The suffering of the late 19th century

Zola was a famous French naturalist writer at the end of the 19th century. The so-called naturalism is a kind of literary technique that depicts the original face of life in a scientific, objective and calm manner. In the pen of naturalist writers, there are no so-called romantic turns, bizarre coincidences and sweet happy endings, but just an almost cruel "reduction" of life.

This kind of "restoration" is too forced to remove the "filter" and "veil" brought by various literary techniques, so that it was once unacceptable to people in the 19th century. In those days, few writers dared to describe sex, desire, and sensual scenes in a dignified manner, and although everyone had similar experiences, it was "immoral" to tell them, so Zola's novels were once banned, and he unfortunately attracted the reputation of "bad manners".

With the passage of time, Zola's works have gained recognition today, precisely because he transcends the moral shackles of time and place, and conveys human nature and human behavior in a vision close to the scientific spirit. From his most famous novel, Sprouts, we can see archival records of the lives of 19th-century coal miners.

"Sprouts" takes the experience of the intellectual young Etienne as a clue and completely portrays the details of the daily life of the old and young miners in the Voltam mine. In order to restore the daily life of these people as much as possible, Zola consulted a large number of miners' literature, and on the third day after the outbreak of the miners' strike in 1884, he rushed to the scene to investigate the scene, and even ate and lived with the miners, no less than today's sociologists.

Working conditions in the Voodoo mine are very difficult, and people live in cramped miners' village houses, usually crowded together by a dozen people. Everyone suffers from various diseases because of the air pollution in the mine, either lymph node, tuberculosis or pneumoconiosis, coupled with the shortage of food and living materials, they do not care about the so-called etiquette and shame, in a room, men and women can bathe in front of others, naked and even pee.

Inside the mines, everyone wants to load a few more truckloads of coal to make a little more money, groundwater bubbles swell their limbs, muscle cramps from nesting in narrow mines for long periods of time, and airless underground that is suffocating – but these are almost invisible.

Above the mine, an even more terrifying scene unfolded. People live hard and have low wages, but they give birth to children without restraint. A family often has five or six "drag oil bottles", they will lie outside the parents' room to peep at a very young age, and when these "drag oil bottles" grow up, the girls will soon repeat the mistakes of their mothers, and at the age of thirteen or fourteen, they will have a relationship with a young man in the mine, and then have children, generation after generation. The older boys took over their father's work, went deep into the mine, contracted ailments, and finally indulged in the paralysis of alcohol.

The more miserable life is, the more indulgent they are. Zola even wrote that those who pass through the mining area should even walk carefully, because when passing through the grass, they often tripped over the outstretched limbs, which came from young men and women who were in a hurry to find fun, and they did not care about the people around them.

In this case, the mine is the abyss of a vicious circle. Even the arrival of the intellectual youth Etienne could not change anything, at best as a powerless bystander and a failed reformer. Although the novel is called "Sprouts", in fact, it is difficult to believe that a real sense of change will appear in it, so the name of Zola's novel is quite ironic.

Author: Zhang Qiuzi

Source: Tonight's newspaper