L'Assommoir

Émile Zola

Language

Category

Book Summary

L'Assommoir is a novel by Émile Zola serialized in 1876 in Le Bien public, then in La République des Lettres, before its release in book in 1877 by the publisher Georges Charpentier. This is the seventh volume in the Les Rougon-Macquart series. The work is totally devoted to the working class world and, according to Zola, it is "the first novel about the people, who do not lie and which smells of the people." The writer restores the language and customs of the workers, while describing the devastation caused by poverty and alcoholism. When it was published, the work aroused heated controversy because it was considered too raw. But it is this naturalism which, however, causes its success, ensuring to the author fortune and celebrity.

RELATED BOOKS