One of the founders of literary naturalism, Émile Zola thought of his novels as a form of scientific research into the effects of heredity and environment. He created characters, gave them richly detailed histories, and placed them in carefully observed, precisely described environments, and his readers watch as they wriggle and thrash toward their inevitable destinies.
In Nana, the characters are a prostitute, who rises from the streets to become what Zola calls a “high-class cocotte,” and the men—and women—whom she loves, betrays, and destroys. Among the novel’s many ironies is the mutual envy felt by Nana and those around her. She yearns for their material possessions, while they admire her apparent independence and sexual self-confidence. And despite the chaos Nana causes, Zola imagines her as being essentially “good-natured,” a stupid, vain, but beautiful creature who can’t help drawing people into her web.
Not surprisingly, Nana’s portrait of a decadent world in which a prostitute amasses great wealth and power provoked protests from “polite society,” and it became one of Zola’s most controversial works. Today it is regarded as his masterpiece.(Goodreads)
My thought
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.
Nana is the story of an Aphrodite-like seductive actress who ruins men's lives with her charm, greed and thoughtless selfishness. Though a second-rate at best, Nana's beauty captivates her audience and propels her fame. Men lavish gifts, and she becomes the mistress to several married men, but she is always penniless and in debt despite her extravagant lifestyle. In the end, she dies of smallpox and her decayed soul finally shows through her perfect exterior. This is a fabulous tale of the perils to which a soul infected with excess, lust and greed can infest the world around them. The storyline does move rather slowly, but Zola's stories usually take the long route to fruition.
This was an interesting and intense read, largely due to the ambiguous nature of Nana. She wants nothing more than respect, to be a woman of high society but it is something she will never achieve. She is always on the brink of poverty even when surrounded by such splendor and living in a palace and, yet, Nana is never seemed to be worried about it. Things are so easily given to her and, again, easily taken away and this occurs to the extreme.
The chapters are long so it is not a book you can simply pick up and put down.
For the first 2/3 of the story, it was interesting enough and I didn't mind Nana - I inevitably root for the fallen woman in these stories - by the end of the book she's just this total evil heartless machine that eats all the men and women in her path and destroys them. It got boring.
Zola lays it on pretty thick here, and maybe that is why I had such a hard time getting through the last 100 pages.
Summary
Sexuality, class divisions, theatre and parties like you can't find anymore, all in nineteenth century Paris. Nana, I think, could give anyone something to consider about their way of going about through the world as a person trying to find a place, with often only one's charms to aid them.
Reading level
Adult
Rating
3 stars
