The Earth by Emile Zola (1878, work 15 in The Rougan Macquart Cycle)

The Earth is novel 15 in Emile Zola's grand collection of novels, The Rougon Macquart Cycle.  It focuses on the lives of small farm owners.  There are lots of characters in the novel,at least 100, among them Jean Macquart, son of Antonine Macquart, late of the French Army serving in the  Algerian war and now a farm laborer.   Zola shows us the tremendous love the farmers have for their land.  One of the biggest issues in multi-child families was the division of land upon the death or incapacitation of the parents.  

This being a Zola novel one terrible thing after another happens, from droughts and freezes to crooked financiers.  The Earth gave me a good feel for life on the small French farm.  I cannot really endorse this book as a stand alone work but I do acknowledge it as a central work in the cycle, depicting in Zola's hardcore naturalistic style a very vital part of French society, the farmer.  

Mel u