Publisher's Synopsis
The Fat and the Thin is a novel by the French author Emile Zola. Originally published in 1873 under the title Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris), the novel is set in the bustling marketplace of Les Halles in Paris. The story follows the lives of several characters, including Florent, a political prisoner who has escaped from exile in French Guiana; Lisa, a beautiful and ambitious fishmonger; and Claude Lantier, a struggling artist who becomes enamored with Lisa. As the novel progresses, the characters become entangled in a web of greed, jealousy, and political intrigue. Florent becomes involved in a plot to overthrow the government, while Lisa and Claude struggle to make their way in the cutthroat world of the marketplace. Meanwhile, Zola vividly portrays the sights, sounds, and smells of Les Halles, painting a vivid picture of life in 19th-century Paris.The Fat and the Thin is a powerful social commentary on the excesses of capitalism and the plight of the working class. Zola's vivid descriptions and complex characters make this novel a timeless classic of French literature.The deep-lying forests of seaweed, in which the mysterious life of the ocean slumbers, seemed at one haul of the nets to have yielded up all they contained. There were cod, keeling, whiting, flounders, plaice, dabs, and other sorts of common fish of a dingy grey with whitish splotches; there were conger-eels, huge serpent-like creatures, with small black eyes and muddy, bluish skins, so slimy that they still seemed to be gliding along, yet alive.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.