num_pages: 288
description: Pauline Quenu, the daughter of shopkeepers in the Parisian business district Les Halles (see The Fat and the Thin, aka The Belly of Paris), is taken in by relatives on the coast of Normandy following the death of her parents. There, Pauline - kind and open-minded - is confronted with a gout-plagued host, his avaricious wife, and their lazy son, a morbid hypochondriac, whom she is expected to marry. While the family takes advantage of Pauline, using up the inheritance her parents left to her, Pauline is gradually transformed into a dejected and resigned young woman. Death and accident soon hang over the small house on the Norman coast...
language: English
title: The Joy of Life
titlecomplete: The Joy of Life
genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, French Literature, Novels, Literature, Classics, Adult, Fiction, 19th Century, France
ratings_count: 1839
series: Les Rougon-Macquart
publisher: MONDIAL