Le Ventre de Paris

By Émile Zola

Book Overview

Part of Emile Zola's multigenerational Rougon-Macquart saga, The Belly of Paris is the story of Florent Quenu, a wrongly accused man who escapes imprisonment on Devil's Island. Returning to his native Paris, Florent finds a city he barely recognizes, with its working classes displaced to make way for broad boulevards and bourgeois flats. Living with his brother's family in the newly rebuilt Les Halles market, Florent is soon caught up in a dangerous maelstrom of food and politics. Amid intrigue among the market's sellers-the fishmonger, the charcuti re, the fruit girl, and the cheese vendor-and the glorious culinary bounty of their labors, we see the dramatic difference between "fat and thin" (the rich and the poor) and how the widening gulf between them strains a city to the breaking point. Translated and with an Introduction by the celebrated historian and food writer Mark Kurlansky, The Belly of Paris offers fascinating perspectives on the French capital during the Second Empire-and, of course, tantalizing descriptions of its sumptuous repasts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812974220
• ISBN13: 9780812974225
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Hungry for French Lit

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.

This novel could have been written today

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.

Paris strife

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.)

Le VENTRE de PARIS

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

A Novel for Food Lovers

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.