Journal Entry 1 by londonmet from London , Greater London United Kingdom on Tuesday, October 05, 2004

I'm on a shelf-clearing exercise to free up some space for new books. This one's to go out.
This was a French A Level text - I've had this English translation ever since. Not the best Zola I've read - he's trying to prove his theories on human behaviour through fiction, which puts him on slightly dodgy ground. Still a powerful crime novel, with lots of sex and violence, and a grim ending, looking forward with more prescience than Zola knew to the horrors the twentieth century would bring. 

Journal Entry 2 by JemimaJ from London , Greater London United Kingdom on Sunday, November 14, 2004

I've never read a book by Zola before and this one was recommended by another BookCrosser at the Meet Up. Am looking forward to starting it soon. 

Journal Entry 3 by JemimaJ from London , Greater London United Kingdom on Monday, May 09, 2005

Have only just started this - seems interesting and easy to read so far. Will update when finished. Boyfriend has already requested to read it after me. 

Journal Entry 4 by JemimaJ from London , Greater London United Kingdom on Monday, June 06, 2005

This was much more than just a crime novel. Zola's ability to look into the behaviour of each character and why they behaved in a particular way was very interesting. It is (I think) about 20th in a series but there are footnotes which refer to the other books where necessary (not that often) so you don't need to read them beforehand. Found the descriptions of the train driving very atmospheric especially since most of my reading was done on a modern train - hard to imagine how the train drivers of the day suffered. Looking forward to reading some of Zola's other books.

Have passed onto non-BookCrossing boyfriend but will rescue it from him to re-release when he's finished it.