Les Halles in Paris—do you know it? Unless you’re into a bit of French history, you may not. It doesn’t exist anymore, demolished in 1969/70, its centennial year. It was a huge market, much of it housed in at least ten pavilions of glass and iron designed by Victor Baltard. Plus a big domed central ...
Only Zola is able to create a masterpiece despite a flat, one-dimensional, saint-like main character and a dull ending.Capitalism doesn't seem to have come a long way in the past 100 or so years and humanity doesn't either.
A story of a planned revolution, the setting of this novel holds the key to its magnificence. The story takes part in the newly covered mid-19th century markets of Les Halles, in Paris—the covered stalls, the cellars under the markets, the nearby shops. Zola does an amazing job describing the abunda...
Introduction--Abbé Mouret's Transgression
Log in with Facebook 
