Le Ventre de Paris
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Zola
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Tom
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Jan 02, 2009 04:00PM
Zola is a fine writer, but I've never heard of this one. I've read "Germinal" and "L'Assommoir", which I found intriguing. I've not heard of this one, but the net says it's his third novel of Les Rougon-Macquart series. Thanks for citing it. Did you read any other of his novels? I've also read his "trilogy": "Lourdes" "Rome" and "Paris". I like his naturalistic style, as well as Dreiser's and Steinbeck's. Tom
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I just joined Goodreads and found your message, which looks like it was posted in 2009. Not sure if you ended up reading "Le Ventre de Paris," but I did and enjoyed it immensely because of the colorful characters and the way he brings the food halls--in all their horror and glory--to life. I don't think it has the depth of his other work, so if you loved "L'Assommoir" and "Germinal" (which are my two favorite Zola books), you may be disappointed. By the way, "La Bete Humaine" is also very good--book and movie--and the film version of "L'Assommoir" is excellent.
Finally, I love Dreiser as well. "An American Tragedy" is one of my favorite books. I still can't get over how Dreiser maintained that fever pitch of psychological torment within the mind of the main character.
I just joined goodreads as well and am a bonified Zola freak. If you look at my books you'll find a ton of Zola, not all of which I've managed to write reviews for yet, but I've read all but three of the Rougon Macquart and can highly recommend Pot Bouille and Ladies Paradise if you loved Ventre (aka Belly of Paris.)
Hi Sam--you do list a lot of interesting books. Hope you don't mind that I added you as a friend.
Glad to have ya, Emily. I also forgot to mention to the reader who had read L'Assomoir, that the next logical book to read in the series would be Nana, about a main L'Assomoir character's daughter. Not the order the books were written in but a good followup.
That's exactly the order I went in. Nana was pretty ghastly by the end--that description of her decaying body. I read "Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser right after that, and it was a great complement to the Zola book in terms of potraying a woman living on the edge in many ways.
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