“His education was complete, and he was leaving newly armed, a philosopher soldier of the revolution, having declared war on the society he saw around him and condemned. In his delight at going to join Pluchart, at going to be Pluchart, a leader that was listened to, he started making speeches to himself rehearsing theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Is the Leader of the French Coal Miner Strikers Corrupted by Bourgeois Refinement? (Émile Zola)”
Tag Archives: RKS literature
RKS British Literature: A Frustrated Writer Blames Lack of Creativity on Lack of Money (George Orwell)
“Dull-eyed he gazed at the wall of books. He hated the whole lot of them. Old and new, highbrow and lowbrow, snooty and chirpy. The mere sight of them brought home to him his own sterility. For here he was supposedly a ‘writer’, and he couldn’t even write. It wasn’t merely a question of notContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Frustrated Writer Blames Lack of Creativity on Lack of Money (George Orwell)”
RKS French Literature: Father Ranvier the Catholic Priest Exploits the Misery of the Striking Coal Miners (Émile Zola)
“He was using the strike-the terrible poverty, the sense of grievance, sharpened by hunger-with the ardour of a missionary preaching to savages for the greater glory of his religion. He said that the Church was on the side of the poor and that one day it would cause justice to triumph by calling down theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Father Ranvier the Catholic Priest Exploits the Misery of the Striking Coal Miners (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Workers’ Consciousness Germinating Like a Seed in Soil (Émile Zola)
“A worker shouldn’t think for himself? Ah, but that’s precisely why things were soon going to change, because now the worker had started thinking! In the old man’s day the miner lived down the pit like an animal, like a machine for extracting coal, always underground, his eyes and ears closed to what was goingContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Workers’ Consciousness Germinating Like a Seed in Soil (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: A Long Tale of Woe for the French Working Class After the 1789 French Revolution (Émile Zola)
“This time the three men were in agreement. One after the other they spoke in despairing tones, and theirs was a long tale of woe. The working man wouldn’t be able to survive; the Revolution had only made things worse for him; the bourgeoisie had been living off the fat of the land since 1789,Continue reading “RKS French Literature: A Long Tale of Woe for the French Working Class After the 1789 French Revolution (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“They grew up quickly, these mining girls; and he remembered the ones back in Lille and how he used to wait for them behind the factories, whole gangs of them, already corrupted at the age of fourteen by living in the kind of destitution that makes people simply let themselves go. From the age ofContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Foul Odour of Miner’s Pauper Cuisine (Émile Zola)
“A salad would go so well with the vegetable stew she had simmering on the stove, a mixture of potatoes, leeks and sorrel chopped up and then cooked with fried onion! The whole house reeked of this fried onion, which is a pleasant smell at first but soon turns rancid. Its foul odour penetrates theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Foul Odour of Miner’s Pauper Cuisine (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“Mme Hennebeau was already growing tired of this visit, happy one minute to alleviate the tedium of her exile by playing this role of a zoo guide, then immediately repulsed by the vague odour of poverty that hung everywhere, despite the cleanliness of the carefully selected houses she dared to enter. In any case allContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Underground Hell of a French Coal Mine (Émile Zola)
“Stretched out on their sides, they were now tapping away harder than ever in their single-minded determination to fill a decent number of tubs. They became oblivious to all else as they gave themselves up to this furious pursuit of a reward so dearly won. They ceased to notice the water streaming down and causingContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Underground Hell of a French Coal Mine (Émile Zola)”
RKS Japanese Literature: The Steam Train Representative of Twentieth-Century Civilization (Natsume Sōseki)
“We are being dragged deeper into the real world, which I define as the world that contains trains. Nothing can be more quintessentially representative of twentieth-century civilization than the steam train. It roars along, packed tight with hundreds of people in one box, merciless in its progress, and all those hundreds crammed in there mustContinue reading “RKS Japanese Literature: The Steam Train Representative of Twentieth-Century Civilization (Natsume Sōseki)”
