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The question here is, if you can have any author, living or dead, write your biography who would it be? One of my favorite writers is Emile Zola, granted he is not one of the most uplifting writers that you will ever encounter, but I feel that he brings a passion and a heart to whatever he chooses his subject matter to be and he never shied away from the down and dirty aspects of his subjects’s lives. His works include Germinal, about the mines around Sainte-Etienne, France or The Earth, La Terre, essentially documenting the plight of the peasants and farmers. Most would agree that both of these works are downright depressing so why would I want Emile to write my biography? Well since my life hasn’t been anything as difficult as mineworkers or farmers, then perhaps my biography would be one of the most uplifting works that Emile Zola would ever have the joy of writing. Could that be possible? Well not in reality, but in my rich fantastical imagination, it could.
It would be so interesting to see how an artist would interpret my little life that is all my own. What broad strokes would he paint and what fine lines would be drawn, I wonder? How would he explain motherhood and tending the home in the grand scheme of the rest of my universe? Even if no one else was interested, I sure would be intrigued.
I must read him.
He isn’t for everyone simply because he isn’t going to give his audience many smiles or outbursts of laughter but if you want to FEEL the struggle of the worn down and the put upon then Emile Zola is your guy. He wrote a long series about Paris and its first department store in the late 1880’s. It is centered around the Parisian shop girls, it’s an excellent look into how they lived and dreamed about bettering their circumstances.
Zola is definitely not for you! So sad and grim 😦
I read Germinal for my degree and it is the saddest book I have ever read. I will never read it again 😦
I love his descriptive powers and i thought that perhaps I would put a smile on his grim face while he was describing my zany life. 🙂