It may be a little bit useful to read the first one, but pretty much all of the books in the cycle are independent. I've read six of the twenty, and while it's useful (you know a bit of background about some characters), it's not necessary. I'd recommend reading the first one (La Fortune des Rougon) if you're going to read many books in the cycle, but for just Germinal (and L'Assommoir, the second-best of them) it's not really worth it.
Certainly you don't need to read them "in order", because there is no order - some of the books are set at roughly the same time, telling the story of different branches of the family.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-11-24 10:48 am (UTC)Certainly you don't need to read them "in order", because there is no order - some of the books are set at roughly the same time, telling the story of different branches of the family.