Book description
When Jean Macquart arrives in the peasant community of Beauce, where
farmers have worked the same land for generations, he quickly finds
himself involved in the corrupt affairs of the local Fouan family. Aging
and Lear-like, Old Man Fouan has decided to divide his land between his
three children: his penny-pinching daughter Fanny, his eldest son - a
far from holy figure known as Jesus Christ - and the lecherous Buteau,
Macquart s friend. But in a community where land is everything, sibling
rivalry quickly turns to brutal hatred, as Buteau declares himself
unsatisfied with his lot. Part of the vast Rougon-Macquart cycle, The
Earth was regarded by Zola as his greatest novel. A fascinating
portrayal of a struggling but decadent community, it offers a compelling
exploration of the destructive nature of human ignorance and greed
Emile Zola (1840-1902) was a French novelist and critic, the founder of
the Naturalist movement in literature. Among Zola's most important works
is his famous
Rougon-Macquart
cycle (1871-1893), which included such novels as L'Assomoir (
1877), about the suffering of the Parisian working-class, Nana
(1880), dealing with prostitution, and Germinal
(1885). Translated with an introduction by Douglas Parm e
