I finished reading Germinal on Friday. For those who are not familiar with this work, Germinal is a novel written in 1885 by Emile Zola. One reason that it took me so long (years, literally) to read this book is that I chose to read it in French, in a copy I picked up on a business trip to Ottawa, Ontario, in 1997. So, Germinal runs to 473 pages in French, divided into seven parts, each of which has a number (usually about six) chapters or sections.
The subject of Germinal is a coalminer's strike in the north of France, the soggy area near the Belgian border which became famous during World War I. Zola paints a grim and detailed picture of the lives of the miners and their families, and he obviously sympathizes with them, rather than with the mine owners. At the same time, it is not entirely clear that Zola agrees with his hero Etienne's decision to become a socialist revolutionary in the orbit of the Socialist International.
Lest you think that Germinal is merely a political tract, Zola also creates a really lovely star-crossed relationship between Etienne and Catherine, the adolescent daughter of the Maheu family, in whose home Etienne lodges.
The books I have in progress at this time, and the number of pages left to read in each, are listed below.
Complete Italian: The Basics........................................107
Excel Dashboards and Reports.....................................158
Hard Road West............................................................307
Statistical Analysis with Excel for Dummies.................328
Walking the Bible..........................................................382
A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs..............................391
Decision Points..............................................................438
The Force of Destiny......................................................616
Total............................................................................2,727
Glenn A Knight
In my study
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