Emile Zola, the outstanding French writer, entered world literature as the creator of the twenty-volume epic “Rougon-Macquart,” in which brilliant analysis of the modern society of the author’s day is in no way dimmed by the intensity of passions.
Publication of the novel “Germinal,” accompanied by a loud scandal, launched Zola’s fame. In an extraordinarily short time, the novel went through thirty editions. For the first time, everyday life of the inhabitants of the city suburbs—and, in particular, the main heroine, Gervaise, a washerwoman, whose long-standing dream was “to work calmly, always have bread, sleep in a clean room, raise children well, never know beatings, and die in her own bed”—was shown with ruthless truthfulness.
“Germinal” is not only the name of the tavern where the heroine’s husband indulges in nonstop drunkenness; for these people, life itself turned into a trap. And the merciless optics of Zola’s prose brilliantly demonstrates this.