“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)”
Tag Archives: RKS literature
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)”
RKS French Literature: Extreme Poverty and Quasi Starvation (Émile Zola)
“Buried beneath the blanket, all that could be seen of her was her long face with its broad features, which had a certain heavy beauty, but which at the age of thirty-nine, had already been disfigured by her life of poverty and the seven children she had borne. She told him how there was noContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Extreme Poverty and Quasi Starvation (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Reek of the Human Herd in the Coal Miner’s Tenement (Émile Zola)
“At the Maheus’ house, Number Sixteen in the second block, nothing stirred. Thick darkness filled the one and only first-floor room: it bore down like a crushing weight on the people sleeping there, whose presence could be felt rather than seen as they lay crowded together, their mouths open, stunned by exhaustion. Despite the bitterContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Reek of the Human Herd in the Coal Miner’s Tenement (Émile Zola)”
RKS Russian Literature: A Dreadful Absence of Both Good and Evil (Nikolay Gogol)
“No one had seen him, even once, being any different from what he always was, whether on the street or at home. Had he but once showed any concern for anything, had he got roaring drink and burst out laughing in his drunken state, had he even abandoned himself to wild grotesque revelry of theContinue reading “RKS Russian Literature: A Dreadful Absence of Both Good and Evil (Nikolay Gogol)”
RKS Russian Literature: A Russian Philanthropic Swindle (Nikolay Gogol)
“For instance, having set up some philanthropic society for the poor and having contributed considerable sums to it, we lose no time in commemorating such a praiseworthy event by throwing a dinner for all the leading dignitaries of the town, thereby expending, of course, half the sums that have been contributed. With what remains, aContinue reading “RKS Russian Literature: A Russian Philanthropic Swindle (Nikolay Gogol)”
RKS Literature: Death by Consumption (Thomas Nasche)
“Oh, a consumption is worse than a Capius ad Ligatum: to nothing can I compare it better than to a reprieve after a man is condemned, or to a boy with his hose about his heels ready to be whipped, to whom his master stands preaching a long time all law and no gospel ereContinue reading “RKS Literature: Death by Consumption (Thomas Nasche)”
