Germinal

I have been reading Zola's "Germinal".
Like Jack London's "People of the Abyss" this is a description of the conditions of the working class at the turn of the last century. Although it is based on research, the narrative is itself fictional.
Although it describes in detail the conditions of poverty in which workers in France were living, it also offers a vision of a possible future in which these old conditions will be swept away.
As well as being a month in the Republican French calendar, "Germinal" also suggests a new beginning.