Germinal

I think it's quite obvious which books I enjoy based on the length of time between posting. I started Germinal on Thursday, after finishing Middlemarch, and have just finished it. Yes, I admit, it is shorter, but it is also eminently more readable.

I knew nothing at all about this novel before I started reading it and, due to reading on the Kindle, didn't even have the back-of-the-book blurb to inform me. This meant that I had no expectations at all.

Germinal is a French novel, set in a mining community during a period of industrial unrest. Etienne, a stranger who arrives in the community at the beginning of the novel, seems to act as a catalyst for change, with the mood in the community moving from utter poverty-stricken resignation to open anger, and a strike.

The story itself is fairly straightforward - scene setting, establishment of characters, the major event of the strike, and the consequences of that. However, the strength and impact is in the way that the people, community and their way of life is so starkly portrayed. I can't remember reading anything else which so accurately portrays the poverty of life lived just below the breadline; the day to day struggle to put the basic necessities on the table, and the social indignities. The few characters who were richer obviously threw this into sharp relief, but did not come off well in terms of the way they persisted in believing that the miners had enough when they were clearly starving.

One thing which was quite striking was the portrayal of relationships and sex within the community - the younger community members were depicted as being continuously at it, in the absence of cash to pursue any other forms of entertainment. There is probably some accuracy in the value placed on these relationships - inevitable, and ideally resulting in marriage, but with marriage delayed as long as possible so that they could continue to contribute to their parents' households - and the individual partnerships rang true, but the idea that the countryside was littered with couples wherever you turned seemed somehow improbable.

The other element which makes this novel something approaching a masterpiece is the exploration of individual responses to the situation, with the strong, driving background of the mob mentality. There is very little judgement of morality, with the reader left to make their own decisions, but with the impression that personal morality no longer really counted for anything. Without giving anything away, there is both injustice and justice in terms of the people who are injured and killed during the strike, creating the strong message that the individual was helpless in the situation, and good was not rewarded.

It is a work of unremitting gloom. However, it's definitely worth reading - I'm not sure I'd say that I liked it, but I gained an insight into a piece of history, and couldn't put it down. One word of warning - don't under any circumstance read this if you already suffer from claustrophobia, or know someone who works in a mine!