Zola, Emile. The Belly of Paris. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1996.
The “Belly of Paris” is quite literally a giant receptacle of food merchants. It is a humungous food market brimming with a wide array of delicacies of all shapes and sizes. In the first 50 pages I counted no less than sixty different types of food described in colorful detail. The word ‘vegetable’ alone appears over twenty times. Everything from fruits to fish, vegetables to cheese is laid out before the reader. Like the true anatomy of a stomach, from this belly of bounty wastes, filth and toxins are dispelled. There is a clash of the glorious and the gory. All of this in incredible detail serves as the backdrop to the story of Florent.
Florent has escaped from exile to return to his beloved Paris. On the verge of starvation he finds himself in a sea of food in Les Halles Centrales. From there he makes his way to his half-brother’s butcher shop that specializes in pork products. At this point Florent must decide how to live as a fugitive and a man always on the run. As he re-establishes himself in the community he is caught up in jealousies and dramas and must constantly struggle to survive.
Above all else, Belly of Paris is a story of contrasts – the richness of the market’s abundance versus the poverty and fifth of the lower classes who shop there.
Line that best illustrates Florent being swallowed by the Belly of Paris, “And at last he came to a standstill, quite discouraged and scared at finding himself unable to escape from the infernal circle of vegetables, which now seemed to dance around him, twining clinging verdue about his legs” (p 42).
Book Trivia: The Belly of Paris is the third in a series of twenty books that make up Les Rougon-Macquart. The series analyzes the effects family relations and economic status have on one family.
I will be honest. I am a little irritated I didn’t do my homework concerning Belly of Paris. I should not have read Ernest Alfred Vizetelly’s translation. From what I have read his version is not a true or exact translation. Now I am wishing I read Mark Kurlansky’s version because it received better reviews. It bothers me to think I am not reading Le Ventre de Paris as it was written. Never mind. It’s my fault for not studying French beyond first year.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Dickens of a Tale” (p 73).
~*LunaSea*~ 