The Belly of Paris

This one I bought for me before my trip to Paris. Classic Literature sets the mood for a trip abroad. The book still resonates eight months later.

I live in Paris, so it was interesting for me to read this novel. I can tell you that nothing has changed since Zola wrote this book, except the market has moved to Rungis.

The Belly of Paris (Oxford World's Classics)Who better than Zola to fictionalize the brutal life of the poor in Paris - and the destruction of the old Paris for the much-loved modern, straightened Paris - and their conflict with the bourgeoisie? Also gives a large taste of the old Les Halles marketplace, now replaced by the ugly, "modern" Les Halles shopping mall. Great characterizations. The wonderful opening leads into even greater literary marvels. (This should serve as a warning to politicians thinking about further 'modernizing' Paris and other cities, without concern for what is lost and who is displaced.)

With a terrific introduction to Zola and his work(s), the translation of THE BELLY OF PARIS is an excellent one! I am certain I will be referring to it many times over not only with studehts but for my own knowledge. I read most of the book while in Paris and that made the book even more impressive and noteworthy. Dr. Alan-Clarke Hudson

From the moment the hero appears -- about to be run down by a row of peasant carts bringing produce to market -- to his denunciation and arrest caused by the swirling jealousies and mutual hatreds of the wholesale food merchants of Paris, this book is a nonstop ode to food. Virtually every page is a food fight of the senses, with pages of sensuous descriptions of every manner of food known to France. Set in Napoleon III's Paris, shortly after the giant Les Halles market was built on the Right Bank (it is now a giant sunken shopping mall near the Pompidou Center), THE BELLY OF PARIS is the story of an escapee from the French penal colony in Cayenne who lives with his brother, a pork butcher, and becomes a seafood inspector. In the process, he becomes a target for the discontents of the gossipy food merchants who are resentful of his left-leaning ways. He and his friends foment a pathetic attempt at a revolution that mirrors what was to become the Paris Commune years later. This is one of the early volumes in Zola's monumental Rougon-Macquart series.