Reading Germinie Lacerteux | Alexandria
Read Germinie Lacerteux by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. Pioneering a brutal literary realism, Germinie Lacerteux exposes the dark underbelly of desire and addiction through a servant's tragic descent—challenging Victorian sensibilities by treating a lower-class woman's psychological depths with radical empathy. The Goncourts' scandalous novel reveals how social constraints warp human nature, eerily foreshadowing modern debates on class and mental health.