The Belly of Paris
Book description
'Respectable people... What bastards!'
Unjustly deported to Devil's Island following Louis-Napoleon's coup-d'etat in December 1851, Florent Quenu escapes and returns to Paris. He finds the city changed beyond recognition. The old Marche des Innocents has been knocked down as part of Haussmann's grand programme of urban reconstruction to make way…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Belly of Paris as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
In the third novel of Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, a man named Florent, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, escapes to Paris and becomes a fish inspector at the Les Halles market. Food and politics collide in the heart of the market, giving the reader some of the most vivid and delicious descriptions you’ll ever find on the page.
From Crystal's list on novels about food.
At last, a Frenchman who did understand, and document, French history with great insight, mainly because he was living it. Via the stomach, Zola gets straight to the heart of France. It’s an outrageously well-stocked French food market in book form. Zola describes life in and around (and under) Paris’s Les Halles markets, which were the true beating heart of the city until the old glass buildings were demolished one summer in the early 1970s when Parisians were away on holiday and couldn’t protest. Food, glorious food spills off every page, but there is a deeply serious side to the…
From Stephen's list on why the French deny their own history.
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