Welcome to Litsy!

#Earth
#arichlife
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
@Eggs

#OffMyShelf “translated”

Mon dieu! Zola does not pull his punches. Interesting to read this so close to the Rules of Attraction. The Kill is also a novel about amoral people behaving badly.

Set during the rampant speculation and corruption of the 2nd Empire, Saccard comes up from the provinces to collect his spoils by using any form of fraud or deceit. Everyone is a tool to be exploited him, including his wife and son.

#WhereAreYouMonday

I‘m in 19th century 2nd Empire Paris where Haussmann and Napoleon III are transforming the city into the wide boulevards and tall buildings so characteristic of Paris today. This building frenzy invites speculation and corruption. Fortunes are made and lost. Waste and decadence are encouraged and celebrated.

Each book in this series is better than the last,I can't wait to finish all.Read No.3 in Rougon-Macquart,so nuanced and intelligent,and so continually relevant.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7578825197

Now @Leoslittlebooklife & I are 1/2 through the 20 vol Rougon-Macquart series. This was a marked departure in tone from the previous books. A previous title does it more justice- Restless House. Like in The Assommoir, an apartment building features heavily in the story but this time it‘s a petit bourgeois building vs the squalor of a tenement. While madcapped, lusty and frenetic, the last 4th of the book hammers home the hypocrisy beautifully.

5😱 This novel reads like a full speed train! Domestic violence, rape, murder, lust, suicide… it has everything! This is Zola with high level of madness; I could feel the horror when he describes the aftermath of a derailment and the Anna Karenina-style of self-destruction. Definitely a book to savour but preferably not during Christmas season 😅

Flore embracing the train. I‘ve been thinking about this scene for 2 days now 😖 I wonder what Zola actually observed to be able to write in such descriptive manner. What did you see?

I was reading the tagged book on the bus on my way to work this morning. I was aware that the guy beside me was staring at my book but I ignored him. About 3 stops before my destination, he couldn‘t resist and said “That‘s a really good book!” He asked me if I‘ve read any other Zola (yes, this is my 15th), and which titles that I haven‘t read yet. He shared that Germinal is his fav, and asked if I‘m doing this as part of a lit study. 👇🏻