Émile Zola’s Germinal, published in 1885, is a hefty tome that plunges readers into the sooty, grimy world of French coal miners in the 19th century. With its bleak depictions of class struggle, social injustice, and the human spirit’s tenacity, it’s hardly the kind of book you’d expect to read at a comedy club. Yet, beneath the layers of coal dust and despair, there’s a surprising seam of dark humour running through this literary mine. Let’s dig in and see what nuggets of wit we can unearth.
Plot: Slapstick in the Stygian Depths
The story kicks off with Étienne Lantier, an idealistic youth, arriving in the coal-mining town of Montsou. He quickly gets swept up in the locals’ lives, which are about as cheerful as a damp winter morning. Étienne’s evolution from clueless outsider to fervent labour leader is the novel’s backbone. It’s a bleak saga, but Zola’s sharp eye for the absurd gives us moments where tragedy takes a pitfall and lands face-first in the muck.
The miners’ strike, a central event, escalates with a comedic inevitability that would make Chaplin proud. From the get-go, it’s clear they’re woefully unprepared, pooling their pitiful resources like kids who’ve saved up all summer to buy a single ice cream cone. When they realise their funds won’t last a week, it’s both heartbreaking and hilariously inevitable, a proletarian comedy of errors.
Characters: A Gallery of Gritty Gags
Zola’s cast is a motley crew, each with their own quirks that could easily fit into a sitcom, albeit one written by Kafka.
Étienne Lantier, our earnest hero, stumbles through the narrative with a mix of passion and naivety. His heartfelt speeches often end in bewildered silence, the revolutionary equivalent of delivering a punchline to a room full of crickets. You can almost hear the comedic drumroll: bada-bing, bada-boom, no revolution.
The Maheu family’s struggles form the backbone of this grim domestic sitcom. Maheu, the beleaguered patriarch, embodies working-class resignation, while his wife, Maheude, is a dynamo of maternal fury, berating her brood with the intensity of a coal-powered locomotive. Picture her scolding her kids to hurry up and slurp their watery soup before it evaporates entirely—it’s tragic, yes, but also absurdly comic, like a scene out of a Dickensian farce.
The Bourgeoisie: The Real Clowns of the Show
The bourgeois characters in Germinal are so villainous they’re almost cartoonish. M. Hennebeau, the mine manager, epitomises clueless elitism. His feeble attempts to empathise with the miners’ plight are akin to a CEO trying to relate to minimum-wage employees by sharing an inspirational quote about “grit and hustle.” His domestic spats with his equally oblivious wife add a layer of bourgeois buffoonery; they fret over their petty inconveniences while Rome burns around them.
The Grégoires, another bourgeois family, take the cake with their detached philanthropy. They debate the ethics of their wealth while sipping tea and munching biscuits, their concern for the miners’ welfare as substantial as a soufflé. Their charitable donations, barely making a dent in their opulence, are delivered with a self-satisfied flourish, as if Zola is saying, “Look at these people, so generous with their crumbs!”
The Mine: A Metaphoric Funhouse
The mine itself is a character in Germinal, a monstrous entity that devours lives and coughs up broken bodies. Zola’s descriptions are so vivid they verge on the grotesquely humorous. The mine’s labyrinthine tunnels are a nightmarish playground, a Dantean Inferno with the added charm of constant coal dust.
There’s a grim humour in the miners’ daily descent into this hellscape. It’s Sisyphus with soot, a tragicomic ritual where they venture down knowing full well the dangers, only to come back up – if they’re lucky – more broken than before. The repetitive nature of their work has an absurdity to it, like an eternal game of snakes and ladders where the ladders are broken and the snakes lead straight to misery.
Conclusion: Finding Light in the Coal Dust
While Germinal is a serious exploration of the working class’s struggles, Zola’s keen eye for human absurdity infuses it with a dark, biting humour. By highlighting the absurdities and contradictions in both the oppressed and their oppressors, Zola offers moments of levity amid the relentless bleakness.
In the end, Germinal celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, finding humour even in the darkest times. Zola’s masterful intertwining of tragedy and comedy ensures that while the miners of Montsou may struggle to find light at the end of their tunnel, we as readers can at least find a chuckle amid the gloom. Laughter, after all, is the best way to honour the humanity of those who toil in the depths, always seeking the dawn that Germinal promises.
Back in Blighty, and back in the present, we no longer have a coal industry – or any other heavy industry come to that – thanks to those calling themselves politicians, ruining everything. I speak from personal experience. At the time of writing, there’s a general election on July 4th. The Status Quo really must change.
Wording 