Editors Reads Verdict
Zola's most extravagant novel — the vision of Second Empire Paris as a world of spectacular surface and moral rot, symbolised by Nana herself. The theatrical settings (the theatre, the racecourse, the brothel) are brilliantly evoked, and Nana is one of the most complex female figures in nineteenth-century fiction.
What We Loved
- The theatrical and social settings — the Variety Theatre, the Longchamp racecourse — are rendered with documentary vividness
- Nana is a more complex character than the femme fatale archetype suggests — her power over men is depicted alongside her own vulnerability
- The structural parallel between Nana and the corrupt Second Empire regime is developed with genuine consistency
Minor Drawbacks
- The male characters who ruin themselves for Nana are less interesting than she is
- Nana's agency is constrained by the naturalist framework — she is partly a product of heredity and environment, which complicates the 'powerful woman' reading
Key Takeaways
- → Nana is Zola's symbol of the Second Empire's decadence — her rise and the regime's corruption are structurally parallel
- → The novel opens at the theatre — the world of spectacle and illusion — which is also the world of Nana herself: all surface, all performance
- → The ending, where Nana dies of smallpox as the crowds outside shout 'To Berlin!' on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, collapses the personal and historical catastrophes into one
| Author | Émile Zola |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Penguin Classics |
| Pages | 480 |
| Published | January 1, 1880 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Classic, Literary Fiction |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle and European naturalism — best read after Germinal or L'Assommoir for context. |
The Theatre
The novel opens on a first night at the Variety Theatre. Nana, eighteen, making her debut — untrained, barely able to sing — reduces the house to silence when she appears virtually naked in the third act. She is not talented. She is simply, overwhelmingly present. The audience’s response is the novel’s opening argument: male Paris will ruin itself for this girl, and it is not her fault that it will.
Nana is the daughter of Gervaise Macquart, whose story is told in L’Assommoir — a novel about alcoholism and working-class poverty. The Rougon-Macquart cycle follows a family across twenty novels; Nana moves from the working-class ruin of L’Assommoir to the glittering corruption of the Second Empire’s upper strata.
The Structural Parallel
Zola’s narrative strategy is to make Nana and the Second Empire mirror each other. Both are spectacularly brilliant on the surface and rotten beneath. The men who ruin themselves for Nana — aristocrats, financiers, theatre directors — are the same men who sustain a regime built on showmanship and corruption. The Franco-Prussian War that ends the regime also ends the novel.
Our rating: 4.1/5 — Zola’s most extravagant novel — Second Empire Paris as spectacle and rot, with Nana at its centre.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Nana" about?
Nana, daughter of the Lantier-Maheu family from L'Assommoir, rises from the Parisian slums to become the most celebrated courtesan of the Second Empire. Men ruin themselves for her; she ruins them. A study of female power and its relationship to the corruption of the Bonapartist regime.
Who should read "Nana"?
Readers of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle and European naturalism — best read after Germinal or L'Assommoir for context.
What are the key takeaways from "Nana"?
Nana is Zola's symbol of the Second Empire's decadence — her rise and the regime's corruption are structurally parallel The novel opens at the theatre — the world of spectacle and illusion — which is also the world of Nana herself: all surface, all performance The ending, where Nana dies of smallpox as the crowds outside shout 'To Berlin!' on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, collapses the personal and historical catastrophes into one
Is "Nana" worth reading?
Zola's most extravagant novel — the vision of Second Empire Paris as a world of spectacular surface and moral rot, symbolised by Nana herself. The theatrical settings (the theatre, the racecourse, the brothel) are brilliantly evoked, and Nana is one of the most complex female figures in nineteenth-century fiction.
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