This is an overview of the 'Rougon-Macquart', a collection of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. It comprises "biographies" of her fictional characters in this famous series. 'Rougon-Macquart' follows the lives of the members of the two branches of a family living during the Second French Empire. It is one of the most famous works of the French naturalism literary movement.

The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris) is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, first published in 1873. It is a novel of the teeming life which surrounds the great central markets of Paris. The book was originally translated into English by Henry Vizetelly and published in 1888 under the title Fat and Thin. After Vizetelly's imprisonment for obscene libel the novel was one of those revised and expurgated by his son, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. The heroine is Lisa Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart. She has become prosperous, and with prosperity her selfishness has increased. Her brother-in-law Florent had escaped from penal servitude in Cayenne and lived for a short time in her house, but she became tired of his presence and ultimately denounced him to the police. Émile Zola (1840 – 1902) was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

The completely revised and updated edition of the classic, best-selling guide to dream interpretation In the first major revision of the encyclopedia that has sold half a million copies worldwide, Zolar, the acclaimed "Dean of Astrology" (The New Yorker), has created the indispensable bedside reference for today's dreamers, reflecting the changes that have affected our waking hours and inevitably influence the content and significance of the messages we receive while we sleep. Looking at new cultural trends, work and social patterns, technologies and means of communication, Zolar reveals the meanings of dreams about cell phones, computers, cyberspace, beepers and much more. His concise and incisive explanations of such classic dreams as meeting a redheaded stranger, flying without wings and trying to comfort a crying baby are here as well, while obsolete subjects -- like girdles, gleaners and grenadiers -- have been eliminated. To complement each dream category a lucky number has been added for this new edition. With interpretations for more than 20,000 dreams, Zolar's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams offers you the opportunity to uncover the secrets hidden in your dreams and to act on the wisdom -- or respond to the warnings -- they contain.

Reproduction of the original.

The novel's central character is Etienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), a young migrant worker who arrives at the forbidding coalmining town of Montsou in the bleak far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior - he befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit. Etienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a naïve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as Etienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the influence of drink or strong passions. -- from http://www.barnesandnoble.com (Jan. 21, 2014).

Book Excerpt: ...n ill-greased pulley, and ended by degenerating into a terrible spasm of coughing. The fire basket now clearly lit up his large head, with its scanty white hair and flat, livid face, spotted with bluish patches. He was short, with an enormous neck, projecting calves and heels, and long arms, with massive hands falling to his knees. For the rest, like his horse, which stood immovable, without suffering from the wind, he seemed to be made of stone; he had no appearance of feeling either the cold or the gusts that whistled at his ears. When he coughed his throat was torn by a deep rasping; he spat at the foot of the basket and the earth was blackened.Étienne looked at him and at the ground which he had thus stained."Have you been working long at the mine?"Bonnemort flung open both arms."Long? I should think so. I was not eight when I went down into the Voreux and I am now fifty-eight. Reckon that up! I have been everything down there; at first trammer, then putter, when I h...