Nana (original 1880; edition 1950)

In Nana, Emile Zola portrays the vices of Paris during the Second Empire. Degenerating Parisians are symbolized through Nana. Nana is immorality. Her actions are the actions of all Parisian’s. When she dies, it symbolizes the death of Parisian morality. Zola handles this fascinating metaphor brilliantly. Overall, parts of Nana read tediously. As a Naturalist, extreme realism was central to the development of Zola’s work. Therefore, details are intentional. The result is a novel that reads like visual imagery. A stream of colors, textures, sounds, and so forth, flow through the readers mind as the story unfolds. Zola takes the reader for a vicarious walk through the streets, homes, restaurants and bars of 19th century Paris. We experience the theater, grand and illicit parties, and the Grand Prix de Paris. It is both captivating and disturbing. The trick to understanding and enjoying Zola is to not sleep through or be overwhelmed by the details of his writing, but to be absorbed by them. In effect, be a part of them. Only then can one fully appreciate the scope, skill and creativity of Zola’s work. ( )

מתחיל מעצבן. המון אנשים שממש קשה להבדיל ביניהם ופר​טי פרטים של תיאורים. ההמשך טוב יותר. למעשה סדרת תמ​ונות של פריז על כל מעמדותיה ושחיתותה בסוף המאה התש​ע עשרה שהמשותף לכולם זה זונת הצמרת נאנה. עדיין ארו​ך מדי ופרטני מדי והדמויות קרטוניות מדי.​ ( )

Zola's tale of the lives of participants in and patrons of the Theatre des Varieties in 19th century France strikes me as incredibly realistic. His scenes are incredibly detailed and full of characters. At times the book was slow and a bit monotonous -- I'm not sure I really want to read about a dinner party which even the attendees proclaim is boring -- but is very valuable for the slice of historical life that is revealed to a modern reader. ( )

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. It is published as a classic and it is on the 1001 Books to Read before you Die list so I thought it might be something like a Dickens novel or perhaps Thomas Hardy. It was like a work from both those writers but also unlike.

Nana is a sometime actress but mostly makes her living by prostitution. When the book opens she is appearing in a play as Venus. Her first appearance on stage is described thus:
Very tall and well-built for her eighteen years, in her goddess's white tunic, and with her long fair hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, Nana came down towards the footlights with quiet self-assurance.
At first the audience is less than impressed as her voice was horrible and her acting as bad. However, some of the young men in the audience, who didn't care about her ability to act but were taken by her looks, started clapping. Later in the play when she appears almost naked, the crowd is transfixed and Nana is a star.

Nana remains a fixture in the demi-monde of Paris for about 3 years although she goes from the heights to the depths of that world at least twice. A number of men fall for her passionately and, it seems, she can never refuse any of them. She also has a lesbian lover and her male lovers must make way when she decides to spend an evening with her. Several of her male lovers bankrupt themselves to provide Nana what she wants.

Of course, we know from the beginning that this is going to end badly for Nana. The specifics I will leave for the next reader to discover.

There is certainly similarities between this book and those of Dickens and Hardy (writers that I am more familiar with). In fact, I found one paper that compared Tess of the D'Urbervilles to Zola's Germinal. Zola and Hardy were even born in the same year, 1840. However, Zola's explicit use of sex is something that would have shocked Hardy's readers I believe. In fact, many modern writers are more restrained than Zola in describing certain liaisons.

Will I read more of Zola? I'm not sure. I found this book to be quite compelling but I'm not sure I want to explore that world more fully. ( )

Who is Nana? Is she a daughter of the working class Parisian slums who rose to fame and fortune by selling her body and using her wiles? Is she a woman who exploited and was exploited by men? Is she a woman who sought happiness and never really knew how to find it? Is she a symbol of the excesses of greed and financial and sexual exhibitionism of the Second Empire? In fact, she is all of these.

I was interested in reading Nana after meeting her as the willful and wayward daughter of Gervaise and Coupeau in L'Assommoir -- and because it may well be Zola's most read novel. Shocking in its sexual frankness at the time it was written, much of it is still shocking today, not in the lack of the kind of graphic descriptions we now regularly read, but in the overtness and ubiquity of the search for and payment for sex.

At the beginning of the novel, Nana is appearing on the stage of a somewhat down-at-the-heels theater that is presenting an operetta loosely based on the amorous intrigues of the Greek gods. Despite her lack of singing or acting talent, she is an immediate success because her extremely shapely body is displayed leaving very little to the imagination and because she has a real but undefinable presence. Soon, men of means and noble status are chasing her and eager to pay her bills. As the novel progresses, the reader follows the ups and downs of Nana's career as a kept woman, her search for love, her search for money, and her search for fame. Her many lovers are introduced, as are the women in the theatrical and kept woman circuits, and even some "respectable" women.

Zola is at the peak of his abilities in this novel, not only vividly depicting the world of the theater and the varied characters, but also creating such completely believable set pieces as an aristocratic party, a party of the theater/demimonde set, high society horse races, life in country houses, and a lesbian bar/restaurant. His descriptions of the finances and decor of Nana's various homes, including an incredibly ostentatious bed that is made for her, her obsessions with various lovers, and the intrigues she's involved in all are compelling. There is much more to this book too, as it examines the theater, street prostitution, the influence of the Catholic church, and the corruptibility of even the "respectable" woman. Yet . . . Zola can pile it on so thick that some of it just doesn't seem believable. And that's why I think he wrote it partly as a metaphor for the decadence and corruption of the Second Empire, an empire that, as the novel ends, is on its way to falling after defeat in the looming Franco-Prussian war.

Finally, from the perspective of the 21st century and feminism, it is easy to look at the lives of kept women such as Nana as artifacts of the past. And yet, men of power and money still seek out attractive and showy woman, still spend their money to demonstrate how much they have, still buy and furnish huge homes, and so on. Plus ça change . . .