The Belly of Paris (1873)

Excellent view of les Halles market in 1860's Paris. A book I wish could go on & on.
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Typical Zola. An average plot, made good by wonderful descriptions of the setting. Kept getting hungry while reading this. ( )

Really colourful front cover design on this paperback complete with sharp fish knive covered in blood in the hand of a fish wife, moody Frenchman looking on

I really enjoyed this wonderful ride through mid 19th century Paris. The author’s writing is almost cinematic and brings vibrancy and life to his story by giving the reader the ability to use every sense - “seeing” the action and characters, smelling, hearing and feeling the setting of the story.

The plot is, in my opinion, somewhat worn and tired and is reminiscent of Victor Hugo, whom the author evidently admired. Florent Quenu, an escaped prisoner of a penal colony, finds his way back to Paris and assumes a new identity with the aid of his brother and sister-in-law, the owners of a successful and burgeoning charcuterie. Florent begins work at Les Halles, a massive central food market where people gather not only to buy and sell food, but where an entire social and political structure has been established. Though he tries to remain inconspicuous, his presence is threatening to the regulars at Les Halles and ignites a series of events intended to re-establish and re-affirm the status quo.

The social and political structure of Zola’s Les Halles, I believe, mirrors that of France at the time, under Napoleon III. Napoleon III, who won a popular election for president of the Republic in 1848, seized power in 1851 after the government’s attempt to enforce term limits. Declaring himself Emperor, he advocated “urban renewal”, economic expansion and modernization under his rule. It was during this time that urban planners designed much of what is now modern Paris and created Les Halles. Zola uses the habituĂ©s of Les Halles, specifically their almost gluttonous concern with food as well as their corruption, and determination at any price, to cling to their status and position as metaphors for France under Napoleon III. Oh my gosh - might this also be a story of Bloomberg’s New York? Just asking.

Zola’s writing is engrossing and his descriptions of people and events are not only cinematic but in many cases almost painterly. It can’t be accidental that one of the main characters is Claude Lantier, a painter whose ambition is to capture the people and colors of the market. I believe that Claude is also Zola’s spokesperson because it is he who categorizes the people of Paris as either “Fats” or “Thins”. The “Fats” are the grasping, conniving and duplicitous bourgeoisie of Les Halles whose appetite for maintaining their status and power is matched only by their expanding physical girth. ( )

When half dead and starving escapee Florent Quenu returns to Paris after having been wrongfully held as a political prisoner following Napoleon IIIs coup d'Ă©tat in 1851, he finds his way to the recently built indoor food market Les Halles, where his younger brother (simply known as Quenu) owns a charcuterie. Florent is offered room and board with Quenu and his wife Lisa, who also find him a job at the food market. But the plump and lovely Lisa, who holds up the bourgeois values of stability and individual comfort above all else, is suspicious of Florent and his gaunt physique, believing, like many of her milieu, that only dishonest people who refuse to work for their food end up skinny. Florent, on the other hand, finds himself ill at ease being surrounded with food all day long, and he escapes to the local pub at night to discuss politics and mount an insurrection against the corrupt administration, which he holds responsible for his imprisonment and despises for it's lack of social conscience. In addition to using food as a metaphor for wealth and pitting the skinny against the poor to describe social struggles, Zola paints countless scenes with the colours and textures of the fruits, vegetables, meats, flowers, butters and cheeses on display at the market in this ode to food, and for one famous scene, composes a real symphony of smells when he describes three local gossips exchanging secrets in a cheese shop on a warm summer day. The Rougon-Macquart dynasty is here represented only by two secondary characters: Lisa (a Macquart), who's daughter Pauline will be the heroine of The Joy of Life (book 12) and Lisa's nephew, the painter Claude Lantier who will later be the protagonist of The Masterpiece (book 14).

This novel was a perfect counterpoint to the previous book in the series The Kill, which explores the themes of conspicuous consumption and depicts the corrupt values of the Second Empire from the perspective of the upper classes. I was amused by a few references made by Lisa Quenu about her millionaire cousin Aristide Saccard, one of the main characters of The Kill, since each book in this series offers a distinct world, where few characters and plot points ever meet. The first chapter describing a day at the market from pre-dawn to evening seemed endless to me, with repeated descriptions of countless mounds of various vegetables... and yet more vegetables, and again, more vegetables (and some fruits too) and I was here annoyed at Zola and his insistence on long chapters with endless paragraphs. But once he had set up his canvas, Zola's portrayals of the various colourful characters who inhabit the market and it's immediate surroundings once again made for riveting storytelling.

English readers might be interested to know that two new English translations of this book have been made available in recent years: Oxford World's Classics published a new translation by Brian Nelson in 2007, and Modern Library published a new translation by Mark Kurlansky in 2009. ( )