The Fat and the Thin

"The Fat and the Thin" is a study of the teeming life which surrounds the great central markets of Paris. The heroine is Lisa Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart (see The Fortune of the Rougons). 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. The book contains vivid pictures of the markets, bursting with the food of a great city, and of the vast population which lives by handling and distributing it. "But it also embraces a powerful allegory," writes Mr. E. A. Vizetelly in his preface to the English translation, "the prose song of the eternal battle between the lean of this world and the fat - a battle in which, as the author shows, the latter always come off successful. M. Zola had a distinct social aim in writing this book."