Original Publication Date: 1883
Genre:
Nineteenth Century Literature
Topics:
Human behavior, love, shopping (!) Review by : Liz Inskip-Paulk (www.ravingreader.wordpress.com)
As we’ve been enjoying the PBS Masterpiece series on Sundays
featuring “The Paradise”, I picked up Zola’s book upon which this series was
based. (To be honest, when I first started reading the original version, it
became pretty confusing as there are some significant differences between the
book and the TV version [naturellement],
but with the names kept the same… I got it sorted out after a bit, but at
first, it was really perplexing.) In the end, I decided that the TV series
based was based only slightly on the original – there were loads of differences
from one to the other, but both are good in different ways.)
This book is a long multi-volume series that Zola wrote
about a family (and its offshoots) as it goes through generations in France in
the mid-nineteenth century. (However, this volume works well as a good
stand-alone story as I hadn’t read any of the original set prior to this.) The
plot revolves around a large department store in Paris, and was based on the
real Bon Marche store, one of the first department stores in real life at that
time. (Previously, most stores only specialized in one thing: umbrellas, bread,
tailoring, milliner, butcher etc.) When the Industrial Revolution arrived, it
led to factories mass-producing cheaper goods which also contributed to the
downfall of these very small shops.
As the book progresses, The Ladies’ Paradise as (the
department store is named) is growing with Mouret, the young manager at its
helm. Alongside him are his employees, his suppliers, and of course his
customers, all of whom intersect and around whom the story evolves. Mouret is
deeply ambitious and wants to grow his business as to be as big and successful
as he possibly can, often putting business before other considerations
(including his love life). In fact, business to Mouret is seen through a
parallel lens as others viewed religion:
His creation was producing a new religion; churches…were
being deserted by those of wavering faith, were being replaced by his bazaar…”
Mouret often espouses his goal of using his business to
reach the end result of “owning Woman” through his strategy of selling almost
every product possible that “Woman” would want. This huge selection of wares
attracts all classes of women from around Paris and afar, and via the old
theory of Supply and Demand, Mouret takes their money whilst still leaving them
wanting for more. Perhaps not the newest idea nowadays, but back then, it was
legendary and new and this was the first time that the city had seen all these
things available for sale under one roof.
Along with Mouret’s desire to be a very successful
businessman, his other desire is for women and in particular, one specific
woman – Denise Baudu. But can his money and business acumen convince her to
love him back?....
Zola was a writer (and the self-proclaimed leader) of the
Naturalist school of thought which was all about writing very clearly and
realistically about social problems facing people who lived in the city:
poverty, slums, filth, sickness… Zola really saw his writing as a focus to
bring attention to problems that the typical reader would rather not look at –
a verbal written documentary of a kind, you might say.
Despite this serious tone, the plot rattles along with the
speed of the train and with the machinations of a soap opera and, if I’m
honest, there are places which are terribly overwritten at times. Despite this,
the writing seems to work as it could be argued to reflect the gilded
extravagance of the shop and the idea of over-the-top luxury it sells as needs
to its customers. The description of the store as it grows over time are
gloriously detailed (reminded me of Dickens’ writing at times), and, when
combined with the drama of the store stuff and that of the local neighborhood inhabitants,
makes a very rich story indeed.
So, in case you haven’t picked this up so far, I really
enjoyed this read. As mentioned before, this volume is part of a huge long
series, but as I’m not a series kinda person for most of the time, that’s not
for me. However, I would pick up another stand-alone volume by Zola at some
point in the future.
One note: there was a character in this volume called Madame
DesFarges which I found *slightly* confusing as the Mme. Desfarges that I kept
seeing in my head was the rebellious she from Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities (1859). Zola’s was written in 1883 so he must
have been aware of this character.
1789 – French Revolution with storming of the Bastille
1789 – Queen Marie Antoinette gets guillotine
1803 – France sold Louisiana to USA
1804 – Napoleon comes to power
1815 – Battle of Waterloo (marks the start of almost 50
years of peace throughout Europe as there had been loads of wars all over the
place up until this point)
1815 Napoleon sent
to exile; King Louis XVII comes to power.
1831 - First clearly
defined worker uprising of Industrial Revolution
1848 – French revolution against monarchy à Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte starts as President of French Republic
1851 – Louis Napoleon Bonaparte becomes dictator
1863-56 – Crimean War (France and Britain against Russa)
1870 – Franco-Prussian War (start of ongoing war with Russia
for ages). Paris captured by Prussian forces à
Napoleon outed and goes into exile. Much general unrest due to Republicanism
vs. Monarchism parties.
1871 – Riots in Paris streets over resentment against
right-wing government à
new President (Adolphe Tiers).
1883 – This was when The Ladies Paradise was published. Zola
was politically liberal which led him to be against the tough right-wing
government.
Download The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola at Project Gutenberg/Unavailable at Librivox.
