Germinal

My Goodreads.

Summary that gives away some things, but not the big ones.

     Germinal by Emile Zola is a tragic story of mine workers barely surviving and working harder each day more than most people do in a year. This book is set in the late eighteen hundreds in rural France.  It is about a starving man searching for work, starting work at the mine, starting a strike, and leaving as the strike ends with no improvements. It is a story about indignation and the pursuit of justice/equality. It is also undercut with a love story that may never be realized, but it is certainly not the main aim of book (unlike most fiction ad movies nowadays). Zola mainly presents Etienne's perspective, but he also lets the reader into the lives of other miners, the managers, and the lazy rich. This allows the reader to see many points of view and shows the intricacies and problems of class separation. Although it shows some of the problems that stop the miner from living comfortably, it also makes you dislike the rich because they blame the poor wretches for their plight when they really have no other option but to live in poverty. They work hard and do not get the pay off, whereas, the rich barely work and do get the pay off.      After two months of starving and begging for food, the strikers become violent for a day, then the army gets called in, and they settle down into peace until foreign workers are brought to work their mine. The miners become violent again and the result is death for many of them, but the event becomes a national tragedy that finally forces the board members to settle the strike. They do this by posting sighs that say if the workers go back to the mine, they will start to review their grievances. The miners return to work and nothing changes. Their wages are still cut just like before and their lives are just as hungry. But hopefully, the seed of revolution was planted and change will come. The miners are resigned to the fate for the time being. 
     This was an incredibly depressing book that is worth the read because it is written by Zola, it will open your eyes to the class injustice of the past, and make you appreciate how equal life is now. I would check this out of the library, it's not a story that compels one to read again (unless you love Zola and are into the working man's plight).

Contemporary Cultural Relevance

With the Occupy movement protesting against the control the 1% has, this just goes to show that history repeats itself: the rich are still in control. Life is better, there are rules protecting workers now, there is welfare for the poor, and everyone has a chance at education, but the rich are still running the world. This book shows how far humanity has come and how far we have to go.

Life Lessons

"When a man had a woman in his heart, the man was finished, he might as well die."