The Fat and the Thin

The third novel in Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle unfolds inside Les Halles, the vast iron and glass food market that fed nineteenth-century Paris. Florent, an escaped political prisoner, returns to the city and shelters with his half-brother, a prosperous pork butcher, before landing work as an inspector in the fish pavilion. Around him Zola sets the well-fed shopkeepers against the hungry and discontented, the “Fat” who cling to comfort against the “Thin” who still dream of revolt. Mounds of cheese, vegetables, and meat become a study of appetite, gossip, and quiet betrayal, and Florent’s idealism cannot survive so much plenty. You can read it here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.