Le Ventre de Paris

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Publication date

1873

Book Cover

English Translations

The Belly of Paris(2007)
Published by Oxford World Classics and translated by Brian Nelson

The Fat and the Thin(1896)
Published by Chatto and Windus. Translated by E.A. Vizetelly

Savage Paris (1955)
Published by The Citadel Press in New York and Elek Books Ltd in the UK. Translated by David Hughes and Marie-Jacqueline Mason

La Belle Lisa or the Paris Market Girls (1882)
Published by T. B. Peterson Bros. in Philadelphia
Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood
(For some time I was unable to find publication details for this. The title is referred to in an essay by Ian Birchall. Zola for the 21st Century and thanks to him for pointing me in the direction of Graham King's excellent book on Zola in English-The Garden of Zola)

My Translation

My translation is the 1955 translation, published by Citadel Press in New York. I obtained my copy from The Compulsive Collector, Forest Hills, NY, USA via abebooks.

Setting

The novel is set almost exclusively in Les Halles, Paris among the fruit, vegetable, fish and meat markets. For some views of Les Halles in 2005 click here.
There is one character who lives in Nanterre, and Florent describes his escape from Cayenne.

Summary

Florent, who was deported in 1848, returns to Paris illegally 8 years later. The novel tells the story of how he is taken in by his brother and absorbed into the life of Les Halles as a fish inspector and then vomited out again as an agitator to be deported back to Cayenne.

Much more than this it is a vivid picture of life in the new food markets of Paris. The descriptions of food and characters and streets take you to the place in a cinematic way that is breath-taking.

As part of Zola's naturalism observations, it looks at and ridicules the falseness of the bourgeois shop keepers.

My View

I enjoyed the description in this book immensely. It brought scenes to life as vividly as any novel I can recall. The description of the black pudding making process is truly stomach churning! The street descriptions had me reaching for a Paris street plan on many occasions to map the descriptions to the modern day.

The characters are more balanced than in La Curée and have both likeable and despicable traits. Characters such as Claude and Françoise are a welcome foil to the middle class 'fats' as Claude describes them.

The story line was good although a little predictable but with such powerful descriptive writing I never felt disappointed.

List of Characters

Member of the Rougon Macquart Family

Lisa Quenu (nee Macquart)

Aristide Saccard (also known as Aristide Rougon)

Market Folk

Cadine

Mere Chantemesse

M. Jules

Marcel

Marjolin

Claire Méhudin

Louise Méhudin

Muche

La Belle Normande

The Political Gang

Alexandre

Charvet

Clémence

Gavard

M. Logre

Robine

The Quenu-Gradelle Family

Florent

Gradelle

Auguste Landois

Augustine Landois

Léon

Mouton

Quenu

Quenu(the elder)

Others

Balthazar

M. Lebigre

Rose