Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9) (Penguin Classics)

by Émile Zola, George Holden (Translator)
Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9) (Penguin Classics)
book data
978 ratings, 3.77 average rating, 74 reviews (more data...)
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published
September 30th 1972 by Penguin Classics (first published 1880)

details
Paperback, 470 pages

isbn
0140442634    (isbn13: 9780140442632)

description
Nana opens in 1867, the year of the World Fair, when Paris, thronged by a cosmopolitan elite, was a perfect target for Zola's scathing denunciation of…more


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Bob
May 11, 2007
Bob rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 22660729)

Read in October, 2007
It started with my admission (principally to myself, though I placed it on my blog, which means principally to myself) that I didn't know the difference between realism and naturalism - still figuring it out, but I think naturalism means you don't have to have a plot.
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Jason
Aug 19, 2009
Jason rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Read in August, 2009
I get it--Nana rose from a fetid pile of garbage and alighted arbitrarily on the upper crust of Parisian society, staining it.

I get it--Nana exposed the myriad faces of man's desires, disgracing them.

I get it--Nana digested men wholly and selfishly, wildly prostituting herself.

I get it, but only in the last couple hundred pages. I'm an ardent fan of Emile Zola, especially the 20 part Les Rougan-Macquart series. His writing is powerful. However, the first 200...more
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Abailart
Jun 03, 2008
Abailart rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

bookshelves: fiction
Read in June, 2008
Joy unlimited. A long, long time ago my kindly Headmaster recommended I broaden my reading prior to university, and gave me Germinal. I read it somewhat dutifully and marked as done, a knowledge of Zola. Now, man years later, I can read at last. And this book that has been staring from my shelf for years has bombed me out. Nana is a carbonated torrent of the most high speed and energetic writing I have come across. Decay, decadence, death, power, class, cruelty, the brilliant equation of the mus...more
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Manny
Mar 25, 2009
Manny rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 2070423573)

Read in January, 2004
You've heard of The Hooker With A Heart Of Gold? Well, this is the other kind.
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Mandy
Jan 04, 2009
Mandy rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in July, 2008
Nana is one of the best characters in literature I believe, since she has all the flaws one looks for in ourselves despite being a courtesan. The book details beautifully the Haussmannisation in Paris and the emergence of prostitution as a result in the 19th century.

It was a fantastic read for me as I had just studied this period in art history and the details were all easy for me to understand.

What makes Nana so appealing is the fact that she goes from being a no one to...more
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Helynne
May 22, 2009
Helynne rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1604240350)

Read in July, 1998
This novel was probably a pioneer in the genre of the otherwise intelligent man who becomes pathetically and pathologically obsessed with a mediocre woman (in the vein of Of Human Bondage, Lolita, Damage etc.,) In the film The Life of Emile Zola starring Paul Muni as Zola, an early scene shows young Zola surprised and delighted at the unexpected success of his early novel, Nana. The scene implies that this work is a sympathetic rendering of the life of the typical Parisian prostitute. This...more
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theduckthief
Jun 14, 2008
theduckthief rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Read in July, 2008
recommends it for: people who liked "Lorna Doone"
"Everyone has been harassing me with Nana ever since this morning. I've met over twenty people and it's been nothing but Nana this and Nana that! How should I know anything about her? Do you think I know every girl in Paris? Nana is one of Bordenave's discoveries. She must be something magnificent!" - page 2

The Good:

Nana is the discovery of Bordenave, manager of the Variety Theatre and plays the role of Venus in the operetta "La belle Helene". She does...more
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Jeff
Mar 22, 2008
Jeff rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Read in April, 2008
recommended to Jeff by: Ryan Chaffee
zola describe the "philosophical subject" of _nana_ as "a whole society rushing to get sex," and for the first hundred pages the book is exactly that simple in its Second Empire moral muckraking and denunciation of upper-class hypocrisy; the women, regardless of their occupation (though most are idle rich or actresses), are quite literally prostitutes, sleeping with rich men in exchange for gifts, money, estates, etc., while their husbands not only acquiesce but operate as vi...more
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J.T. Oldfield
From my review:

Nana is the story of a not-so-bright woman who makes it big on the stage, not through any singing or acting ability, but wiggling her divine ass in a shear dress. The men go wild. She is courted by everyone, everyone, and the highest bidder gets to be her boyfriend. Once she’s depleted his resources, she moves on to the next guy. More than one dude actually kills himself over her.

Read the whole review here: http://bibliofreakblog.com/fiction/nana-......more
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Quinn
Aug 23, 2009
Quinn rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Read in September, 2009
Zola's eugenic theories--carried through the Rougon-Macquart series--airbrush patriarchy with biology and nowhere is the sheen brighter than in Nana. Rather than the prostitute as symptom of general poverty and gendered legal inequality (women were considered minors under the Code Napoleon) in industrializing Paris, she is taken as the cause of the city's ills. Nana is Zola's aetiology of Second Empire decadence, and the eponymous courtesan is, in his words, the "golden fly" on its s...more
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Judith
Nov 18, 2009
Judith rated it: 1 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3442075955)

I don't know if I gave this book a fair shake because it was so annoying I had to stop reading it after 50 pages or so. All the women were described as "sluts" and "whores". All the men were drooling boors. And the author's tone seemed to be one of a madly gesticulating Frenchman flippantly dismissing various sexual escapades as if to say, "ah yes, sex is so boring. but what else is there to talk about?"
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Aaron
Feb 10, 2009
Aaron rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2009
Without a bookclub pulling me along, I never would have finished this. It took more than half the book for it to gain momentum and pull me forward, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. Any book that employs the words "scrofulous" and "crapulous" is good for me.

I might recommend a different translation. I found parts of this one too passive-voice.
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Susanna
Sep 28, 2008
Susanna rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Read in October, 2008
If you can get past the rampant misogyny and heavy-handed symbolism, Nana is a good book.
The narrative starts out slowly, but builds consistently through a bombardment of scenes of aristocratic depravity. The women here are only after power through their lovers, and Nana tops them all, dragging man after man into the depths of poverty and degradation sheerly through the allure of her sensuality. She drives men mad!! She sleeps with everyone, man and woman alike, young and old, and discard...more
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Annlikesred
Dec 27, 2008
Annlikesred rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

I was reading Extras last night and the popular girl's name was Nana and it reminded me of this book. I know it meant something to me 20 years ago, but I can't remember what...other than it reminds me of the store Nana in the Village in NY where my friends worked.
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Holly
Aug 28, 2009
Holly rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Really loved this book (read in French). Zola is another amazing French author who makes French literature so much more acessible. Hope to read all 'Les Rougon-Macquart' books. Nana is an unforgetable character, easily compared to Becky Sharp of "Vanity Fair".
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Maureen
May 07, 2009
Maureen rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

Read in May, 2009
It took me a little while to get into this book, particularly because I originally found the writing style of Zola and/or his translator a bit tedious, but overall I enjoyed it.
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Cassiel
Mar 22, 2008
Cassiel rated it: 1 of 5 stars (review of isbn 3746611091)

bookshelves: 2008, classic
My curiosity is now satisfied, and I doubt that I will ever read another book by Zola.

Even given the Victorian era in which the book was written, the obsession with morality is surprising.

As long as he remains an observer and recorder, Zola's writing is impressive; evocative descriptions of 19th century Paris and the people of its underworld. The instant he lets his prejudices show, the writing deteriorates into diatribes about the holy penis vs. the diabolical vagina. ...more
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Cindi
Jun 27, 2009
Cindi is currently reading it (review of isbn 3746611091)

bookshelves: currently-reading
I keep a copy of this book in the original French by my bedstand. Sometimes, I'll read a page or two right before I fall asleep. The progress is slow coming.
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Pris robichaud
Read in January, 2008


Nana is a "realistic" Novel for the studious of the late XIX Century France. Nana the courtesan, is an analogy for the times.
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Gabrielle
Feb 23, 2009
Gabrielle rated it: 4 of 5 stars

What Can I say, I love reading Zola's thought provoking novels that are an interesting comment on the times through the lives of common people. This was the second book of Zola's that I read, the first Therese Racquin. This is a bold story about Nana, a prostitute in France in the late 1800's. A true classic.
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Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9)
Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9)
Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9)
Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9)
Nana (Les Rougon-Macquart, #9) (Letras Universales)





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