Title: Nana
Description: Overview: Prompted by his theories of heredity and environment, Zola set out to show Nana, "the golden fly", rising out of the underworld to feed on society--a predetermined product of her origins. Nana's latent destructiveness is mirrored in the Empire's, and they reflect each others' disintegration and final collapse in 1890. Built around the book's scientific skeleton is a powerful, sensual atmosphere and a rich use of words which elevate the novel beyond the realistic platform into a "poem of male desires." Part of Zola's famed Rougon-Macquart series of novels, this is the portrait of the scandal of Parisian society--Nana, a goddess of love who ruthlessly uses her sexuality to obtain wealth and to send her ruined lovers to the gutter from which she ascended. A tragic heroine ranking with Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary. Originally published in 1880, this is a new edition.
Subjects: French fiction, Classic Literature, Fiction, Prostitution in fiction, Hamburg., Prostitue, call-girl, Young women in fiction, decadent France. Cover: Detail from Nana by Edouard Manet (1877) in the Kunsthalle, Young women, Social conditions, Prostitutes, Social life and customs, French literature, Romans, Moeurs et coutumes, Litterature française, Roman français, Manners and customs, Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, general, France, fiction, African Americans, Education, Translations into English, Illustraties, Frans
Places: Paris, France
Time periods: 19th century