Author: Henri Murger / Year:1822-1861 / Genre: Drama This is an interesting and good book. It's more like a collection of interconnected short stories about the same
community of friends/lovers, for the most part, but it's really a great contrast to the uptight and generally
prudish nature of English 19th century fiction. It was particularly gratifying as a reader to find the women i
n this book (written and set in the 1840s) owned their own sexuality, romantic expression, fickle love affairs,
and that none of the characters, male or female, shamed them, vilified them as "whores," or prated about
"purity" or being "ruined." The women took up with men across different classes, moved on when they
wanted to just as much as the men, and for the most part functioned in ways that are only striking when
compared with how similar characters are treated in English and American literature of the time.
