Germinal

Germinal by Emile Zola 1885 Translated and Introduced by Havelock
Ellis Introduction By Havelock Ellis 'GERMINAL' was published in
1885, after occupying Zola during the previous year. In accordance
with his usual custom--but to a greater extent than with any other of his
books except La Débâcle--he accumulated material beforehand. For six
months he travelled about the coal-mining district in northern France
and Belgium, especially the Borinage around Mons, note-book in hand.
'He was inquisitive, was that gentleman', miner told Sherard who
visited the neighbourhood at a later period and found that the miners in
every village knew Germinal. That was a tribute of admiration the book
deserved, but it was never one of Zola's most popular novels; it was
neither amusing enough nor outrageous enough to attract the multitude.
Yet Germinal occupies a place among Zola's works which is constantly
becoming more assured, so that to some critics it even begins to seem
the only book of his that in the end may survive. In his own time, as we
know, the accredited critics of the day could find no condemnation
severe enough for Zola. Brunetière attacked him perpetually with a fury
that seemed inexhaustible; Schérer could not even bear to hear his
name mentioned; Anatole France, though he lived to relent, thought it
would have been better if he had never been born. Even at that time,
however, there were critics who inclined to view Germinal more
favourably. Thus Faguet, who was the recognized academic critic of
the end of the last century, while he held that posterity would be unable
to understand how Zola could ever have been popular, yet recognized
him as in Germinal the heroic representative of democracy,
incomparable in his power of describing crowds, and he realized how
marvellous is the conclusion of this book. To-day, when critics view
Zola In the main with indifference rather than with horror, although he
still retains his popular favour, the distinction of Germinal is yet more
clearly recognized. Seillière, while regarding the capitalistic conditions
presented as now of an ancient and almost extinct type, yet sees
Germinal standing out as 'the poem of social mysticism', while André
Gide, a completely modern critic who has left a deep mark on the
present generation, observes somewhere that it may nowadays cause

surprise that he should refer with admiraton to Germinal, but it is a
masterly book that fills him with astonishment; he can hardly believe
that it was written in French and still less that it should have been
written in any other language; it seems that it should have been created
in some international tongue. The high place thus claimed for Germinal
will hardly seem exaggerated. The book was produced when Zola had
at length achieved the full mastery of his art and before his hand had, as
in his latest novels, begun to lose its firm grasp. The subject lent itself,
moreover, to his special aptitude for presenting in vivid outline great
human groups, and to his special sympathy with the collective
emotions and social aspirations of such groups. We do not, as so often
in Zola's work, become painfully conscious that he is seeking to
reproduce aspects of life with which he is imperfectly acquainted, or
fitting them into scientific formulas which he has imperfectly
understood. He shows a masterly grip of each separate group, and each
represents some essential element of the whole; they are harmoniously
balanced, and their mutual action and reaction leads on inevitably to the
splendid tragic dose, with yet its great promise for the future. I will not
here discuss Zola's literary art (I have done so in my book of
Affirmations); it is enough to say that, though he was not a great master
of style, Zola never again wrote so finely as here. A word may be
added to explain how this translation fell to the lot of one whose work
has been in other fields. In 1893 the late A. Texeira de Mattos was
arranging for private issue a series of complete versions of some of
Zola's chief novels and offered to assign Germinal to me. My time was
taken up with preliminary but as yet unfruitful preparation for what I
regarded as my own special task in life, and I felt that I must not
neglect the opportunity of spending my spare time in making a modest
addition to my income. My wife readily fell into the project and agreed,
on the understanding that we shared the proceeds, to act as my
amanuensis. So, in the little Cornish cottage over the sea we then
occupied, the evenings of the early months of 1894 were spent over
Germinal, I translating aloud, and she with swift efficient untiring pen
following, now and then bettering my English dialogue with her
pungent