planned a law career for Émile, but he failed his Baccalauréat examination. Before his breakthrough as a writer, Zola worked as a clerk in a shipping firm, and then in the sales department for a publisher (Hachette). He also wrote literary and art reviews for newspapers. As a political journalist, Zola did not hide his dislike of Napoleon III, who had successfully run for the office of President under the constitution of the French Second Republic, only to misuse this position as a springboard for the coup d'état that made him emperor. The self-proclaimed leader of French naturalism, Zola's works inspired operas such as those of Gustave Charpentier, notably Louise in the 1890s. His works, inspired by the concepts of heredity (Claude Bernard), social Manichaeism and idealistic socialism, resonate with those of Nadar, Manet and subsequently Flaubert. Zola died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a stopped chimney. He was 62 years old. His enemies were blamed because of previous attempts on his life, but nothing could be proven.