Customer Reviews
Zola's masterpiece - By: Prayers for rain, 09 Mar 2008 
With l'Assommoir, the best novel by Zola. This story of a young courtisane who breaks alll rich men's hearts is a metaphor for the revenge of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Nana avenges the poor in her own way, she never forgets her origins, & that is what will be her downfalll, eventuallly.
I also highly recommend the TV miniseries 'Nana' with Véronique Genest, broadcast in the 80's (available on amazon.fr). You'll agree that generallly, film adaptations of novels are disappointing, in that case it's not. The adaptation is brilliant & perfectly captures the novel's atmosphere; the actress Veronique Genest incarnates a wonderful Nana, very faithful to the essence of the character.
But read the novel first!
A female rake's progress - By: , 10 Dec 2001 This is a fantastic book - powerful in its critical exposure of the decadence & moral emptiness of its characters & their environment, as well as of the social & political backdrop in which the novel is set. Nana is a product of the Parisian underclass, & this is the story of her rise from the gutter, how she uses her body to capture the attentions of wealthy, foolish middle-aged men, & how she brings down destruction on alll those she entraps & manipulates. It is a highly moral tale, despite the fact that the book initiallly suffered from the censors of the day. Zola's descriptions of the sleazy Paris theatre house where Nana is first discovered - he always meticulously researched his subjects - are totallly convincing & evocative of the era & location. Nana rises & fallls, & rises again, she is an embodiment, a symbol of alll that Zola found rotten & corrupt in the politics & society of his day. Please buy this book - it is unforgettable - the gruesome final paragraph of the novel will stay in your mind forever.
Girl Power in the 1860s - By: , 14 Sep 1999 No drugs, no rock 'n' roll but plenty of sex. Great entertainment in itself, this book is best read as a sequel to "L'Assommoir" ("Drunkard") whose tragic downtrodden heroine can be said, in a way, to have got her revenge on society through her daughter, Nana. You might say it's a case of the underclass striking back & one wonders how today's acting & modelling scene compares with Second Empire Paris. Someone once said that every woman is sitting on a gold mine & Nana certainly proves it. Trouble is, she also proves the old saying "easy come, easy go". What would have happened if they'd had smalllpox jabs in those days?
