Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Germinal by Émile Zola

11 reviews

jayisreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Zola’s Germinal is not a novel that I would normally pick up on my own accord, especially because I’m not particularly interested in the subject matter (though, I guess the average reader probably won’t be that invested in mining in France during the 1800s). When it comes to personal enjoyment, I would say that the novel fell in the middle ground, and I didn’t love or hate it. I think what really won me over, though, was Zola’s socio-political commentary, especially if you take into consideration who and what he may have been engaging with during the period he worked on this novel.

Directly inspired by the miners’ strikes that occurred in the 1860s, Zola crafted a fictional version of a miners’ strike in Northern France to dig deep into class struggle, particularly the exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie. There were other ideas that he considered as well, with I think the most surprising being the role of women in these spaces. I will say that the treatment of women in this novel was anything but great (to put it lightly), but I did appreciate Zola’s consideration of how women contributed to the labor movement. The living conditions that Zola described in Germinal were unbelievably bleak, but, in many ways, it did give him the chance to create powerful (even if, at times, heavy-handed) symbols reflecting on struggle and survival, particularly through his characters, notably Étienne and Catherine. On the note of his characters, I appreciated that Zola didn’t follow the good vs. evil model and, instead, chose to place them in murkier spaces.

Again, based on personal enjoyment alone, I would say that I don’t have any strong opinions and found the novel to be just okay. However, I have to fully acknowledge the richness of Zola’s symbolism, graphic details, and commentary in Germinal. I do think it’s worth picking this up, should you be able to handle the overwhelming bleakness, as it is a great exploration of class struggle while also giving a glimpse into how people such as Zola may have been reacting to Marxism. I was also a little surprised by his prose, which I found a bit different from his contemporaries. Relatedly, I thought it was more accessible to a modern reader who might be intimidated by nineteenth-century French literature, should that mean anything. 
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pleu's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Read this for a school assignment, this translation might not have been the best and that might be part of my experience.

The firsth 1/5th of the book is extremely slow and it feels like it's just page after page of similar looking/sounding names in French and a lot of relations that I had a hard time keeping track of. At one point I believed a character was gay as I mixed up a brother with his sister as their names were almost the same.

But around halfway through this book it got really good! And the last chapters weregood enought I had forgotten about how bad the first chapters were.
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adelekittey's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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bookwormcat's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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teoman753's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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shieldbearer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I read this because it was on Suzanne Collins' list of favorite books and I can absolutely see why. I can think of several scenes in the Hunger Games that this book likely influenced.  This book is, above all else, a cautionary tale: any leftist revolution must beware two pitfalls; the first being the desire to replace and not eradicate the masters, the second being infighting. 

In many ways, this book reminds me of the best of Stephen King. Zola is not interested in sanitizing characters. He is interested in telling the story of humans- messy, imperfect, often terrible, often selfless, humanity. Violence is not just the impact of force upon flesh and bone, it is the deprivation and exploitation of human beings. Germinal is the story of how abject, desperate poverty can influence a person.

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elodiepoline404's review against another edition

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dark informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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deslauriers's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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halfpricessword's review against another edition

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

0.25

I red this shit for school and I totally hate it. It was very slow to red and I lost a lot of time in this shit. The main character is increvable, this fdp ne die jamais and he me tape sur les nerves. Madame Godwin, never again.
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strawberrydream's review against another edition

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challenging sad medium-paced

5.0

A terribly bleak story which draws you in and keeps you wanting to read more. I love Zola’s style, this is the first of his I have read despite wanting to for a while. The characters are interesting and can leave a sour taste on your tongue, but ultimately you feel yourself within them. Catherine, in particular, was the character who I kept wanting to hear more of. Her story is tragic, and like she frequently comments, not unique. This is my mum’s copy that she read when she was about my age and from looking at her collection, it’s very much her taste- dark and depressing! Anyway, this got me out of my reading slump and was a very good read. 
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