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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Not as good as The Belly of Paris or The Drinking Den, but on par with The Fortune of the Rougons.
I get falling for a woman and making a fool of yourself, but to the point of bankruptcy or suicide and as you watch the rest of your social circle fall for the same woman? I dunno, I like to think at some point I'd just cut my losses and walk away, which kind of makes the novel frustrating. OTOH, it is fun seeing Nana destroy them. There's an interesting part near the end where Nana's presence haunts Count Muffat's daughter's wedding party, a sort of call back to the Revolution that foreshadows the coming of the Paris Commune, and it would've been great to see more of that angle. Although she's not acting on a class basis, she's clearly just destroying men to amuse herself. Which reminds me that John Dolan is right again: French literature is always about a hundred years ahead of the anglosphere, because this is clearly a precursor to the femme fatale.
Funny too, because I kept thinking you'd never see anything like this in the equivalent English literature at the time. And even when this sort of thing migrates, it's only into the cheap dimestore novels that weren't taken seriously at the time, whereas Nana was respectable literature from the start.
Highlights:
Wish he'd played up more of Count Muffat's Catholic guilt:
It's funny how this series is so good but he keeps screwing up because he confuses environment with weird 19th century proto-genetic ideas.
Muffat lifted his head; his eyes stared fixedly; he gazed at the fire.
“Well then,” she used to say when talking seriously about the matter, “there’s no such thing as virtue left, is there?”
From one end of the social ladder to the other everybody was on the loose! Good gracious! Some nice things ought to be going on in Paris between nine o’clock in the evening and three in the morning! And with that she began making very merry and declaring that if one could only have looked into every room one would have seen some funny sights—the little people going it head over ears and a good lot of swells, too, playing the swine rather harder than the rest. Oh, she was finishing her education!
Also wish I knew who introduced crops into my country and was able to make dinner table conversation about it:
“Oh dear no!” said Nana. “It isn’t stupid to burn oneself in one’s stable as he did. For my part, I think he made a dashing finish; but, oh, you know, I’m not defending that story about him and Marechal. It’s too silly. Just to think that Blanche has had the cheek to want to lay the blame of it on me! I said to her: ‘Did I tell him to steal?’ Don’t you think one can ask a man for money without urging him to commit crime? If he had said to me, ‘I’ve got nothing left,’ I should have said to him, ‘All right, let’s part.’ And the matter wouldn’t have gone further.”
About a friend who died when he set his stable on fire with petroleum:
Don't mention him! He's extinguished!
Cool fashion:
I read the Rascoe translation, but I'm quoting here from the Project Gutenberg one, as it's easier to copy/paste.
I get falling for a woman and making a fool of yourself, but to the point of bankruptcy or suicide and as you watch the rest of your social circle fall for the same woman? I dunno, I like to think at some point I'd just cut my losses and walk away, which kind of makes the novel frustrating. OTOH, it is fun seeing Nana destroy them. There's an interesting part near the end where Nana's presence haunts Count Muffat's daughter's wedding party, a sort of call back to the Revolution that foreshadows the coming of the Paris Commune, and it would've been great to see more of that angle. Although she's not acting on a class basis, she's clearly just destroying men to amuse herself. Which reminds me that John Dolan is right again: French literature is always about a hundred years ahead of the anglosphere, because this is clearly a precursor to the femme fatale.
Funny too, because I kept thinking you'd never see anything like this in the equivalent English literature at the time. And even when this sort of thing migrates, it's only into the cheap dimestore novels that weren't taken seriously at the time, whereas Nana was respectable literature from the start.
Highlights:
Wish he'd played up more of Count Muffat's Catholic guilt:
Spoiler
It was a pleasure alloyed with remorse–one one of those pleasures of Catholics whom the fear of hell is perpetually goading them in sin.It's funny how this series is so good but he keeps screwing up because he confuses environment with weird 19th century proto-genetic ideas.
Spoiler
And letting go her shift and waiting till Muffat should have done reading, she stood naked. Muffat was reading slowly Fauchery’s article entitled “The Golden Fly,” describing the life of a harlot descended from four or five generations of drunkards and tainted in her blood by a cumulative inheritance of misery and drink, which in her case has taken the form of a nervous exaggeration of the sexual instinct. She has shot up to womanhood in the slums and on the pavements of Paris, and tall, handsome and as superbly grown as a dunghill plant, she avenges the beggars and outcasts of whom she is the ultimate product. With her the rottenness that is allowed to ferment among the populace is carried upward and rots the aristocracy. She becomes a blind power of nature, a leaven of destruction, and unwittingly she corrupts and disorganizes all Paris, churning it between her snow-white thighs as milk is monthly churned by housewives. And it was at the end of this article that the comparison with a fly occurred, a fly of sunny hue which has flown up out of the dung, a fly which sucks in death on the carrion tolerated by the roadside and then buzzing, dancing and glittering like a precious stone enters the windows of palaces and poisons the men within by merely settling on them in her flight.Muffat lifted his head; his eyes stared fixedly; he gazed at the fire.
Spoiler
Nevertheless, some windfalls came in their way now and then in the shape of louis picked up in the society of elegant gentlemen, who slipped their decorations into their pockets as they went upstairs with them. Satin had an especially keen scent for these. On rainy evenings, when the dripping city exhaled an unpleasant odor suggestive of a great untidy bed, she knew that the soft weather and the fetid reek of the town’s holes and corners were sure to send the men mad. And so she watched the best dressed among them, for she knew by their pale eyes what their state was. On such nights it was as though a fit of fleshly madness were passing over Paris. The girl was rather nervous certainly, for the most modish gentlemen were always the most obscene. All the varnish would crack off a man, and the brute beast would show itself, exacting, monstrous in lust, a past master in corruption. But besides being nervous, that trollop of a Satin was lacking in respect. She would blurt out awful things in front of dignified gentlemen in carriages and assure them that their coachmen were better bred than they because they behaved respectfully toward the women and did not half kill them with their diabolical tricks and suggestions. The way in which smart people sprawled head over heels into all the cesspools of vice still caused Nana some surprise, for she had a few prejudices remaining, though Satin was rapidly destroying them.“Well then,” she used to say when talking seriously about the matter, “there’s no such thing as virtue left, is there?”
From one end of the social ladder to the other everybody was on the loose! Good gracious! Some nice things ought to be going on in Paris between nine o’clock in the evening and three in the morning! And with that she began making very merry and declaring that if one could only have looked into every room one would have seen some funny sights—the little people going it head over ears and a good lot of swells, too, playing the swine rather harder than the rest. Oh, she was finishing her education!
Also wish I knew who introduced crops into my country and was able to make dinner table conversation about it:
Spoiler
He talked to them of Parmentier, the introducer of the potato into France. In the evening the dinner was madly gay.Spoiler
Those ancient families, he opined, were worn out and apt to make a stupid ending.“Oh dear no!” said Nana. “It isn’t stupid to burn oneself in one’s stable as he did. For my part, I think he made a dashing finish; but, oh, you know, I’m not defending that story about him and Marechal. It’s too silly. Just to think that Blanche has had the cheek to want to lay the blame of it on me! I said to her: ‘Did I tell him to steal?’ Don’t you think one can ask a man for money without urging him to commit crime? If he had said to me, ‘I’ve got nothing left,’ I should have said to him, ‘All right, let’s part.’ And the matter wouldn’t have gone further.”
About a friend who died when he set his stable on fire with petroleum:
Spoiler
"Vandreuves!Don't mention him! He's extinguished!
Cool fashion:
Spoiler
The ladies complained that they could not recognize more than fifty people. Where did all this crowd spring from? Young girls with low necks were making a great display of their shoulders. A woman had a golden dagger stuck in her chignon, while a bodice thickly embroidered with jet beads clothed her in what looked like a coat of mail.I read the Rascoe translation, but I'm quoting here from the Project Gutenberg one, as it's easier to copy/paste.
Zola is one of the big guys in naturalism, and Nana is one of his most "shocking" books.
I can totally see why Nana would be shocking for Zola's contemporaries. The main character is a prostitute, though she doesn't see herself as one most of the time, and she appears naked throughout the story pretty often. The amount of men that she does (off page, of course) is by the end of the novel probably in the dozens, if not hundreds.
Generally I enjoyed the story, though it was a bit boring and nothing happened, until about three-quarters in. Most of the book we just follow Nana around, seeing her wind some men around her pinky finger, seeing her trying to be something she's not, and basically just doing her prostitute thing with her prostitute friends. This wasn't really the most exciting reading material I've come across, but it was entertaining enough to see the men making utter fools of themselves to get a moment alone with Nana. Then, after about three-hundred pages in, Zola realised that he hadn't made his message clear yet, and he started pounding into our heads that Nana is a disgusting and terrible person that's defiling society.
Truly, as I see it, Nana isn't such a bad person at all. Yes, she's petty. She's a hypocrite. She is utterly childish. But from the first three-hundred pages or so I never had the impression that she meant any harm. She kinda knows what kind of effect she has on men, and of course she flirts with them and sleeps with them at any time she feels like it, but I didn't see anything particularly bad about her. She's very fickle in her affections, but more often than not it felt as if she did feel affectionate for her son or whatever other person that caught her fancy. I wouldn't call her role model of the year, but she didn't seem much worse than the average person. We're all imperfect, though some more than others.
But in the last hundred pages Zola goes all out. From petty and childish Nana turns into a devilish beastly animal for no reason at all. She devours men, sucks them dry, and discards them afterwards. It felt so out of character for her, that I was left wondering what made Nana so bitter. Sure, she always used the men around her, but never with the sole purpose of ruining them like at the end. To show us how disgusted he is with Nana, Zola tells us:
He then proceeds to compare her with a fly spreading germs over society, and making it rot from the inside out. To be honest, I don't think that makes any sense. I found the men at fault, not Nana. She takes advantage of them, yes, but the men in Nana are insanely obsessed with their penises and where to put them in. You can hardly blame a prostitute for men that are crazy enough to sell their entire estates to bring her presents, even though she never blackmails them or forces them into anything.
The society was rotten as it was, it didn't need any Nana-germs to become ruined.
I can totally see why Nana would be shocking for Zola's contemporaries. The main character is a prostitute, though she doesn't see herself as one most of the time, and she appears naked throughout the story pretty often. The amount of men that she does (off page, of course) is by the end of the novel probably in the dozens, if not hundreds.
Generally I enjoyed the story, though it was a bit boring and nothing happened, until about three-quarters in. Most of the book we just follow Nana around, seeing her wind some men around her pinky finger, seeing her trying to be something she's not, and basically just doing her prostitute thing with her prostitute friends. This wasn't really the most exciting reading material I've come across, but it was entertaining enough to see the men making utter fools of themselves to get a moment alone with Nana. Then, after about three-hundred pages in, Zola realised that he hadn't made his message clear yet, and he started pounding into our heads that Nana is a disgusting and terrible person that's defiling society.
Truly, as I see it, Nana isn't such a bad person at all. Yes, she's petty. She's a hypocrite. She is utterly childish. But from the first three-hundred pages or so I never had the impression that she meant any harm. She kinda knows what kind of effect she has on men, and of course she flirts with them and sleeps with them at any time she feels like it, but I didn't see anything particularly bad about her. She's very fickle in her affections, but more often than not it felt as if she did feel affectionate for her son or whatever other person that caught her fancy. I wouldn't call her role model of the year, but she didn't seem much worse than the average person. We're all imperfect, though some more than others.
But in the last hundred pages Zola goes all out. From petty and childish Nana turns into a devilish beastly animal for no reason at all. She devours men, sucks them dry, and discards them afterwards. It felt so out of character for her, that I was left wondering what made Nana so bitter. Sure, she always used the men around her, but never with the sole purpose of ruining them like at the end. To show us how disgusted he is with Nana, Zola tells us:
"...Nana was turning this whole society putrid to the rhythm of her vulgar tune"
He then proceeds to compare her with a fly spreading germs over society, and making it rot from the inside out. To be honest, I don't think that makes any sense. I found the men at fault, not Nana. She takes advantage of them, yes, but the men in Nana are insanely obsessed with their penises and where to put them in. You can hardly blame a prostitute for men that are crazy enough to sell their entire estates to bring her presents, even though she never blackmails them or forces them into anything.
The society was rotten as it was, it didn't need any Nana-germs to become ruined.
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
I don't know what it is about this book, but reading it was disgusting. I would never have done it out of my own volition, but I was made to read it for a class. So sadly, dnfing after the first chapter wasn't an option.
From every single page leaks, frankly, disgusting atmosphere. Reading it was almost physically painful.
From every single page leaks, frankly, disgusting atmosphere. Reading it was almost physically painful.
I utterly hate this book. Its so misogynsitic its unbelievable. It plays into that sterotype that women having any sexual desire, is revolting and ends in destruction, that a women seduces men into doing foolish action by just existing and that they are too blame rather then the men failing to control their lust. Zola blames Nana for everything which occurs in the novel and tortures her in the end with small pox. If we actually look at Nana actions up to perhaps 3/4 into this book, she really doesnt do anything all that wrong, men lust over her, and give her things and go crazy for her, but that isnt really her fault thats their doing, i mean she never says to any of the men that she will be faithful.Its also made stranger when you consider she is 18 and these men are middle age. Of course he potrays her as evil in the end but that is Zola doing. Zola's naturalism, is really just presuming and cliche, Is it really scientific that all prostitutes are evil man-hating manipulative animals, he doesn't actually see what it's like for these women doesnt offer them any sympathy, its not true to life in the 19th century at all. This is not all his fault though because i think its based on what the other stories he was told by other. But its very obvious Zola has some hatred for women and strange sexual frustration. I understand that this was written in 1880 so thats all to be expected but the fact that i see little critique of this today is a bit horrible. Theres also a horrible line which is like shes more prettyafter being slapped. ugh. Theres a bit of a lesbian love affair in this which is quite fun but of course its all fetished and that ruins it all. I hate this book and I dont really understand the people who like it honestly.
Loved this book, long long ago. Made me familiar with the drains in Paris...
It was a realistic, but a cruel look at a woman who was a force of nature, who did what she wanted and died a bad death for it. It was a very hard read.
Originally published on my blog here in February 2002.
Because of its film versions (which are considerably toned down) and its controversial subject matter, Nana is Zola's best known novel. One of his series Les Rougon-Macquart, which together amounts to a study of heredity, Nana is the story of a prostitute in Paris just before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
The portrait painted of this part of Parisian society is neither cheerful nor romanticised (as it was, for example, in Dumas' [b: Dame aux Camélias|7186|La Dame aux Camélias|Alexandre Dumas-fils|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1165607713s/7186.jpg|6843073] about thirty years earlier). Nana herself, who was a child character in [b:L'Assommoir|92967|L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop) (Les Rougon-Macquart, #7)|Émile Zola|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309282204s/92967.jpg|741363], has nothing going for her except beauty; she is stupid, vulgar, greedy, vain and capricious, a product of the worst slums of the city. She at least has the excuse that she is the inevitable result of her background, but the remainder of Zola's characters are no more pleasant. The members of high society are hedonistic hypocrites who are rushing headlong to their downfall (the Prussian invasion being given a moral dimension by the author). In the meantime, they are oblivious to the suffering they cause and to the mental and physical consequences of their actions, not to mention the degrading nature of the pleasures they seek. (Even though venereal diseases are not mentioned, their corruption is indirectly part of the novel, particularly towards the end.) Even the church is involved (in a depiction controversial at the time), waiting to garner those crumbs not wasted, rushing Nana's lover Count Muffat off the moment he repents and shows signs of wanting to return to the fold.
Zola's writing was extremely shocking in its day, with its strong emphasis on the unpleasant and unglamourous side of life; parts of Nana are still not an enjoyable read and it is unrelentingly bleak. The underbelly of nineteenth century life was a theme for several of its authors, notably [a:Charles Dickens|239579|Charles Dickens|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1357465042p2/239579.jpg] in English, but Zola differs from the others in at least two ways. As I have already implied, his self-publicised emphasis on "realism" basically meant that the details of life over which a veil had previously been drawn now became the centre of attention. He is much more uninhibited than earlier authors. (His claim that his writing is more realistic is actually not quite true.) The other difference is that writers like Dickens and [a:Elizabeth Gaskell|1413437|Elizabeth Gaskell|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1223499865p2/1413437.jpg] were trying to change things; they wrote to campaign. Zola exaggerated society's ills for other reasons, for an artistic purpose, for the fascination of the exercise. (This is one reason why the novels are set a decades or so in the past rather than in the present favoured by the English writers mentioned above.)
Because of its film versions (which are considerably toned down) and its controversial subject matter, Nana is Zola's best known novel. One of his series Les Rougon-Macquart, which together amounts to a study of heredity, Nana is the story of a prostitute in Paris just before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
The portrait painted of this part of Parisian society is neither cheerful nor romanticised (as it was, for example, in Dumas' [b: Dame aux Camélias|7186|La Dame aux Camélias|Alexandre Dumas-fils|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1165607713s/7186.jpg|6843073] about thirty years earlier). Nana herself, who was a child character in [b:L'Assommoir|92967|L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop) (Les Rougon-Macquart, #7)|Émile Zola|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309282204s/92967.jpg|741363], has nothing going for her except beauty; she is stupid, vulgar, greedy, vain and capricious, a product of the worst slums of the city. She at least has the excuse that she is the inevitable result of her background, but the remainder of Zola's characters are no more pleasant. The members of high society are hedonistic hypocrites who are rushing headlong to their downfall (the Prussian invasion being given a moral dimension by the author). In the meantime, they are oblivious to the suffering they cause and to the mental and physical consequences of their actions, not to mention the degrading nature of the pleasures they seek. (Even though venereal diseases are not mentioned, their corruption is indirectly part of the novel, particularly towards the end.) Even the church is involved (in a depiction controversial at the time), waiting to garner those crumbs not wasted, rushing Nana's lover Count Muffat off the moment he repents and shows signs of wanting to return to the fold.
Zola's writing was extremely shocking in its day, with its strong emphasis on the unpleasant and unglamourous side of life; parts of Nana are still not an enjoyable read and it is unrelentingly bleak. The underbelly of nineteenth century life was a theme for several of its authors, notably [a:Charles Dickens|239579|Charles Dickens|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1357465042p2/239579.jpg] in English, but Zola differs from the others in at least two ways. As I have already implied, his self-publicised emphasis on "realism" basically meant that the details of life over which a veil had previously been drawn now became the centre of attention. He is much more uninhibited than earlier authors. (His claim that his writing is more realistic is actually not quite true.) The other difference is that writers like Dickens and [a:Elizabeth Gaskell|1413437|Elizabeth Gaskell|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1223499865p2/1413437.jpg] were trying to change things; they wrote to campaign. Zola exaggerated society's ills for other reasons, for an artistic purpose, for the fascination of the exercise. (This is one reason why the novels are set a decades or so in the past rather than in the present favoured by the English writers mentioned above.)
J'ai adoré celui-là... quel personnage... et quelle époque!
http://moncoinlecture.com/2017/05/nana-emile-zola/
http://moncoinlecture.com/2017/05/nana-emile-zola/