Zola's Rougon-Macquart series

ficbot · 05-07-2012, 09:52 PM

Has anybody read these? They sound really interesting. It's a series of about 20 books all centered around a French family and their descendents during the 1800s. Apparently (according to Wikipedia) he was inspired by Balzac but wanted to focus more narrowly on one family as opposed to society as a whole.

Manybooks has most of them in English translation, but my public library has the whole shebang, in ebook, in original French. I have downloaded the first one just to try---this book may exceed my current French reading level (which is lower than my English reading level by a fair margin) but I am hoping that with the aid of my Kindle's built-in dictionary I may be able to give it a go. All of the French novels I have read so far have been translations of books I read in English first, so this will be an experiment for me. But I know I won't improve my French reading unless I do it more...

LovesMacs · 05-08-2012, 10:41 PM

I have read l'Assommoir and Germinal in the original French, and I enjoyed the both of them but preferred the first one. I would like to read the whole series at some point but I don't want to commit all that time right now. I have so many books on my To Be Read pile it's ridiculous.

Bonne lecture, et bonne chance.

05-07-2012, 09:52 PM	#1
ficbot Wizard Posts: 2,409 Karma: 4132096 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite/iOS Kindle App	Zola's Rougon-Macquart series Has anybody read these? They sound really interesting. It's a series of about 20 books all centered around a French family and their descendents during the 1800s. Apparently (according to Wikipedia) he was inspired by Balzac but wanted to focus more narrowly on one family as opposed to society as a whole. Manybooks has most of them in English translation, but my public library has the whole shebang, in ebook, in original French. I have downloaded the first one just to try---this book may exceed my current French reading level (which is lower than my English reading level by a fair margin) but I am hoping that with the aid of my Kindle's built-in dictionary I may be able to give it a go. All of the French novels I have read so far have been translations of books I read in English first, so this will be an experiment for me. But I know I won't improve my French reading unless I do it more...

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05-08-2012, 10:41 PM	#2
LovesMacs Fanatic Posts: 513 Karma: 2644386 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: iPhone, Kindle Touch	I have read l'Assommoir and Germinal in the original French, and I enjoyed the both of them but preferred the first one. I would like to read the whole series at some point but I don't want to commit all that time right now. I have so many books on my To Be Read pile it's ridiculous. Bonne lecture, et bonne chance.

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