Specify About Books L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7)
| Title | : | L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7) |
| Author | : | Émile Zola |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Penguin Classics |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 2001 by Penguin Books Ltd (first published 1876) |
| Categories | : | Classics. Fiction. Cultural. France. European Literature. French Literature. Literature. 19th Century. Novels |
Émile Zola
Paperback | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 4.03 | 12186 Users | 506 Reviews
Ilustration During Books L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7)
The seventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, L'Assommoir (1877) is the story of a woman's struggle for happiness in working-class Paris. At the center of the story stands Gervaise, who starts her own laundry and for a time makes a success of it. But her husband soon squanders her earnings in the Assommoir, a local drinking spot, and gradually the pair sink into poverty and squalor. L'Assommoir was a contemporary bestseller, outraged conservative critics, and launched a passionate debate about the legitimate scope of modern literature. This new translation captures not only the brutality but the pathos of its characters' lives.
Describe Books As L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7)
| Original Title: | L'Assommoir |
| ISBN: | 0140447539 (ISBN13: 9780140447538) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Les Rougon-Macquart #7, Les Rougon-Macquart |
| Series: | #13 |
| Characters: | Étienne Lantier, Gervaise Macquart, Nana Coupeau, Claude Lantier, Auguste Lantier, Coupeau, Goujet, Virginie Poisson |
| Setting: | Paris(France) France |
Rating About Books L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7)
Ratings: 4.03 From 12186 Users | 506 ReviewsCrit About Books L'Assommoir (Les Rougon-Macquart #7)
Zola has a gift for infusing stark reality into his novels (a knack his critics and contempararies, at the time, were none to keen nor fond of) but, this novel cemented his reputatio as a prolific author. Nothing prepared me in reading this novel of the story of Gervaise, a Parisian washer woman living in abject poverty who, left with two kids and no money by a philandering beau, slowly pulls herself from her dire consequences and establishes her own successful laundry business, only to have itBeware, reading the "Assommoir" can cause drunkenness! Bending to turn the pages; drunk to know what hides the social violence ... A black intoxication, painful, which raises the discomfort and returns the brain.Why is this tome one of the most famous of this author? To this question, every reader who has appreciated it can bring his personal answer. For my part, I explain this success by the fascination of the worst it generates in the reader. This was the case for me.As always with Zola, human
This book (the French title is "L'Assommoir") is a depressing argument for sobriety. It's also a vivid slice of life in late 19th century Paris. Twenty-two year old Gervaise is deserted by her lover Lantier and left with two small sons. Supporting herself as a laundress, she soon marries Coupeau, a young tin worker, and they have a daughter Anna (or Nana, who later becomes the protagonist in the Zola book with that title). The couple get along well, are steadily employed and manage to save
Whenever I think I had a rough upbringing I read a book like this and realise I am a fluffed little pillow of good fortune. I was raised in a council tenement in a backwater semi-village in Central Scotland amid a backdrop of Protestant activism and spinster gossiping. But compared to Zolas Paris in LAssommoir, I was mollycoddled in a warm nook of familial love and warmth.So: Gervaise is hardworking laundress whose life is blown to smithereens by rotten good-for-nothing beer-sodden bastard men.
A slow rise and steep fall into alcoholism and povertyIn a sense, Emile Zola extended the ambitious sweep of Honore de Balzacs Human Comedy, which attempted to depict almost every strata of French society throughout the first few decades of the nineteenth century. Zola also examined various strata of society, but by focusing mostly on the members of one extended family, the Rougon-Macquarts, he was able to analyze hereditary as well as environmental influences on the people of France from 1850
I am now officially a Zola fan.I finished my first Emile Zola book while I was in Paris, and it went straight to my list of Favorite Books Ever and Must-Reads. L'Assommoir is the story of a poor washerwoman, Gervaise, and her decline into deeper and deeper poverty and decadence and despair. It's a brilliant portrait of a woman's life during the mid-to-late 1800's.
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