More French stuff

Finally, two books for my course: Madame Bovary and Germinal. Both brilliant, and both re-reads, although I liked Madame Bovary far more now than I did when I was seventeen. (At the time I was rather earnestly political and thought Emma should pull herself together, stop moping about reading novels, and count her blessings, rather like the curé in the novel.) [83]

Germinal is also fantastic, although I still appreciate it mainly for the same reasons I did when I was seventeen: it's so brutal and angry, and Étienne is such a fantastic, human hero. [84]