(first of all, this cover is CRAP)

I wrote some of my thesis about this book (!!!), in part on the imagery of smells in the sections describing Les Halles (Parisian central marketplace built in the mid-19th century). Zola writes incredible, wonderful, sometimes overpoweringly detailed and evocative portraits of the market goods, from silvery fish to pungent cheeses to flowers to fruit to meat to...there is a lot. In contrast with the main character Florent's physical/emotional leanness and constant hunger, in the marketplace bounty, fecundity, and aggressive overabundance carry the day. The air is full of battling smells, raucous voices, flying rumors, and sexual tension. It's easy to emerge from one of Zola's descriptive bouts with a faint nausea and the inclination to lie down for a while with some ginger tea and a cold compress.

يروي إميل زولا مأساة فلورون، الرجل المتعلم الثائر والمتمرد، رقيق القلب، شقيق كونو الجاهل الساذج ضعيف الحيلة والبصيرة، القاطن مع عائلته( زوجته الجميلة ليزا وطفلته بولين) في حي ليهال -وسط باريس أو في بطن باريس - على امتداد أو في محاذاة شارع بيرويت. علاقاتهم الإنسانية مع سكان الحي، وتفاعلهم مع مجريات أسواق ليهال المفعمة بالحركة؛ بيع اللحوم، حركة سوق السمك ، وتجارة الخضروات والفواكه؛ وأهميتها في حياة الباريسيين . راصداً التفاصيل الاجتماعية بحذافيرها، وسير الأسواق في ليهال وما تنعم به من تنوع في الألوان، الطعم، الرائحة النفاذة للسمك بمختلف صنوفه، حركة الأجساد وأحجامها بدلالتها الاجتماعية ، والظواهر المادية، وملاك السوق وأنماطهم ونزاعاتهم، راسماً لغتهم الجسدية (تعبيرات الوجه واليد أو أقدامهم أو نبرات صوتهم ، … الخ.)، والطبقات باختلافها (فقراء، أغنياء، البرجوازيون )

تعمق زولا في بنية السرد في رصد سيكولوجية المجتمع بمفاصله وأفراده؛ البيئة الاجتماعية، سلوكيات البشر -تعدد أنماط السلوك البشري-والسيكودراما، الإشاعات ، الثرثرة، الحشرية، الحكم أو إطلاق الأحكام عن جهل، اضطراب وجه حقيقية الأشياء، كراهية الآخر لاختلافه، الحب بإشكالاته ونوازعه المتضاربة مع الذاتي وحال الواقع واليومي و المعاش، وحالات الوعي باضطرابه، ومشكلة الوعي -تفسيره وفهمه-، لعب الأفراد دور الرقيب أوالشرطة في المجتمع، نفسية الانتقام والطغيان، وانهيار العنصر الإنساني في الإنسان. كما اهتم في رسم ووصف : أفعال الكلام، مجمع أو مجتمع التسوق، المستهلكون، جوانب الواقع وبؤسه. شكل الحركة السياسية وتداعياتها في ذاك الزمن؛ مظاهرها ك الاحتجاجات والتظاهرات التي اندلعت في فرنسا عام 1851 . معتقل كايين، مقصورة السيد لوبيغر الزجاجية التي كانت ل فلورون ملاذاً ساخنا تستعر فيه حماه السياسية. حيث يعقد مع أصدقائه؛ غافار و لاكاي وألكساندر ، روبين ولوغر ، كليمنص وشارفيه اجتماعاتهم السرية .

كما يطرح زولا في النص أو في التكوِّين السردَّي والسياق الدلالي أزمة الفرد أو الفردانية وهويتها المتضادة والمتصارعة مع مفهوم الجماعة، وكيف لهذا الشذوذ عن الجماعة في مجتمع ما أو الخروج عن مسارها، أن يكون سبباً في انقلاب أو تآمر من حولك عليك أو حتى لفظك دون أدنى رحمة أو شفقة. ( شكل سكان حي ليهال مفهوم "الوطنجية" بشكل حرفي.
أو كانوا رمز ل "الهوية المشرعنة"، أي التي تنتجها المؤسسات الاجتماعية المهيمنة من أجل إدامة هيمنتها وعقلنتها؛ حسب تعريف ما نويل كاستلز .)

إن التحرر من إكراهات التماثل الإجتماعي جل ما تحتاجه الذات الإنسانية لتنمو وتزدهر.

شكل فلورون في الرواية رمز ل الهويات المقاومة "إذ تتصارع الثقافة الفرعية مع الثقافة السائدة لتأكيد هويتها المختلفة ."

إن أبلغ ما يمكن أن أصف فيه حال فلورون ومشاعره بعد اعتقال الشرطة له بالتواطؤ مع أفراد حي ليهال، هو ماجاء على لسان أنطوان دو سانت اكزوبيري في (أرض البشر): "المرء على هذه الأرض هدف للسهام ولا يدري أين الرُّماة. "

اللغة غنية جداً بالتمثلات البصرية والحسية والحركية، حيث يختلط عليك أثناء القراءة شعورك الذهني بشعورك الحسي .

ومايميز زولا في السرد هو اهتمامه بحضور الشخصيات الهامشية والثانوية في الرواية بتفاصيلها المملة وبقوة، حيث تترك أثراً وبصمة في الحبكة. اذ تشكل على بدائيتها شبكة مهمة في متن السرد. مع ملاحظة حشده ل الأسماء أو الشخوص الروائية بغناها وفقرها النفسي والفكري؛ " كثرة الشخوص الروائية بذلك التعدد يجعل من مجتمع الرواية مجتمعا متحركا. ونابضة بالحياة وموهما بالواقعية."

The Belly of Paris does some things better than any other book from the Rougon-Macquart cycle I’ve read so far, and has individual pieces that are quite good. However, it’s dragged down substantially by its protagonist, who needed to be much more than a milquetoast pushover to carry the second half of this book. Because he wasn’t, the book’s strengths are mere window dressing that don’t elevate the work like I thought they would.

First, the strengths: in his descriptions of Les Halles, the Parisian food markets, Zola gives the most striking depictions of any of his works I’ve read. Sometimes for more than a page Zola will describe the many pieces of food being sold, their colors, their arrangements, the smells, until a full and detailed portrait of the market is formed. The Belly of Paris has even better descriptions than the later book The Masterpiece, even though The Masterpiece was Zola depicting Paris through the eyes of an artist.

Another strength is that, more than in any of the other Rougon-Macquart cycle works I’ve finished so far, The Belly of Paris addresses Paris as a whole, and not just a specific subpart. Germinal focused on miners, La Bête Humaine on trains, The Masterpiece on artists, even L'Assommoir was focused almost entirely on a specific neighborhood. The Belly of Paris focuses on the food markets and the people who make their livelihoods in them, but the book also spends time on how the markets fuelled the life of Paris as a whole. The name of the book is exactly right, with the markets serving as the stomach of the vast organism that is Paris. As such, Zola skillfully weaves in both the positive and negative connotations of working in such a digestive epicenter: it is a place of overwhelming plenty, but also a place of rot and decay and overbearing stenches, with food and filth going hand in hand.

Though the subject, setting, and descriptive writing are all well executed, these unfortunately cannot save the book from its lackluster protagonist. Florent, who was unfairly branded a political criminal and deported, sneaks back to Paris many years later. He is introduced as on the last stretch of his journey, starving, and is brought to the newly constructed Les Halles and the bounty they contain. The first section of this book, with a starving Florent surrounded by mountains of food, cannot help but be effective, and Florent also serves as a useful reader surrogate because he was exiled before the construction of Les Halles (so other characters explain it to him). The problems emerge later, when this quiet protagonist, who is incredibly socially inept, and interested only in politics, later has to be a charismatic leader in order for the story to work. At no point in this book does Florent showcase the least degree of charisma, instead Zola merely tells us that he has become a leader of political dissidents. Florent in general is a huge violation of the “show, don’t tell” rule.

This is so damning because the second half of the book is entirely focused on different characters’ machinations with Florent at the center, but he’s such a dull as dishwater center that it’s very hard to care. The result of his revolutionary efforts you can tell from a mile away. Also, several characters are in love with him or hate him, and Florent is too oblivious to tell, so those plot threads feel like wheel spinning with little purpose. Zola got better at this type of character later in his career, for example Étienne Lantier of Germinal was similarly a political activist but had some actual character. Unfortunately Zola’s earlier attempt to craft such a character with Florent was a failure, and The Belly of Paris suffers for it.

Much like The Masterpiece, this is a Zola work that frustrates me, because it had individual pieces that were very strong and it had so much potential to be great. Unfortunately, despite the great descriptions and setting, The Belly of Paris is spoiled by its protagonist. 3/5.

ebox readoncomp. 'Sumatra reader' does not allow copy/paste/highlighting *sob*

This story of the fat and the thin opens with:

THROUGH the deep silence of the desrted avenue, the carts made their way towards Paris, the rythmic jolting of the wheels echoing against the sleeping fronts of the houses on both sides of the road, behind the dim shapes of elms.


- Florent - the down and out found on the road
- Balthasar - the horse that didn't trample him
- Madame Francois - the owner of the horse that didn't trample on the down and out.

4* The Ladies' Paradise (Les Rougon-Macquart, #11)
5* Germinal (Les Rougon-Macquart, #13)
WL Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9)
TBR Thérèse Raquin
CR The Belly of Paris (Les Rougon-Macquart, #3)
TBR The Fortune of the Rougons (Les Rougon-Macquart, #1)

GUARDIAN 06.11.2013: Rising homelessness in Paris: does it have the most rough sleepers of the big European capitals?

Zola leaves us with a timeless description of Les Halles as it was before the current 20y construction mess that it has become. For several centuries, this area in the center of Paris was a thriving marketplace for all Parisians and this novel was a magnificent tribute to the various people that made their living here - both for good and for not so good purposes. It is an unforgettable story and for me perhaps the best book that Zola wrote.

Incroyable de bout en bout.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and loved Zola’s vivid descriptions and cast of characters.
The 3rd book in the Rougon-Macquart series, this one focuses on the Les Halles, the fresh produce market in the centre of Paris.
The French title, Le Ventre de Paris translates as The Belly of Paris but is often called The Fat and the Thin in English translations. (Although I have an old secondhand hardback from the fifties that’s titled Savage Paris!).

These markets were like some huge central organ beating with giant force, and sending the blood of life through every vein of the city.

The belly of Paris is a fitting title as this book wallows in descriptions of the food on display, the mountains of vegetables and fruit, the meat and offal, the fish, and the fresh flowers, the cheeses and butter, all the colours, smells(and stenches) and sounds of the markets. The markets are enormous and busy, the people coming and going, the auctions, the market stalls, the cellars beneath where animals are stored and killed, and all the people. Such abundance on display.
The fat and the thin refers at the most basic to the main characters, two half brothers who are opposites in appearance and character.
Florent has returned to Paris on false papers after being transported to South America. He is a scholar and teacher and thin.
Quenu is younger and becomes a good cook and works in their uncle’s butcher shop where he meets his wife Lisa (formerly macquart). They inherit the business and build it up. (Their young daughter Pauline is the main character of Zest for Life). The family is round and of course making sausages etc they are surrounded by fat. Lisa comes to dislike Florent, and his leanness seems to be a reason to distrust him as much as his political beliefs!
Other characters include Cadine and Marjolin, a young couple abandoned as small children in the market who now live their lives in, around, above and below the halls. Also Claude Lantier makes many small appearances, a painter whose own story will be told in The Masterpiece
The various fishwives and other female market sellers, old and young are quite wonderfully described as they go about their lives, jealousies and competitiveness, not to mention spite, and acting as a loud group against any officials.

The plot follows Florent as he gets a job as the fish inspector even though he objects to working for the government. He regularly meets in the evenings for a drink with other political agitators. He’s never really accepted by the all the market workers and what happens is inevitable.
But the plot doesn’t seem to me to be Zola’s main aim. It’s a description of a way of life in Paris from the sellers in the markets to the making of black pudding, the gossip, the petty infighting of all these people who exist and make their living in this distinctive environment, a world of its own.

Zola has long passages describing the poultry and meat in great detail, the gore, the shapes of the carcasses and offal, so much food that it seems to represent gluttony and greed.

Claude divides people into two categories, the fat and the thin.

In these designs Claude detected the entire drama of human life, and he ended by classifying men into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other, and grows fat and sleek and enjoys itself.

The implication is that in the battle between the fat and the thin, the fat will always win.

Those colossal markets and their teeming odoriferous masses of food had hastened the crisis. To Florent they appeared symbolical of some glutted, digesting beast, of Paris, wallowing in its fat and silently upholding the Empire. He seemed to be encircled by swelling forms and sleek, fat faces, which ever and ever protested against his own martyrlike scragginess and sallow, discontented visage. To him the markets were like the stomach of the shopkeeping classes, the stomach of all the folks of average rectitude puffing itself out, rejoicing, glistening in the sunshine, and declaring that everything was for the best, since peaceable people had never before grown so beautifully fat.

I don’t think I’ve ever read Emile Zola without thinking wow. There are plenty of wow moments in this, especially around his psychological insight, his incredible descriptions of food and food markets (you’ll have to read it to believe me) and his victim-of-fate thing. Most of all what I think when I read him is … this is how to write.

Et je termine encore cette nouvelle année avec un Zola, que pour des raisons bizarres j’adore lire pendant les fêtes. Il y a de l’opulence dans ces pages saturées de ténèbres, de descriptions vibrantes, de personnages en plusieurs dimensions, si réels, si palpables que j’ai l’impression de pouvoir les toucher.
.
Je ne m’y attendais pas mais Le Ventre de Paris fait partie de mes plus gros coups de cœur dans la saga. On y suit Florent, rescapé de la Commune, dont la trajectoire nous interroge sur ce qu’il reste des révoltes. Propulsé dans les Halles parisiennes, comme un radeau sur une mer de nourriture et d’abondance, Florent vacille. Le texte de Zola est dense, comme la matière molle du confort dans lequel s’englue l’engagement politique. La description des bancs de la marée notamment est l’une des plus belles qu’il m’ait été donné de lire, hallucinante de couleur et de texture. Au milieu de ce océan, il reste une île, un café, dans lequel se réunissent celles et ceux qui croient encore au Grand Soir. Un groupe qui permet à Zola d’illustrer la diversité des attitudes politiques après le traumatisme de la Commune. Autour de cette table, « la société était au complet »
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Il me reste encore quelques pages à lire mais le dénouement est annoncé : gelée dans la tentation molle du confort, la révolte n’aura pas lieu. Lisa la charcutière résume à elle seule le pourquoi : “Veux-tu que je te la dise ma politique à moi ? […] Cest la politique des honnêtes gens. Je suis reconnaissante au gouvernement quand mon commerce va bien, quand je mange ma soupe tranquille et que je dors sans être réveillé par des coups de fusils”
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Et moi de méditer sur les leçons de ce livre, dans lequel j’ai plongé comme dans une matière organique, pleine de morceaux, de matières solides et molles, d’objets coupants, aussi.

The Belly of Paris is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It is set in and around Les Halles, the enormous, busy central market of 19th-century Paris. Les Halles, rebuilt in cast iron and glass during the Second Empire was a landmark of modernity in the city, the wholesale and retail center of a thriving food industry. I'd hate to see it when it wasn't a landmark of modernity if that's what we are getting here. The book is Zola's first novel entirely on the working class, something I never noticed before. Of course it's been awhile since I did a reading of Zolas works. His description of the olfactory sensations experienced upon entering a cheese shop, has become known as the "Cheese Symphony" due to its ingenious orchestral metaphors. Throughout the book, the painter Claude Lantier, a relative of the Macquarts and later the protagonist of L'Œuvre - shows up to provide a semi-authorial commentary, playing the role of chorus. This book has been translated as:

The Paris Market Girls

The Fat and the Thin

Savage Paris

The Belly of Paris

The protagonist is Florent, an escaped political prisoner arrested after the French coup of 1851. Florent joined the 1851 street riots protesting Napoleon’s power-grab but was swept up in the government crack-down and deported to a penal colony in French Guyana on trumped-up charges of murder. Seven years later, Florent escapes and makes his way back to Paris. When he arrives in Paris, malnourished from his years in political exile, he stills marvels at the changes Paris has undergone during his absence. The city’s narrow streets have been expanded into grand boulevards and the food market has been transformed into “Les Halles,” a complex of twelve glass and steel pavilions.

Here he meets a young painter, Claude Lantier. Florent agrees to Claude’s suggestion of “a little tour through the market.” Half-starved, Florent follows Claude, dodging an incoming wave of wagons and carts piled high with seafood and “eggs and baskets of cheeses and butter.” While Claude relishes the “great mountain of food” that rises every morning in Les Halles, Florent, gnawed by hunger, realizes the skinny artist feasts more on the painterly beauty of the foods than on their taste. He returns to his half-brother Quenu, a charcutier and his wife Lisa Quenu (formerly Macquart), with whom he finds refuge. They get him a job in the market as a fish inspector. After getting mixed up in an ineffectual socialist plot against the Empire, Florent is arrested and deported again. Poor guy, either prison or a fish inspector, I'm not sure which is worse. Although Zola had yet to hone his mastery of working-class speech and idioms displayed to such good effect in L'Assommoir, the novel conveys a powerful atmosphere of life in the great market halls and of working class suffering. So it starts with poor, starving, arrested, desperate people, it has to get better doesn't it? It's called The Belly of Paris and it's written by Zola, that should tell you.

Ça respire le gras comme Vitellius et ses effarantes gloutonneries

Il faut lire ce livre des yeux et non de l'esprit. C'est un magnifique tableau impressionniste de la vie quotidienne des Halles. Mais en tant que roman il laisse à désirer à mon avis. L'intrigue est assez plat, et les personnages n'évoluent guère à travers le livre. Mais, et il faut le dire et le redire, la qualité des description est inégalée.

This book should be read with the eyes and not with the mind. It is a magnificent, impressionist picture of daily life in 'Les Halles'. But as a novel, I felt it lacked something. The storyline is quite flat and the characters scarcely evolve throughout the book. But, and I cannot emphasise this enough, the quality of the descriptions remain unsurpassed.