description: Part One Of Two Parts The publication of one of Zola's finest novels in his Les Rougon-Macquart series caused shock and outrage. Flaubert cheered and the French aristocracy shuddered. Zola, with power comparable to French Impressionist art, portrays the glistening world of the Second French Empire where prostitution plays a pivotal role at all levels of a pleasure-loving culture. An adolescent Nana captures Paris in a single stage performance with her voluptuous presence and eventually becomes empress of the demi-monde--a "golden fly" rising from the dung of her origins to feed on an ever-increasing cult of adoring disciples worshipping at her altar of sex. Nana's career is a ferment of waste and destruction; a metaphor of the moral disintegration of French society as it poisoned from within. And Nana dies, like the empire, at the height of her youth and triumph.
language: English
title: Nana Part 1 Of 2
titlecomplete: Nana Part 1 Of 2
characters: Count Muffat, Philippe Hugon, Nana Coupeau
genres: Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, France, Roman, Historical Fiction, French Literature, Fiction, Romance
ratings_count: 24266
places: Paris
series: Les Rougon-Macquart
publisher: Books on Tape, Inc.