Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&n Classics Trade Paper) on + 1228 more book reviews
I've read a few other novels by Zola including Therese Raquin, L'Assommoir, and Germinal. I thought all of these novels were excellent showing life in 19th century France from the point of view of Zola's naturalistic writing.
From Wikipedia:
Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series. It tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class prostitute during the last three years of the French Second Empire. Nana first appeared near the end of Zola's earlier novel Rougon-Macquart series, L'Assommoir (1877), where she is the daughter of an abusive drunk. At the conclusion of that novel, she is living in the streets and just beginning a life of prostitution.
Nana opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés in April 1867 just after the Exposition Universelle has opened. Nana is eighteen years old and is cast in the lead role of La blonde Vénus. Zola describes her appearance only thinly veiled in the third act: "All of a sudden, in the good-natured child the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater."
In the course of the novel Nana destroys every man who pursues her: Philippe Hugon is imprisoned after stealing from the army to lend Nana money; the wealthy banker Steiner bankrupts himself trying to please her; Georges Hugon stabs himself with scissors in anguish over her; Vandeuvres incinerates himself after Nana ruins him financially; Fauchery, a journalist and publisher who falls for Nana early on, writes a scathing article about her later, and falls for her again and is ruined financially; and Count Muffat, whose faithfulness to Nana brings him back for humiliation after humiliation until he finds her in bed with his elderly father-in-law. In George Becker's words: "What emerges from [Nana] is the completeness of Nana's destructive force, brought to a culmination in the thirteenth chapter by a kind of roll call of the victims of her voracity".
Zola has Nana die a horrible death in July 1870 from smallpox. She disappears, her belongings are auctioned and no one knows where she is. It comes out that she has been living with a Russian prince, leaving her infant son in the care of an aunt near Paris, but when a smallpox epidemic breaks out she returns to nurse him; he dies, and she catches the disease. Zola suggests that her true nature, concealed by her physical beauty, has come to the surface. "What lay on the pillow was a charnel house, a heap of pus and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh. The pustules had invaded the whole face, so that one pock touched the next". Outside her window the crowd is madly cheering "To Berlin! To Berlin!" to greet the start of the Franco-Prussian War, which will end in defeat for France and the end of the Second Empire.
I did not really appreciate Nana as much as I did the other novels I have read by Zola. I thought for one thing that Zola used too much detail in his descriptions. For example one chapter takes place at a horse race, the Grand Prix, and seems to go on forever describing the various horses, the riders, betting, and the crowd. Another chapter takes place at a dinner which also drones on and on. The characters were also very unlikeable. Nana was out for all she could get and then would waste everything or destroy it once she had it including all the men she destroyed. And then the men could not stay away from her even though they were losing everything they owned and in some cases even their lives! A little too much. But overall, I'm glad I finally read this one and will probably be reading more of Zola's works.
From Wikipedia:
Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series. It tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class prostitute during the last three years of the French Second Empire. Nana first appeared near the end of Zola's earlier novel Rougon-Macquart series, L'Assommoir (1877), where she is the daughter of an abusive drunk. At the conclusion of that novel, she is living in the streets and just beginning a life of prostitution.
Nana opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés in April 1867 just after the Exposition Universelle has opened. Nana is eighteen years old and is cast in the lead role of La blonde Vénus. Zola describes her appearance only thinly veiled in the third act: "All of a sudden, in the good-natured child the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater."
In the course of the novel Nana destroys every man who pursues her: Philippe Hugon is imprisoned after stealing from the army to lend Nana money; the wealthy banker Steiner bankrupts himself trying to please her; Georges Hugon stabs himself with scissors in anguish over her; Vandeuvres incinerates himself after Nana ruins him financially; Fauchery, a journalist and publisher who falls for Nana early on, writes a scathing article about her later, and falls for her again and is ruined financially; and Count Muffat, whose faithfulness to Nana brings him back for humiliation after humiliation until he finds her in bed with his elderly father-in-law. In George Becker's words: "What emerges from [Nana] is the completeness of Nana's destructive force, brought to a culmination in the thirteenth chapter by a kind of roll call of the victims of her voracity".
Zola has Nana die a horrible death in July 1870 from smallpox. She disappears, her belongings are auctioned and no one knows where she is. It comes out that she has been living with a Russian prince, leaving her infant son in the care of an aunt near Paris, but when a smallpox epidemic breaks out she returns to nurse him; he dies, and she catches the disease. Zola suggests that her true nature, concealed by her physical beauty, has come to the surface. "What lay on the pillow was a charnel house, a heap of pus and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh. The pustules had invaded the whole face, so that one pock touched the next". Outside her window the crowd is madly cheering "To Berlin! To Berlin!" to greet the start of the Franco-Prussian War, which will end in defeat for France and the end of the Second Empire.
I did not really appreciate Nana as much as I did the other novels I have read by Zola. I thought for one thing that Zola used too much detail in his descriptions. For example one chapter takes place at a horse race, the Grand Prix, and seems to go on forever describing the various horses, the riders, betting, and the crowd. Another chapter takes place at a dinner which also drones on and on. The characters were also very unlikeable. Nana was out for all she could get and then would waste everything or destroy it once she had it including all the men she destroyed. And then the men could not stay away from her even though they were losing everything they owned and in some cases even their lives! A little too much. But overall, I'm glad I finally read this one and will probably be reading more of Zola's works.
