Il Paradiso delle Signore

Les Rougon-Macquart #11

by Émile Zola, Anna Bucarelli (Translator)

Due trame si intrecciano in questo «poema dell'attività moderna»: l'inarrestabile ascesa dell'imprenditore Octave Mouret grazie al successo commerciale del suo grande magazzino di stoffe "Il Paradiso delle Signore" ("Au Bonheur des Dames"); e la delicata vicenda della giovane Denise, umile commessa che grazie alla sua fermezza riuscirà a conquistare il datore di lavoro. Il Paradiso delle Signore, epopea del capitalismo commerciale e profetica raffigurazione del consumismo, è uno dei romanzi più belli e moderni del XIX secolo per la sensualità con cui descrive il fascino conturbante delle merci, ma anche la loro dispotica, alienante disumanità.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, France, French Literature, Historical Fiction, 19th Century, Romance

540 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1883

About the author

Émile Zola was a prominent French novelist, journalist, and playwright widely regarded as a key figure in the development of literary naturalism. His work profoundly influenced both literature and society through its commitment to depicting reality with scientific objectivity and exploring the impact of environment and heredity on human behavior. Born and raised in France, Zola experienced early personal hardship following the death of his father, which deeply affected his understanding of social and economic struggles—a theme that would later permeate his writings.
Zola began his literary career working as a clerk for a publishing house, where he developed his skills and cultivated a passion for literature. His early novels, such as Thérèse Raquin, gained recognition for their intense psychological insight and frank depiction of human desires and moral conflicts. However, it was his monumental twenty-volume series, Les Rougon-Macquart, that established his lasting reputation. This cycle of novels offered a sweeping examination of life under the Second French Empire, portraying the lives of a family across generations and illustrating how hereditary traits and social conditions shape individuals’ destinies. The series embodies the naturalist commitment to exploring human behavior through a lens informed by emerging scientific thought.
Beyond his literary achievements, Zola was a committed social and political activist. His involvement in the Dreyfus Affair is one of the most notable examples of his dedication to justice. When Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted of treason, Zola published his famous open letter, J’Accuse…!, which condemned the French military and government for corruption and anti-Semitism. This act of courage led to his prosecution and temporary exile but played a crucial role in eventual justice for Dreyfus and exposed deep divisions in French society.
Zola’s personal life was marked by both stability and complexity. He married Éléonore-Alexandrine Meley, who managed much of his household affairs, and later had a long-term relationship with Jeanne Rozerot, with whom he fathered two children. Throughout his life, Zola remained an incredibly prolific writer, producing not only novels but also essays, plays, and critical works that investigated the intersections between literature, science, and society.
His legacy continues to resonate for its profound impact on literature and for his fearless commitment to social justice. Zola’s work remains essential reading for its rich narrative detail, social critique, and pioneering approach to the realistic portrayal of human life. His role in the Dreyfus Affair stands as a powerful example of the intellectual’s responsibility to speak truth to power.

Reviews

[Petra's updates are all blocked · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two stories, one the coming of the modern world, capitalism and consumerism, and the other, the poor peasant girl marries money. An alternative title could be All About Shopping.

It is interesting to see how the shop assistants in the first department store in Paris (the Ladies' Delight was modelled on the Bonmarche, the real first store) were treated as servants. They lived in dormitories, had curfews, were expected to be chaste and could be fired for anything - or nothing - at all.

Interesting also to see how these girls, almost the lowest of the low, assumed airs and graces and found people they could bully whom they viewed as being even lower than themselves. Hasn't changed. It hasn't changed either that the people with money who therefore consider themselves to be at the top of the tree, "quality", object tremendously to those who would rise and marry into their ranks, especially if they aren't even pretty! (Megan Markle for instance, pretty as she is, the British press made much of her lowly beginnings and acted all superior over her dysfunctional family).

The story of how the working class of Paris suffered with the coming of the Ladies' Delight department store is the same as when Tesco moves in, or WalMart. All the little businesses die, the suppliers of those businesses often craftsmen, are out of work, and the uneducated young girls and strong young men find themselves low-paying work in those leviathans of the retail industry with rarely a chance to rise let alone own their own business or be respected as skilled tradesmen one day. Everyone says they won't shop at Tesco or WalMart, that they will continue to support their local shops but few - ever do. It's just so convenient...

This is a good book, a lot more gentle in its depiction of the working classes and their plight than is usual for Zola, although his overarching theme of a great industrial machine grinding people down remains. Lots of well-drawn characters, good people, bad people and very, very naughty ones. It would make a marvellous film, lots of potential of showing both the changing times and coming of consumerism and an age old love story with a twist, a heroine who is definitely not fair of face.

Update The BBC made a serial. They spoiled it by making the heroine pretty rather than a very competent and dedicated young woman who grows in confidence at her abilities. That missed Zola's points of not only could an extremely talented person who makes money for their employers rise, but that a man could fall in love with character and personality above all. Independent TV did worse by responding with Mr. Selfridge about the founder of the wonderful London department store, Selfridges. That was merely soap opera.

Originally read and written in 2011, but rewritten 7th July 2018

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel tells of small convenience stores' fierce (but hopeless) struggle against big brands. It was not part of the last literary season, but it is a novel written at the end of the 19th century.
And that calls out, necessarily. The themes will not disorient the modern reader's approach: the small shops that bitterly see their most loyal customers leaving them for uniform goods, devoid of art, the terrible pressure on prices, or even the exploitation of the sweating staff. There's blood and water to scratch a little more margin on sales, only to get fired overnight because of a misinterpreted frown.

Even more surprising for me, the handling mechanisms are also very well described by Zola:
1- Advertisements
2- The glorious staging of the goods
3- The promise of free return if the product is ultimately not fair
4- Provision of drinks
5- Trade fairs.
Everything there is wonderfully dissected and analyzed, which is all the more impressive since these subjects were, to my knowledge, not yet theorized or studied in his time.
Reading this novel is a curious experience: one has the impression of reliving a current fight in the context of the past. Le Bonheur des Dames is described as a greedy monster that devours everything: goods, employees, and customers, unable to stop even if it wanted to. Yet, on the other side, we see the small shops darkening, becoming ugly, being eaten away by the humidity, as if they wanted to disappear on their own, aware of being now anachronistic.
Suffice it to say that I was surprised to see some still standing when I came out onto the street!

[Piyangie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ladies' Paradise, the 11th novel of Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, is a story of the coming of the modern age and the rise of capitalism and consumerism. In the center of the story is a department store that has revolutionized trade by facilitating consumers to "buy anything under the sun in one roof". But this revolution has its repercussions because, in its wake, the big shop devours the small traders, one by one. Prudent ones save them by yielding to the offer to be bought off while the obstinate are slowly crushed by bankruptcy.

From the very first page, I sensed that The Ladies' Paradise would be a wonderful story. Yet, I found the first few chapters rather disappointing. The story felt fragmented and the characters were stereotyped. It was so unlike a Zola novel. Then it dawned on me quite shockingly that I had got it all wrong. I have misunderstood the essence of the story and its central character. It was the Ladies Paradise, the department store, that was the protagonist while I was looking for a human lead. The rest of the characters played a supporting role and revolved around it. You can imagine my chagrin, having to reread a quarter of the book.

Émile Zola creates a complete world in The Ladies' Paradise. Modelled on Le Bon Marché of Paris, one of the first modern department stores, Ladies Paradise not only brings to light modernization, capitalism, and consumerism but also an entire social revolution. Zola explores how consumers are both protected and exploited by this new method of business while standing firmly on the ground that this overall forward march towards modernization was actually beneficial to society. It is true that these big shops, these monstrous wheels of capitalism, crushed down small traders. But at the same time, they introduced a new consumerism culture that quite benefited the public. Moreover, they also provided sort of a haven for the working class. Of course, the big shops were no benefactors; they exploited labour. Nevertheless, they rescued and uplifted the working class from destitution, gradually improving their condition of life. Their elevated status commanded respect. This new business culture narrowed down the class distinction. While the working class upgraded their status by slow degrees, some of the aristocracy downgraded theirs. The dictum of capitalism was that no longer the birth decided class but money.

Amid this capitalism and consumerism drama comes Denise and Mouret's love story. Denise joins Ladies' Paradise as a salesgirl. She initially faces hostilities from her co-workers but with great courage and perseverance, she earns the respect of her colleagues eventually. Mouret is the young owner of the Ladies Paradise. He is a ruthlessly ambitious man who doesn't care a jot for others so long as his ambitions and pleasures are satisfied. Being a widower, he happily leads a debauched life, often preying on his salesgirls. But with Denise, Mouret is checkmated. With quiet dignity, Denise firmly resists his advances, refusing to be "commodified", and Mouret painfully realizes that not all can be bought by his millions.

Denise and Mouret's story allows Zola to carry a scientific probe into the extent of the social impact of this new capitalism and consumerism culture. Mouret symbolises the capitalist exploiter while Denise, virtue. Denise's resistance to Mouret is Zola's way of showing that modern developments will not necessarily compromise morals. The implied marriage between the two signifies that morals are not necessarily endangered by a capitalist and consumerist culture and that they can exist in perfect harmony with each other. The marriage also signifies that the modern world has no more room for class distinctions.

Of all characters, I liked Denise the most. She is the embodiment of modern woman - courageous and resilient. She observes a strict moral conduct but isn't judgmental of others and doesn't wear her virtue like a jewel. I liked her balanced outlook of life.

And now I come to the most important feature of the novel: it is Zola's writing. Émile Zola is a master craftsman of language. His words, full of poetical expression and symbolism, bring to life the machinery of capitalism as it breeds big shops and swallows the small ones, tearing down the old world into pieces and wiping its traces with strokes of modernization. Not only that, Zola also takes the readers on an emotional roller coaster. He describes in detail the poverty of the small shop owners, their struggle to survive, and their despair at witnessing the downfall of their once-successful businesses. Then he details the struggle within the Ladies' Paradise where everyone unscrupulously undermines the other with a view to profit and advancement. All this is done in his raw and naturalist style. The emotions of love, jealousy, and envy add vibrancy to complete the picture. I have always found reading Zola emotionally taxing, but pleasantly so.

Émile Zola bewitched me with The Ladies' Paradise. I'm in love with it. The fact that it is a timeless classic had also a special charm. Without question, it is the best of Zola I have read so far.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Helga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Action contains its own reward. To act, to create, to fight against facts, to overcome them or be overcome by them—the whole of human health and happiness is made up of that!

The main characters of the 11th book in the Rougon-Macquart series are:
the ambitious Octave Mouret who also featured in ‘Pot Luck’, the previous book in the series,
the kindhearted and naïve Denise Baudu who has come to Paris in search of a much needed job,
and the monster of a department store called The Ladies’ Paradise.

In this book as in his other works Zola vividly portraits the Paris of the 19th century and its people, its way of life and its social norms, exposing the good and the bad; the beautiful and the ugly; the rich and the poor.
The main focus of the story is the rise of modern department stores and thereby the annihilation of the old-fashioned shops.

The story is a criticism but at the same time an admiration for the ‘new’.
It is the story of a struggle against a painful surrender to an unwanted reality and a capitulation to an uninvited inevitability.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life in an 1860s Paris megastore. As capitalism staggers around on its bunioned feet, waiting for the next self-perpetuating excuse for sickening human greed and useless backbreaking timewasting bullshit in pursuit of Capital to relieve its burden, it’s time to question what we want from an economic system here in the West. A completely equal distribution of funds is impossible since people are cash-hoovering greed machines who will stab their mothers to get a bigger pie slice. Communism is unpopular due to its fascist tendencies. Perhaps we could try kindness, generosity, wealth-sharing and self-sustaining communities? Stop laughing. The Ladies’ Paradise explores the viperous world of ladies’ retail and the nascent capitalist machine. Bitching and hating and desperation and greed and corsages. That’s the fashion world for you. Denise is Zola’s pure-hearted ingénue who, rather implausibly, and clumsily, enchants the evil chauvinist Octave Mouret with her dowdy virginal loveliness. After a long struggle, she becomes the belle of the megamall, and tames the old beast by refusing to surrender her maidenhead. Nowadays, to get that kind of career traction, you have to humiliate yourself on The Apprentice. The novel is festooned with elaborate descriptions of store displays, which go on and on until we get the bleeding point, and the POV is schizo even by Zola’s standards, but the whole work is admirably ruthless. So: death to capitalism! All hail have-a-tenner-on-me-ism!

Update: BBC adaptation currently showing on the iplayer

[Capsguy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy Mother of God...

I do not know where to begin with this.

You see this title, and you look up the book: "Oh, a novel about women and shopping, this is going to be a bore..." Even I had my doubts, and I am an avid reader of Zola, he has yet to disappoint me. And yet, I believe that this may be the best work of his that I have yet to read, perhaps Germinal is slipping through, just...

It's still so relevant to today in so many ways, the birth of the super stores and the effect they had and still do on small business. The ethical problems of big business muscling out the small guys unable to adapt, whether it be from financial limitations or due to stubbornness. Female employees being coerced to act on the whim of their male employers; the manipulation of pretty much every possible stakeholder in business only to drive up profits; marrying for money, this book has everything.

Readers of Zola will be aware of how gritty and raw he his; he does not hold back on the disastrous effects and ramifications that a world driven by capital and materiality has on his well built (with a strong emphasis on psychological aspects) characters which are more than believable, they come to life. Plenty of ups and downs in this one, you finally get some reprieve, a glimmer of hope, and then the door is slammed in your face. You cannot even make out who is the 'bad' guys are half the time, but I think that was purposeful since we are all human and acting in what we perceive to be our best interests, especially in a dog eat dog world that was Paris in the 1880's with new wealth being generated creating different class interactions.

There's so many characters that all have their own story. You feel pity, anger, sorrow, relief, all varying emotions for them as they progress along this story, certainly far from being one-dimensional. The ending seemed a bit too rushed for my liking, however the imagery leading up to it was some of the best I have read in a long time.

Business is a machine, and if you get in its' way, you will be dealt with relentlessly. Funnily enough Futurama is on TV now, the episode being where the robots try to take over Earth.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zola's depiction of La Samaritain/Le Bon Marché - Paris' first department stores - is an absolute classic and a wonderfully entertaining read. Incredibly influential on his generation (Manet, etc), it is a photographic record of life in the 19th c as the bourgeoisie started wielding their consumer power and the lives of those in the poorer classes that risked being crushed in the onrush through the doors of the store. A must.

[P.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le phalanstère du négoce


Le grand magasin Au Bon Marché en 1887


Denise Baudu est arrivée de Valognes avec ses frères pour trouver une place auprès de son oncle après la mort successive de leur mère et de leur père. La jeune femme découvre rapidement que le petit commerce végète tandis que les grands établissements – qui pratiquent une forme moderne de publicité, de diversification dans les rayons, de renouvellement fréquent des articles, mise en concurrence des vendeurs par le biais de primes sur les ventes – emportent un succès de raz-de-marée. Elle en vient à travailler pour l'un de ces grands bazars, Au Bonheur des Dames, tout au bas de l'échelle. L'existence est difficile, les perspectives incertaines, jusqu'à ce qu'un grand personnage s'éprenne d'elle.


Mon avis:

Pour moi, les grandes réussites de ce roman sont les descriptions quasiment mythologiques de ce grand magasin, à la fois machine, ogre, temple, et femme... Créature formidable où toute la vie du propriétaire Octave Mouret se fond, dans sa quête passionnelle de conquête universelle des femmes qui forment sa clientèle. Dans cette synthèse colossale apparaît quelque chose de quasiment luciférien, qui rapproche notre homme d'un Ahab ou d'un Némo, sublime et terrible devant la foule séduite, qui s'amasse dans l'adoration de son œuvre titanesque.

Ici, les passions sensuelles, l'appât du gain, l'attrait du luxe et leurs névroses s'entremêlent et se confondent en une âpre séduction qui est aussi celle de la lutte pour la vie, une image ensorcelante qui taraude souvent Denise, à la fois angoissée et fascinée par la croissance gigantesque du magasin, qui écrase dans sa marche implacable les petites boutiques, avale les bâtiments, transfigure intégralement le quartier d'où il est sorti.


Autre point d'intérêt exceptionnel à mon avis : le roman de Zola décortique le fonctionnement d'horlogerie d'un magasin moderne, qui s'apparente de plus en plus, sur les conseils de Denise, à un immense phalanstère, à un univers contenu en lui-même, à la source tumultueuse d'un nouvel âge.

*********

QUELQUES CITATIONS:

'Il lui semblait qu’elle était toute petite, et elle éclatait en larmes, au fond de leur jardin de Valognes, en voyant les fauvettes manger les araignées, qui elles-mêmes mangeaient les mouches. Était-ce donc vrai, cette nécessité de la mort engraissant le monde, cette lutte pour la vie qui faisait pousser les êtres sur le charnier de l’éternelle destruction ?'

***

'Mouret, cependant, avait jeté un coup d’œil vers le salon. Et, en quelques phrases dites à l’oreille du baron Hartmann, comme s’il lui eût fait de ces confidences amoureuses qui se risquent parfois entre hommes, il acheva d’expliquer le mécanisme du grand commerce moderne. Alors, plus haut que les faits déjà donnés, au sommet, apparut l’exploitation de la femme. Tout y aboutissait, le capital sans cesse renouvelé, le système de l’entassement des marchandises, le bon marché qui attire, la marque en chiffres connus qui tranquillise. C’était la femme que les magasins se disputaient par la concurrence, la femme qu’ils prenaient au continuel piège de leurs occasions, après l’avoir étourdie devant leurs étalages. Ils avaient éveillé dans sa chair de nouveaux désirs, ils étaient une tentation immense, où elle succombait fatalement, cédant d’abord à des achats de bonne ménagère, puis gagnée par la coquetterie, puis dévorée. En décuplant la vente, en démocratisant le luxe, ils devenaient un terrible agent de dépense, ravageaient les ménages, travaillaient au coup de folie de la mode, toujours plus chère. Et si, chez eux, la femme était reine, adulée et flattée dans ses faiblesses, entourée de prévenances, elle y régnait en reine amoureuse, dont les sujets trafiquent, et qui paye d’une goutte de son sang chacun de ses caprices.'

***

'Il avait conquis les mères elles-mêmes, il régnait sur toutes avec la brutalité d’un despote, dont le caprice ruinait des ménages. Sa création apportait une religion nouvelle, les églises que désertait peu à peu la foi chancelante étaient remplacées par son bazar, dans les âmes inoccupées désormais. La femme venait passer chez lui les heures vides, les heures frissonnantes et inquiètes qu’elle vivait jadis au fond des chapelles : dépense nécessaire de passion nerveuse, lutte renaissante d’un dieu contre le mari, culte sans cesse renouvelé du corps, avec l’au delà divin de la beauté. S’il avait fermé ses portes, il y aurait eu un soulèvement sur le pavé, le cri éperdu des dévotes auxquelles on supprimerait le confessionnal et l’autel.'

***

'[...] Mouret avait inventé cette mécanique à écraser le monde, dont le fonctionnement brutal l’indignait ; il avait semé le quartier de ruines, dépouillé les uns, tué les autres ; et elle l’aimait quand même pour la grandeur de son œuvre, elle l’aimait davantage à chacun des excès de son pouvoir, malgré le flot de larmes qui la soulevait, devant la misère sacrée des vaincus.'


À propos de grands magasins :

Quelques inspirateurs de Zola :

Le Bon Marché

Les Grands Magasins du Louvre

Le Printemps


Lectures conseillées :

L'Argent
Nana
The Great Gatsby
Psychologie Des Foules
Propaganda
La Société du Spectacle
À la ligne


Musique pour la réclame :
Concerto pour violon et orchestre en mi mineur opus 64 - Mendelssohn

[Nicole~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I imagine a bewildered Émile Zola wandering into the crowds populating that new phenomenon that took Paris merchandising in the 19th century by storm - mass production and the creation of the one-stop mega-shop. He enters through the widely opened arms of polished French doors, having to blink tearily at the brilliantly lit chandeliers. Immediately, he is choked by perfumed mists diffusing the air and is submerged in whispers of fine French lace and ribbons, rows of rainbowed textures and fabrics on display, corsets and lingerie accosting his libido. He raises his gaze to the vaulted ceiling and catches the shrewd eye of Octave Mouret, hovering watchfully at the balcony of the second floor and nods a gentlemanly greeting. With this brief upward glance, Zola becomes distracted, shuttled through the cogs of this enormous commercial machine, through its undulating channels, eventually misplacing his wife in the melée - the latter having spied a lady friend in the direction of the fine dresses salon, where time becomes lost and space is infinite.

This is The Ladies' Paradise: the department store where all the whimsies of a woman are catered to in one majestic place; where romance, excitement and fantasy materialize through the latest in fashionable outerwear and underwear, notions, potions, novelties, household goods and other en vogue excesses not wholly necessary for ordinary life, are sold. (Ok, it's Macy's on steroids on 'discount day'!).

Eleventh in Les Rougon-Macquart cycle, the novel is about modern consumerism and utopian fantasy, a 19th century rags- to-riches story. Denise Baudu is a humble and impoverished shopgirl who finds work in the flourishing department store, The Ladies' Paradise, trying to make ends meet to support her two brothers, but colliding with the worst of human flaws. The novel chronicles the struggle between the traditional shop, the Old Elbeuf (the declining establishment owned by Denise's uncle), and the monster department store owned by the innovative Octave Mouret. A habitual seducer of women, Mouret's own insatiable passion is to conquer the 'woman', to hold her at his mercy, to intoxicate her with unwavering attentiveness and manipulate her desires within his establishment. The art of the seduction is not in the boudoir but in the caresses of silk and lace finery found at the most efficient of merchandising mechanisms, with the unique ability to offer national brands at substantial reductions.

Zola is a mesmerist when describing the scene of the crowd which takes on a protagonist role of its own. He details economic reinvention and capitalism fueled by consumers' neurotic impulses to shop, the system of mass production and the consequences its development had in revolutionizing the retail industry, in a story decked out in illusion, seduction, luxury, romance, class division, obsession and greed.

Any criticism I might offer would be Zola's neglect in providing reasons for Denise's rise in the department - what merited such promotions? In the BBC series, a very sketchy interpretation of the novel by the way, Denise is shown as an astute, bright and quick thinking sales girl whose original ideas won her elevation in the store. In the novel, however, Denise remains a mousy innocent, extremely mindful of her virtue, afraid of her own shadow, promoted not by any skill of her own, it appears, but by Mouret's regret that her reputation was often tarnished by her peers; secondly, by his own desire to conquer her, which eventually, more deeply turns to love.

The Ladies' Paradise is one of Zola's lighter novels in Les Rougon-Macquart series, yet gives some pause for reflection, to take stock of one's wants, needs and their intrinsic values: truthfully speaking, what price is a lady's satisfaction?

Other Zola novels read so far:
Therese Raquin ****
The Dram Shop ( L' assommoir )****
The Beast Within *****
Germinal *****

[Zahra · Rating 5 out of 5]

بهشت بانوان یازدهمین کتاب از مجموعه بیست جلدی روگن ماکاره، دنباله مستقیم کتاب قبلی، دیگه دیزی، محسوب میشه و در دوران اوج شکوفایی اقتصادی امپراطوری دوم فرانسه اتفاق میفته. دورانی که به سبب رفاه اقتصادی، طبقه متوسط بزرگ و مرفهی بوجود اومده که تمایل و توان زیادی برای خرج کردن پول و خرید محصولات غیر ضروری داشتن.
داستان کتاب درباره دختری بنام دنیز بادوئه که به همراه دو برادر خودش به پاریس میاد و در فروشگاه بهشت بانوان مشغول به کار میشه. فروشگاه بزرگی که با مدیریت اکتاو موره روز به روز موفق تر میشه.
کتاب لایه های متعددی داره و از زاویه های زیادی میشه بهش پر��اخت. از یک طرف روایتگر زندگی روزمره کارکنان این فروشگاه بزرگه و با جزییات زیادی به پشت پرده زندگی اونا میپردازه. اینکه چی میپوشن، چه غذایی میخورن، تفریحاتشون چیه، چه مشکلاتی دارن، رقابت بی رحمانشون با همدیگه، از پشت خنجر زدن هاشون، زیرآب زدن هاشون برای رسیدن به سمت و حقوق بیشتر در بهشت بانوان. رفتارها و روحیه رقابتی که مدیران فروشگاه هم به تشویقشون میپردازن.
از طرف دیگه این کتاب به سوداگری و سرمایه داری نوین هم میپردازه و از این نظر مثل یک کتاب اقتصادی عمل می‌کنه. بهشت بانوان یک فروشگاه بزرگ عادی نیست بلکه یک مدل اولیه از پاساژهای فعلیه که در اون از شیر مرغ تا جون آدمیزاد فروخته میشه. از پارچه های ابریشمی و حریر و مخمل تا چتر و عطر و اسباب بازی. فروشگاهی بزرگ که بالای هزار نفر کارمند و حقوق بگیر داره. تصور این فروشگاه برای ما سخت و عجیب نیست اما در قرن نوزدهم درحالی که اکثر اجناس توسط مغازه های محلی و مستقل بفروش می‌رسیدند، ایده یک فروشگاه بزرگ همه چی فروش، انقلابی و بدیع بود. بهشت بانوان با پیشرفت خودش، تک تک این مغازه‌های مستقل رو می‌بلعه و مغازه دارهایی که در مقابل این پیشرفت اقتصادی و دنیای مدرن مقاومت میکردن و به ایده‌ها و روش های سنتی خودشون میچسبیدن، به طور کامل ورشکسته و نابود میشن.
علاوه بر تمام این موضوعات، بهشت بانوان یک کتاب عاشقانه هم محسوب میشه و درس بزرگی که به خوانندش میده اینه که هم پول و هم عشق برای عاقبت بخیر شدن نیازه.
از موضوعات فرعی که کتاب بهش میپردازه که خیلی برای من جالب بود، جنون دزدی و نحوه برخورد صاحبان فروشگاه با این مسئله بود. همزمان هم مشتری مدار بمونن و پای پلیس رو وسط نکشن هم طوری برخورد کنن که اینکار تکرار نشه
پ.ن: از روی این کتاب یه سریال هم بی بی سی ساخته که فقط تو پلات اصلی و اسم شخصیت ها با کتاب اشتراک داره.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Les Rougon-Macquart #11

The business world of 1860 France comes down to two words, “nouveau commerce.” This translates to one word, investment. And that leads to bigger things.

Like a big shiny store full of all those items that a modern woman in Paris would want to own: dresses, skirts, blouses, lingerie, gloves, scarves, belts, bags, umbrellas, trinkets, jewellery, and kilometres of fabrics from silk to lace, velour to crinoline. The latest colours. C’est chic, Mademoiselle. Oh so glorious store front windows. Murals and posters everywhere. A bookstore, photo albums galore, a stationery centre with big plumes to write in your daughter’s diary. There is even home decor too. Make your big house a happy home, Madame.

Whatever you desire we have it, in store, in stock. We have catalogues, translated in many languages. We don’t miss a thing. Target the audience. Thousands of red balloons too. Buy, buy, buy. Big sales. Prices reduced. Three days long. Shop till you drop. Ooh la la.

Feeling peckish? Run down from all that shopping? A husband driving you nuts? There is an unbelievable big and free buffet, a dreamy fountain bar, and a wine bar. The cellar is well stocked! It’s like going to the theatre. It’s big, its better, its a spectacle. Le Bonheur des Dames. Un bon marché. Ladies, it’s grande.

Our owner, Octave Mouret* fills that shiny store with everything, priced right, and eager to serve the new petit bourgeois clientele. He has three thousand people working for him, mostly women. He treats the women with disdain. Of course back then, the sales women were paid a pittance. Commissions got you your day’s wage. To really survive one should find a man and get married.

Not Denise Baudu. After her parents died, she headed into town in charge of her younger brothers asking for her uncle for help. His business was not doing so well so she found work at Le Bonheur just down the street. Things changed for the better for Denise. Sadly not necessarily for all.

Octave Mouret was obsessed with making money. When he reaches one million francs per day, he knows that he made it. He is ruthless. He forces everyone around to sell or loose their shirts. When they close, he just expands his store. Yet something happens and he notices that sales clerk Denise. She stands her ground but one day he goes too far.

It seems that Émile Zola has a passion for marketing (or a very keen eye). Words sells this fabulous store. Le Bonheur seems to flow off the page. There are passages, like the big sale in chapter 9 that is a combination of brilliant writing built on marketing phrases that was hard to put down. Or when one of the fashionable wealthy women get caught stealing. It was a treat to read, almost like being there. C’est vrai!

Of course, it’s not all fun and games. Zola is the master of realism. Some folks really are dealt a bad hand. And that is what makes this book so good. Highs and lows, laughs and tears, love and death. And a whole lotta money. Perhaps, there is just a little cynicism behind all that new money made in the shiny new Third Republic. Perhaps. So good. So Zola.


*according to the timeline, the store Le Bonheur des Dames was started in 1822 by the brothers Deleuze. After the older brother died, his eldest daughter Caroline married Charles Hédouin, who made fabric. Hédouin passed away and his widow Caroline married the young eager clerk Octave Mouret. He inherited the entire store after his wife and the other Deleuze had passed away. Mouret kept a framed photo of his dearly departed wife on his desk, vowing never to remarry. See Pot-bouille, the previous book for all the intrigue. An equally great romp.

[Το Άθχημο γατί του θενιόρ Γκουαναμίρου · Rating 5 out of 5]

Από όσο έχω ψάξει όλα αυτά τα χρόνια το “Au bonheur des dames” πρώτη φορά, τώρα, μεταφράζεται στα ελληνικά. Από λίγο που κοίταξα, δυστυχως τα γαλλικά μου είναι φριχτά, πιστεύω πως έχει γίνει μια ωραία προσπάθεια στη μετάφραση. Εγώ το είχα διαβάσει παλιότερα από αγγλική μετάφραση. Οπότε αυτή η ελληνική με γεμίζει με χαρά, γιατί δίνει στους Έλληνες αναγνώστες την ευκαιρία να γνωρίσουν αυτό το εξαιρετικό μυθιστόρημα.

Εδώ ο Ζολά καταπιάνεται με την ιστορία της Ντενίζ η οποία είναι ορφανή και παλεύει να μεγαλώσει τα αδέρφια της, στο Παρίσι του 19ου αιώνα, και του επιχειρηματία Μουρέ που ανήκει στο οκογενειακό δέντρο των Ρουγκόν – Μακάρ, πάνω στο οποίο έχτισε ο Ζολά ένα εικοσάτομο πανόραμα της Β' Αυτοκρατορίας του Ναπολέοντα του 3ου (ή Μικρού) κατά το 1852-70. Ένα μεγάλο μέρος του έργου καταπιάνεται με τις εργασιακές συνθήκες των εμποροϋπαλλήλων της εποχής. Δυστυχώς θα μπορούσε άριστα να περιγράφει τη δική μας, σημερινή εποχή. Τότε βέβαια δεν υπήρχε το 8ωρο και η δημόσια ασφάλιση, αλλά προσωπικά δεν ανησυχώ. Σε λίγο καιρό, έτσι όπως πάνε τα πράγματα, πάλι δεν θα υπάρχουν! Ωστόσο η σκοπιά του συγγραφέα σε αυτό το έργο -και το ξεκαθαρίζω αυτό, προς αποφυγήν παρανοήσεων – είναι αστική. Ο Ζολά είναι ένας μπουρζουάς, αθεράπευτα ερωτευμένος με την ιδέα της προόδου και γι' αυτό σε κάποια σημεία, μπορεί να φαίνεται πως αντιφάσκει. Το βιβλίο αυτό γράφτηκε στα 1883. Περιέχει μάλιστα και κάποιους αναχρονισμούς. Αργότερα, όταν θα γράψει στο πλαίσιο μιας τετραλογίας την “Εργασία” θα οραματιστεί μια κολεκτίβα, εμπνευσμένος από τον Φουριέ κι εκεί θα αναπτύξει ολοκληρωμένες τις ιδέες του για την εργατική τάξη (μέσα από μια κοινωνία που στο τέλος υπερβαίνει τους ταξικούς προσδιορισμούς).

Ωστόσο κι εδώ, στον Παράδεισο των Κυριών, δεν μασάει τα λόγια του. Δεν στρογγυλεύει καταστάσεις. Ο Ζολά πάντα αγαπούσε την αλήθεια. Έγραφε αδιάκοπα, αλλά κυρίως κατέγραφε, μέσα από εκτενή έρευνα, συγκεντρώνοντας ντοκουμέντα και στοιχεία, για το κάθε κοινωνικό ζήτημα με το οποίο καταπιανόταν. Όλως περιέργως η επιστημονική του βάση, αυτή της κληρονομικότητας, στην οποία βασίζει το έργο του, πηγάζει από προσωπικές του παρανοήσεις και ψευδοεπιστημονικές εμπνεύσεις. Κάποτε γίνεται ακόμα και απαράδεκτος. Αλλά επειδή παρατηρεί, επιτυγχάνει να μεταφέρει αυτό που βλέπει μέσα στο λογοτεχνικό του έργο με εξαιρετική πιστότητα. Γι' αυτό ακόμα και στα πιο ψυχολογικά του έργα (δεν είναι ψυχαναλυτικός, δεν ενδοσκοπεί) πετυχαίνει να παραδίδει στην εντέλεια τον ψυχισμό των ηρώων του, με αποκορύφωμα σε αυτήν την κατεύθυνση το “Ανθρώπινο Κτήνος” που είναι στην ουσία η περιγραφή της ζωής ενός ψυχικά διαταραγμένου ατόμου. Αυτό επίσης που απασχόλησε ιδιαίτερα τον Ζολά ήταν τα διάφορα είδη “θρησκευτικής υστερίας” όπως ας πούμε παρουσιάζονται εκτενώς στην μεταγενέστερη “Λούρδη”.

Ο τίτλος που επιλέγει η ελληνική μετάφραση, δεν είναι πιστός στο γαλλικό πρωτότυπο. Βασίζεται σε αυτόν που έδωσε ο Άγγλος μεταφραστής του Ζολά, ο Vizetelly και διατήρησαν και οι κατοπινότεροι μεταφραστές “The Ladies' Paradise”. Μάλλον το προτίμησαν γιατί είναι πιο οικείο εξαιτίας της σειράς του BBC με τίτλο “The Paradise” που είναι εμπνευσμένη από το συγκεκριμένο μυθιστόρημα του Ζολά. Το bonheur σημαίνει κατά μία έννοια “ευτυχία” αλλά από τα συμφραζόμενα του έργου, σημαίνει “Για την ευχαρίστηση των Κυριών” ή πιο απλά “Ο,τι θέλουν οι γυναίκες”. Συνιστά ορόσημο για τις απαρχές του σύγχρονου υπερκαταναλωτισμού, της κυριαρχίας της μόδας και των νόμων της αγοράς. Ωστόσο ο Ζολά δεν είναι ηθικολόγος. Αντίθετα είναι απολαυστικός και σε ορισμένα σημεία παρουσιάζει εξαιρετικό χιούμορ.

Ό,τι θέλουν οι Κυρίες λοιπόν. Αλλά αξίζει να διαβαστεί από όλα τα φύλα. Σας το προτείνω με όλη μου την καρδιά. Και ελπίζω αν του δώσετε μια ευκαιρία, να το βρείτε του γούστου σας.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Κάθε επαφή με το έργο του Ζολά μού αφήνει την αίσθηση της απόδρασης σε ένα λογοτεχνικό… πάρκο της Ιουράσιας περιόδου. Μπορεί η εποχή του συγγραφέα, με τα προβλήματα και τις ιδιαιτερότητές της να έχει περάσει ανεπιστρεπτί, πλην όμως το αφηγηματικό ύφος του συγγραφέα κατορθώνει με ευκολία να… διακτινίσει τον αναγνώστη στον χρόνο (και όχι στον χώρο), προκειμένου να απολαύσει έναν μαγικό κόσμο γραφής που έχει οριστικά χαθεί.

Ο Ζολά ανήκει στους Νατουραλιστές συγγραφείς, σε εκείνους που παρέλαβαν τον Ρεαλισμό του Μπαλζάκ και του Φλωμπέρ και τον ανανέωσαν, επιχειρώντας να περιγράψουν τα ανθρώπινα πάθη σε όλη τους την έκταση. Όπου στους Ρεαλιστές το σεξουαλικό πάθος υπονοείται, στον Ζολά περιγράφεται άπληστα. Ακόμα περισσότερο, εκεί που στους προγόνους οι ταξικές διαφορές αχνοφέγγουν στο ημίφως, στον Ζολά και τους συν αυτώ…αστράφτουν, κεραυνοβολώντας "τους τε μηδέν τῶνδε μετέχοντες".

Αυτό δεν σημαίνει πως ο Ζολά είναι ένας "πολιτικός" συγγραφέας (υποτιμητικός όρος, καθότι υποβιβάζει την αξία της τέχνης σε προπαγάνδα), αλλά ένας δημιουργός που συμπεριέλαβε την πολιτική στο έργο του. Ως προς αυτό κρίνεται και η αξία του, καθότι το "ξένο στοιχείο" υποτάχθηκε στο προσωπικό αφηγηματικό ύφος του συγγραφέα, παραμένοντας ορατό και ιδιόμορφο, χαρίζοντας στα έργα του την Αθανασία. Ακόμα και στα πιο "πολιτικά" του έργα, όπως το "Ζερμινάλ", ο συγγραφέας δεν εκπίπτει στον φαύλο (καθότι μη καλλιτεχνικό) ρόλο του προπαγανδιστή, αλλά διατηρεί το ύφος του, εκείνο το ιδιαίτερο φως με το οποίο καταυγάζει το σκηνικό της δράσης.

Εκεί λοιπόν που ως έφηβος είχα συγκλονιστεί με τον αγώνα των καταπιεσμένων απεργών ενάντια στη φρίκη του άναρχου καπιταλισμού της εποχής, ως ενήλικος απολαμβάνω τη μαεστρία με την οποία ο συγγραφέας χειρίζεται το υλικό του, τους χαρακτήρες και ενορχηστρώνει τη δράση, υποτάσσοντάς τη στην τέχνη του.

Και αυτό αποτελεί ακόμα ένα σημείο σύμπλευσής μου με τον αγαπημένο αυτόν συγγραφέα. Σε αντίθεση με τους στρατευμένους (βλ. ατάλαντους) γραφιάδες, ο Ζολά δεν είναι απλουστευτικός, δεν εξιδανικεύει τους ήρωές του. Πώς θα μπορούσαν άνθρωποι που διαβιούν σε απάνθρωπες συνθήκες να μην εκπέσουν σε ανθρώπινα κτήνη; Μακριά από τη λογική του "working class hero", οι χαρακτήρες του τσαλαβουτούν στα λασπόνερα, αναζητώντας τρόπους να ανέλθουν, χωρίς ηθικές αναστολές συνήθως, και να επιπλεύσουν ή βουλιάζουν εκ νέου παρασύροντας όσους συμπορεύονται.

Ταυτόχρονα όμως, σαφής ένδειξη του καλλιτεχνικού μεγαλείου, ακριβώς επειδή γίνεται αναφορά σε ανθρώπινα όντα, το συναμφότερον κυριαρχεί στις σελίδες των έργων του Ζολά. Μέσα στα σκουπίδια των άθλιων παραπηγμάτων, πάντα φύεται κάποιο λουλούδι που έστω για λίγο αναδίδει το άρωμά του προτού παρασυρθεί και χαθεί. Ο πεσιμισμός δίνει τον κύριο βηματισμό στα βιβλία του Ζολά και το τέλος είναι σχεδόν πάντα δυσοίωνο.

Αυτή είναι λοιπόν και η βασική μου αντίρρηση στον "Παράδεισο των κυριών", η οποία αν και διαπνέεται από συγγραφική δεινότητα, δεν φτάνει στο ύψος των κορυφαίων στιγμών του. Ο Ζολά αποδεικνύεται άφταστος όταν περιγράφει το φερώνυμο πολυκατάστημα, τους μηχανισμούς του καταναλωτισμού και της σταδιακής κυριαρχίας των μεγάλων μονάδων εις βάρος των παλαιών οικογενειακών επιχειρήσεων. Υστερεί όμως -στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο πάντα- στην ανάπτυξη των χαρακτήρων, στην εμβάθυνση, πέφτοντας στο μεγαλύτερο δυνατό παράπτωμα (πρωτάκουστο για έργο του!), εκείνο του happy end.

Προφανώς η ένστασή μου δεν εντοπίζεται στο happy end εν γένει. Η "επιδίωξη της ευτυχίας" είναι εξίσου θεμιτή όσο και το δικαίωμα στην αυτοκαταστροφή, ενδοκειμενικά πάντα. Καθετί είναι αποδεκτό, εφόσον υπακούει στους απαράβατους όρους της εσωτερικής αναγκαιότητας που έχει θέσει ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας. Επομένως, ένα κείμενο που κινείται σε σκοτεινούς ως επί το πλείστον τόνους δεν είναι δυνατόν αίφνης στο τέλος να δίνει τη θέση του στον υμέναιο. Αυτού του είδους η εσωτερική ασυνέπεια αποτελεί ασύγγνωστο αδίκημα (ίσως και αμάρτημα) στην τέχνη και φοβάμαι πως σε αυτό το βιβλίο, ο -κατά τα λοιπά κορυφαίος- Ζολά εξέπεσε (ελαφρώς) της χάριτος.

https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2019/05/...

[Nataša Bjelogrlić · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pada li kome napamet da na pruzi zaustavlja lokomotivu? " pita Oktav Mure vlasnik "Ženskog raja" velike robne kuće dok šireći tu svoju velelepnu građevinu ruši sve okolne male trgovačke i zanatske radnje uništavajući tako živote njihovih vlasnika i porodica. Ne, naravno da ne pada, nameće se logičan odgovor u glavi čitaoca a isto tako nameće mu se niz moralnih dilema i rezignirajućih zaključaka dok čita ovaj roman. Zola nam daje detaljan uvid i analizu nastanaka ovakvog načina trgovine u Parizu u drugoj polovini 19. vijeka, daje nam vrlo opipljive opise robne kuće koju upoređuje sa zahuktalom mašinom, njenu spoljašnost a tako i samu unutrašnjost, brižljivo nas vodeći od odjeljenja do odjeljenja, od rafa do rafa da gotovo možemo opipati i pomirisati svu tu silnu nagomilanu robu. Pisac nepogrešivo secira pariško buržoasko, građansko, malograđansko i radničko društvo u kontekstu glavnog motiva, naravno toliko dobro da odmah povlačimo paralelu sa sadašnjim vremenom. Kroz lik glavne junakinje Deniz, prolazimo kroz niz emocija od kada ona prvi put dolaskom u Pariz vidi "Ženski raj", kroz ulazak na mala vrata i sve nedaće koje je prate na putu do njenog izlaska iz ovog zdanja na velika vrata. Možda ponešto malo drugačiji Zolin roman od onih koje sam čitala dosad, možda je tu i malo previše detaljisanja a možda je i kraj malo netipičan a ipak rekla bih srž je pogođena. Naprosto bilo kako bilo, šou uvijek mora ići dalje i nakon spuštenih zavjesa i pročitane zadnje stranice to postaje sasvim jasno.

[Eirini Proikaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πριν λίγο καιρό στην ΕΡΤ έτυχε να δω μερικά επεισόδια μιας σειράς που μου τράβηξε την προσοχή και έμοιαζε να είναι βασισμένη σε βιβλίο.Ο τίτλος της ήταν The Paradise και ψάχνοντας είδα οτι όντως ήταν βασισμένη στο “Au bonheur des dames” του Εμίλ Ζολά που κυκλοφόρησε για πρώτη φορά στα ελληνικά μόλις πέρσι με τον τίτλο "Στον παράδεισο των κυριών".Εννοείται οτι αμέσως έψαξα να το βρω για να το διαβάσω.
Η ηρωίδα μας είναι η Ντενίζ,μια νεαρή ορφανή που φτάνει στο Παρίσι με τα δυο μικρότερα αδέρφια της και προσπαθεί να τα βγάλει πέρα και να ζήσει αξιοπρεπώς.Ο ήρωας μας είναι ο Μουρέ,επιχειρηματίας πολύ φιλόδοξος και πολύ ικανός που θέλει να φτιάξει το πιο μεγάλο και πρωτοποριακό εμπορικό κέντρο στο Παρίσι.Θέλει όλες τις γυναίκες στα πόδια του και επαγγελματικά οπου ξέρει να παίζει με τις αδυναμίες τους αλλά και προσωπικά οπου έχει μάθει να αγοράζει ερωμένες και να τις κάνει στην άκρη όποτε του κάνει κέφι.Κι εκεί που νόμιζε πως δεν έχει γεννηθεί η γυναίκα που θα τον κάνει να αλλάξει συνήθειες ,εμφανίζεται η Ντενίζ και ένας έρωτας γεννιέται.Η μικρή όμως δεν είναι απο αυτές που αγοράζονται.
Ο πραγματικός ήρωας του βιβλίου όμως είναι το ίδιο το εμπορικό κέντρο.Το παρακολουθούμε να γεννιέται,να μεγαλώνει,να καταπίνει ένα ολόκληρο οικοδομικό τετράγωνο,βλέπουμε τον τρόπο που ζουν οι υπαλληλοι του,βλέπουμε τις βιτρίνες του και τα εμπορεύματα του με κάθε λεπτομέρεια(όσοι δεν αντέχουν τις λεπτομερείς περιγραφές ας μην το διαβάσουν το βιβλίο,το λέω τώρα και αμαρτίαν ουκ έχω ) και κυρίως βλέπουμε πώς στην πορεία του καταστρέφει σιγά σιγά τα υπόλοιπα μικρότερα μαγαζιά της γειτονιάς καταπίνοντας ανθρώπους και περιουσίες.Παρότι γράφτηκε το 19ο αιώνα οι ομοιότητες με το σήμερα είναι πάρα πολλές.
Είναι ένα βιβλίο με αρκετές ίντριγκες, αρκετό ρομαντισμό και πολύ ενδιαφέρον στο κοινωνικό κομμάτι του και το απόλαυσα πραγματικά.Πολύ χαίρομαι όταν ανακαλύπτω τέτοια βιβλία!

[Maria Clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una historia maravillosa que muy bien podría pasar hoy en día, en la que queda reflejada a la perfección las miserias del hombre. Una historia que posee todas las características para ser considerada una hermosa novela sobre la virtud y el amor.

[Phrodrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just finished a buddy read of Emile Zola’s The Ladies Paradise, I am in general agreement that this is a flawed four star book. Call it 3.5 with a major round up. Paradise is listed as the eleventh book in the “Rougon-Macquart" series, and is the sequel to Pot-Bouille, translated as Pot Luck in my English edition. In Pot Luck we are introduced to Octave Mouret, an aspiring barely middle class snot who marries his way into the ownership of a store, The Ladies Paradise. His wife and owner of this shop dies, falling into a hole that will become part of the reborn new invention, The Ladies’ Paradise modern Department store.

In this book Marat has built and continues to rebuild his newly invented store into a machine that industrializes the process of sales.

Into this set up arrives a new thread bare, overburdened young county mouse, Denise Baudu. Between these three characters, The Store, its, owner and its new, over matched, innocent girl Zola builds his novel.

Ladies’ Paradise is the result of fives years of Zola making a close study of the two department stores then making their debut in Paris. He relates to us with meticulous and exciting detail all of the inner mechanics and machination of this new living eating thing, the Department store. With equal parts resignation and road side accident curiosity he notes the effect of the new way of selling as a destructive, if un-stoppable force in retail. Local small stores of whatever age, tradition or hopes are bought out, literally undermined or simply withered under the effects of mass marketing, price wars and capitalistic competition. There are hints of back door deal making, but ultimately the success of the huge box store is that the small guys cannot compete. This should sound familiar in our age of internet based marketing challenging the big box, brick and mortar retailer.

Zola takes us from the board rooms to the shipping rooms where we meet the staff and in the internal workings of this company as a living presence. Staff is alternatively, slick, seductive, conniving, sincere, submissive and fearful. Employee rights and benefits are not yet meaningful terms and arbitrary hire fire and promotion keeps people complicit, when they are not working to cut each other out.

The great lie of the store is that it presents the promise that everything is about and for its predominately female fan base, that is customer. In fact, this promise is itself the deliberate cover for schemes, psychological machinations and applications of marketing over substance. Women are not so much the masters of this place as its pray. Women are intended to happily desire to feed their money into its always hungry maw.

With Denise we get to see and feel the conflicts of a well meaning every woman. She has personal loyalties towards her family and friends from the world of traditional retail. She will have to chose to stay with these loyalties or her apparently instinctive grasp that the department store and its new way of selling is the future. She is also romantically inclined toward her boss’s boss’s boss, Octave Mouret. He will also become attracted to her given she is one of thousands of employees and several concurrent mistresses.

It is the conflict represented by this may or may not be consummated romance that much of the human based plot is based. This is also the weakest part of the novel. We know Octave to be a serial womanizer and large-scale manipulator of women. Denise is not just innocent but highly principled, consciously, and conscientiously virginal. Given all of this what is a happy ending?

It was the consensus of the buddy read that this ending is, facile less than credible and perhaps incomplete.

For all, Zola is a good story teller. There is much of fact in his fiction. At least as it relates to the Store. The Ladies’ Paradise can be an exciting read, something few would associate with the story of a department store. There are several levels of human drama, most well presented. It is only in the resolution of the central human drama that our group of readers found disapointment.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

”..toute révolution voulait des martyrs »

Nelle storie di Zola, c’è sempre un raggio di sole che illumina gli interni.
Piccoli raggi che filtrano perpendicolari, s’insinuano nelle stanze e con quel piccolo chiarore non fanno altro che sottolineare gli angoli bui.
Luce ed ombre, dunque, come fosse un Caravaggio letterario che con le sue pennellate non si lascia sfuggire nulla.
Si comincia con lo stupore dipinto sui volti della giovane Denise che assieme ai fratellini, Jean e Pépé, è appena arrivata a Parigi.
Occhi sbarrati di fronte alla città.
Bocche spalancate di fronte alle vetrine sfavillanti di un nuovo negozio “Au bonheur de femme”.
Comincia da subito un gioco degli opposti che accompagnerà tutta la lettura: tanto le Bonhuer è illuminato e pieno di vita, tanto sono umide e buie le stamberghe che lo circondano. Sono i negozietti del piccolo e vecchio commercio: locali umidi e bui su cui aleggia un velo di tristezza per contro a quell’atmosfera felice (Bonhuer significa, per l’appunto, “felicità”) dei nuovi magazzini.

Undicesimo romanzo del Ciclo dei Rougon- Maquart nell’ordine di pubblicazione; ottavo, invece, secondo il percorso indicato da Zola stesso.
Chi manovra la grande macchina del nuovo magazzino è quell’Octave Mouret presente sia ne “La conquista di Plassans” ma ancor di più in “Dietro la facciata”.
Il nuovo commercio si allinea con lo spirito che, nella seconda metà dell’ottocento, pervade Parigi. Una la frenesia sempre più incalzante che tende a distruggere e ricostruire nell’ottica del guadagno.
Il nuovo crea alfabeti che sono quelli della competizione che brama al possesso così la macchina de le Bonhuer si serve dei commessi come ingranaggi addestrati.
E’ la trasformazione del profano in sacro: il culto del dio denaro necessita un luogo culto così il magazzino diventa ”..chapelle élevée au culte des grâces de la femme”.
Un romanzo notevole, come sempre, Zola senza pietà calca la mano sulle meschinità umana e la violenta aggressione in nome del progresso.
Ma c’è sempre quel raggio di sole che filtra e forse c’è speranza che qualcosa si salvi.

”Mon Dieu ! que de tortures ! des familles qui pleurent, des vieillards jetés au pavé, tous les drames poignants de la ruine ! Et elle ne pouvait sauver personne, et elle avait conscience que cela était bon, qu’il fallait ce fumier de misères à la santé du Paris de demain. »

Rilettura in originale dopo alcuni anni.
Confermo le quattro stelle.
La quinta manca un po’ per un senso di soffocamento descrittivo.
Una quantità di vocaboli incredibile che mi ha consumato l’indice sfogliando il dizionario.
Strane sensazioni di quel troppo, di quell’abbondanza propinata in modo subdolo ed aggressivo.
Un fastidio accentuato dalla mia indole: io, un pomeriggio al centro commerciale, l’ho sempre vissuto come una sorta di punizione divina...






----------------------------------
-* Il Ciclo Rougon-Maquart è costituito da venti romanzi collegati fra loro.
In questo esperimento, l’autore vuole fornire la storia naturale e sociale di una famiglia (e nello stesso tempo dell’intera società francese), sotto l’impero di Napoleone III.
Viene narrato il destino di due famiglie con avventure e vicende spiacevoli.
L’obiettivo di Zola è dimostrare la tesi dell’ereditarietà: inclinazioni al vizio che diventano vere e proprie tare e si trasmettono di generazione in generazione (Alcoolismo, prostituzione, corruzione, istinto omicida).
Nonostante ciò ognuno dei venti romanzi può essere letto indipendentemente dagli altri.
Qui il Gdl -

[LaCitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

E' un libro che contiene tutto: una grande storia d'amore, un'analisi delle differenze sociali dell'epoca (nobili, borghesi, nobili decaduti, uomini e donne di bassa estrazione che cercano, non sempre con successo, di risalire la scala sociale), ma anche di una situazione economica in una fase evoluzione la cui attualità è quasi sconcertante (la lotta dei piccoli commercianti per la sopravvivenza davanti all'avanzare della modernità incarnatasi nel grande magazzino che dà il titolo al libro).
Il grande magazzino è paragonato ad una macchina che stritola nei suoi ingranaggi chi non riesce a stare al passo e il ritratto dei piccoli negozianti e delle loro lotte per la sopravvivenza ad oltranza è a volte sconcertante per la rigidità molto umana che manifestano di fronte al cambiamento.
Se devo trovargli una pecca è che il personaggio di Denise tende ad essere un po' stereotipato e chiuso nel suo ruolo di innocente e, a volte, le descrizioni sono un po' lunghe. Peccati veniali. Per quanto mi riguarda, rimane un gran romanzo.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Translator's Note
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Émile Zola
Map

--The Ladies' Paradise

Explanatory Notes

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ladies' Paradise (Les Rougon-Macquart, #11) used to be one of my all-time favorite books. In my teenage years. And now I remember why. Of course, it's the lurve.

In this novel, Denise, a lowly sales girl working at a huge department store, snags a husband who is this store's rich playboy owner, Octave Mouret. Somehow, what seemed uber-romantic to me at 13, isn't any more now. You see, Denise basically gets her man by not putting out. Octave is used to getting any woman he wants, but Denise, a virtuous woman she is, keeps saying "no." Of course, he is smitten. It's not that I have anything against virtue, but I prefer when romances are built on something bigger than that. And as for Denise herself, she is no longer the type of a heroine I admire. She is purer than first snow (when all other woman around her are loose tarts), she is a martyr, who takes abuse without a word (but with dignity - how do you do that?), is taken advantage of and endures instead of being proactive.

But do not let this deter you from reading this novel. Émile Zola is a remarkable writer. His 20-part Les Rougon-Macquart cycle is an ambitious work that explores many areas of French society during the Second French Empire. In this particular novel Zola depicts the world of a department store, an innovation of the 19th century that changed the landscape of the retail business. It is surprising that so many tricks that are used today in commerce, were invented over a hundred years ago - mail-order business, sales, commissions, employee benefits, even the layout of the stores where you can't find all you need in one place but have to roam around and get seduced by other goods you first didn't have any intentions to buy. Zola even touches upon shopaholics and shoplifters. Interesting stuff.

I am now curious if my opinion of other favorite books in this series will be different. Will I enjoy Zola's novels about prostitution (Nana) and coalminers (Germinal) as much as I did before?

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

And there in this chapel built for the worship of women's beauty and grace were the clothes... The dummies' round bosoms swelled out the material, their wide hips exaggerated the narrow waist, and their missing heads were replaced by large price tags

In this entry of the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola takes on a specific aspect of capitalism: the fashionable department store which doesn't just cater to shopping needs but which creates and feeds a desire for unnecessary goods in a 'virtuous circle' of conspicuous consumption - all of which leads to massive profits on the part of the owner and capitalist-in-chief, Octave Mouret.

The shop itself is imaged throughout as a cathedral, a place where shopping has replaced religion and where excess and luxury are the new faith; and as a massive engine where all the people associated with the store and whose livelihoods have been replaced by mass production and selling are mere cogs in a machine which takes them in, uses them up and spits them out when it chooses.

Zola seems ambivalent about all this activity: on one hand, he understands and shows how Mouret creates a market through his expenditure on advertising, his targeting of women, and all the little retail tricks he performs; on the other, Zola seems mesmerised by the innovation and creation, the sheer spectacle of the store which expands over huge blocks as the new widened boulevards are built in Paris, and the glittering display of finery from silks and furs to ribbons and lace, all of which are described in sumptuous prose.

At the same time, the book exposes the exploitation of workers: the 13 hour days, the way new staff work on commission only setting them in competition with each other, the pretence of employee care by providing board and a canteen - only the food is inedible because the chef is incentivised to provide the cheapest meals while needing to cream off his own commission: the meat is tough and the fish smells.

Into all this comes Denise: a provincial shopgirl who is seduced by the store - and the man who owns it. But, a virtuous girl, she refuses to be bought while Mouret mourns that all his millions of francs profit can't purchase the love he wants.

This book really comes to life when it's detailing the seductive world of the store. The sub-plot of Denise only really exists to personalise issues of what it means to be a worker and what money can - and can't - buy. While not the most compulsive of Zola's novels, nevertheless this is a fascinating contemporary description of a moment that transformed retail: we can still recognise the strategies of loss leaders, sales, hiring and firing, stock turnover and the exploitation of workers including seasonal precarity. Most of all, Zola is already aware of the 'sexiness' of shopping and the seductive moves made by Mouret to create, captivate and renew his female market - even if their husbands are going bankrupt to fund their newly-created desires for more and more unnecessary luxury goods.

And part of the ambivalence this book expresses is the role of women: they are Mouret's target and are exploited both as shopgirls and customers. However, the store also offers the female workers an independence and financial rewards, however precarious their situations might be. By creating the store as a feminised destination (we barely hear of male customers), women's purchasing power is being validated and they are seen to be operating in a public and commercial space - even if and though they are being manipulated to buy things they never wanted or needed before, but which are now designated 'fashionable'. When Denise has ideas to make the workers' lives more stable and fair, Mouret calls her a 'socialist' - and her ultimate fate is to be seduced and, presumably past the end of the book, subsumed within his own capitalist machine.

If all Zola's novels figure in a triad of blood, sex and money, this one ticks off the latter two with energy.

[Alice Poon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is novel #11 in the Rougon-Macquart series and was the 6th one in the series I had read so far (all selected at random). It so happened that all six are set in Paris. The Ladies’ Paradise (Au Bonheur Des Dames) is one where Zola is unwontedly light-handed with his prescription of human misery.

This novel tells how a country girl Denise tries to settle in the glamorous city of Paris and courageously confronts all the mishaps and humiliation that her job as a junior saleswoman in a prestigious department store entails. She witnesses how the innovative business model allows the establishment to grow from strength to strength under the management of the shrewd and handsome owner Octave Mouret, who is a young widower and womanizer. Her strong common sense, integrity and strength of will become her only tools of self defense in the material world filled with degrading temptations, to which most of her co-workers succumb. The worst trial comes when she realizes she has fallen in love with Mouret who, tired of his own dissolute private life, is deeply attracted to her.

As the backdrop of the story, Zola paints a living picture of how the business of a luxury department store is run on a daily basis in mid-1800s Paris and how a rapacious expansion plan is carried out in tandem with the city’s ambitious massive infrastructure development. Beneath all the glamour though, there is a strong undertow that grieves the inevitable demise of small business shops and afflictions of their owners. The story also gives a realist’s glimpse into the lives of the average salesman and saleswoman employed in high-class department stores.

This novel is said to have been inspired by the development of Les Grands Magasins du Louvre in the Place du Palais-Royal of that era.

As with other novels in the R-M series I'd read, Zola showed the same mastery in this one with his descriptions of minutiae. What I liked even better though, was still his keen insight into the human psyche and interpersonal relationships, and how he captures the social paradigm shift of the times. I feel that at heart he was very much a democratic socialist.

I’m giving this novel 4.5 stars rounded up.

Other R-M novels I had read:-
L’Oeuvre (The Masterpiece) – 4 stars
Le Ventre (The Belly of Paris) – 4 stars
L’Assommoir (The Dram Shop) – 5 stars
La Curee (The Kill) – 5 stars
Nana (Nana) – 4 stars

Non-R-M novel I had read:-
Therese Raquin – 3 stars

[AiK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Консьюмеризм, шопоголизм, болезненное пристрастие к покупкам, обладанию вещами и даже клептоманией, когда возбужденные дамы, включая богатых, не могли удержаться от воровства вещей в магазине, является объектом критики в романе «Дамское счастье» Золя. Писатель тонко подметил, на чем зиждется современный маркетинг – если женщина считает, что выигрывает от покупки, то она купит даже ненужную ей вещь. Он вскрывает все методы торговли, которые основаны на психологии жаждущей обновки покупательницы, те психологические оправдания, которые ей нужны, чтобы безрассудно тратить деньги – скидки, систему возвратов, создание ажиотажа в виде толпы, пробуждающей стадный инстинкт, концентрация това��а в огромном магазине с максимальным ассортиментом, яркие витрины и огни, привлекающие покупателей издали, атмосфера праздника. Он показывает концентрацию капитала путем разорения мелких торговцев, то, что марксисты называли тогда монополистическим капиталом. Но сам роман показался мне откровенно слабым. Золя чересчур идеализирует Денизу, делая ее каким-то монолитом нравственности, и влюбленность Муре кажется какой-то далекой от реализма. История Золушки и олигарха, которые сейчас можно найти в любом «женском шик-лит» романе. Весь роман – это бесконечное описание бизнеса, правда высокохудожественное, но тем не менее. Да, идея критики консьюмеризма есть, но это просто констатация, наблюдение.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovvero la nascita della GDO.

Eccola Denise: gracile tanto da sembrare una bambina.
Il suo abbigliamento, il suo fare dimesso e, poi, quella meraviglia nello sguardo che scopre la grande città: tutto in lei denuncia le condizioni di un vivere modesto e di provincia.
Eccola dunque, con il piccolo Pepé attaccato ad un braccio e Jean, l'imberbe dongiovanni, che la segue.
Denise sorella. Denise madre.

Parigi è speranza in una nuova vita e, senza preamboli, da subito, gli occhi si riempiono di stupore alla vista delle risplendenti vetrine di un grande e spettacolare magazzino, qualcosa di mai visto: "Au bonheur des dames", "Al paradiso delle signore".

Pubblicato nel 1883 ed appartenente al ciclo di opere dei "Rougon-Macquart", si caratterizza per tutta una serie di dicotomie ricordando l'altro maestro del realismo, ossia, Honoré de Balzac.

▲ La prima è quella che sottolinea la semplicità e la genuinità della vita di provincia versus la dinamicità della metropoli parigina e della sua forza corruttrice.

▲ La seconda opposizione è quella che riguarda il commercio, ossia il fulcro della narrazione.

▲ "Al paradiso delle signore" c'è spazio, luce, vita. Le botteghe attorno, invece, sono antri angusti, bui e umidi.

Questo è il nuovo mondo che prende il sopravvento con un lento ed inesorabile movimento di mascelle e "purtroppo il quartiere poco alla volta era invaso e divorato.".

L'opera ha valoresoprattutto in questo senso dato che ci dà un'idea delle prime mosse di quel commercio a cui oggi siamo più che abituati:

▲ i dipendenti che agiscono come pescecani in mare aperto:

"Su qualsiasi oggetto, un pezzo di stoffa, un nonnulla dava loro una percentuale; e così otteneva che gli addetti alla vendita se ne curassero sul serio. E con questa innovazione aveva acceso tra i commessi una lotta per l’esistenza da cui s’arricchivano i padroni. Del resto, questa famosa lotta era la sua parola favorita, il principio dell’organizzazione che non si stancava mai di esplicare. Sguinzagliava le cupidigie, metteva una forza contro l’altra, tollerava che i grossi mangiassero i piccoli, e ricavava da questa battaglia il suo vantaggio.";

▲ le strategie di marketing rozze ma già efficaci;

▲ l'invasione in ogni settore che tanto mi ha fatto ricordare i nostri centri commerciali in una veste più primitiva...

Il vecchio mondo, dunque, è morto, o comunque sta esalando i suoi ultimi respiri.
Il nuovo avanza, "secolo di foga operosa e di progresso".
Una nuova religione, un nuovo culto che fa accalcare le donne nella sua cattedrale.
Nello splendore della merci esposte (dove Zola esprime al massimo la sua arte descrittiva) la donna va in estasi e si inchina allo spendere come farebbe di fronte ad una statua votiva.
E così, ecco anche anticipato lo shopping compulsivo e quella tensione all'avere che ne rende alcune cleptomani.
Schierati ci sono i solerti commessi che resistono all'assalto dei padroni senza nessuna corazza sindacale e rispondono ai sotterfugi dei colleghi arrivisti difendendosi con ogni arma possibile.
Un esercito che si maschera di servilismo nell'atto della vendita reso ormai perfetto ingranaggio della grande macchina.

E poi c'è Denise: un'anima candida.
Un'ostinata e spudorata purezza che ammanta la storia di un alone fiabesco addolcendo gli intenti di uno Zola "scienziato" della scrittura.
Forse Denise è come quel raggio di sole che così spesso si insinua tra i vetri e che scalda le stoffe facendole luccicare come preziose pietre.
Forse Denise è quella speranza che anche nel più sfrenato e cieco progresso rimanga un po' di umanità.

[Emmeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The Ladies’ Paradise

This isn’t a perfect novel but I sure had fun reading it—and I don’t take fun lightly after my first Zola experiences, Therese Raquin and Germinal.

First I had to quickly address some misplaced nostalgia, which this novel both inflamed and quickly dampened. It is about the growth of a big Parisian department store in the 19th century. I feel quite nostalgic about department stores…I loved going with the whole family, being dragged around “boring” departments (underwear, furniture) and “fun” ones (toys) and stopping at the café. But all the department stores in my home country have folded, leaving us with malls and Amazon.

Zola’s “Ladies’ Paradise” is altogether grander, and it is the Amazon of its era, relentlessly grinding the small family shops of old Paris into bankruptcy and oblivion, even as Paris itself is knocked down and opened up into something bigger, brighter, grander. Owner Octave Mouret is a marketing genius, and he has the undeniable benefit of starting with capital. He pours it into his shop and into the seduction of Woman as a species, his aim being to create desire where there is no need, undercut the competition, create losses on certain items to earn greatly on others. He commands an army of sales men and women, a new class with much greater freedom than previously and an easy acceptance of loose morals.

The story primarily follows impoverished sales girl Denise Baudu as she supports her two younger brothers, rises through the ranks of the shop, watches her uncle’s drapers shop sink into debt and as she becomes the one woman that Mouret desperately wants but can’t have.

Zola’s strengths, as always, a) are crafting great big scenes full of movement and change and motion and b) description. His descriptive skills are maybe a bit too on display here; there are many scenes of sales and descriptions of fabric and particularly lace, and I did feel the middle of the book good bogged down a little in all this.

On the other hand, this book also has:

- Romance. I felt ridiculous being invested in this romance. These people were ridiculous and I wasn’t convinced either of them deserved to find happiness, but I was certainly very happy reading about them.
- Modern resonance. A way of life being swept away to a bold new idea. My mind kept switching into double focus, with one eye on the page and one on current circumstances. Even Zola seems to be writing in two times at once. At one point he says “and that was the seed of the great labour unions of the twentieth century.” This book was published in 1883!
- Urban transformation in real time, and a slippery authorial view. Anyone who has ever been interested in how cities change will be keen to read this. And with the Hausmann-era transformation of Paris, as with the capitalist takeover the shop symbolizes, Zola is clearly somewhat in both camps, criticizing both, acknowledging damage done, and yet compelled to follow. As we so often are, when something transformative comes along.
- Some great vignettes: The compulsive shopper, the shoplifter, the meanness on the shop floor.
- Glamour. There is an overabundance of lace descriptions. But when I emerged from the novel, I felt I had been bathing in the stuff. And god knows, modern shopping never feels so luxurious.

[Inese Okonova · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dāmu paradīzi" biju lasījusi pusaudzes gados, bet neko vairāk par galveno sižeta līniju neatcerējos. Vēl tolaik izlasīju "Lurdu", kas atmiņā palikusi kā kaut kas ļoti nomācošs. Tagad, izlēmusi, ka varbūt beidzot esmu izaugusi līdz Zolā, nolēmu pārlasīt un apzināti izvēlējos "vieglo galu" - "Dāmu paradīzi". Tomēr drīz vien noslīku visā tajā mežģīņu, korsešu, lentīšu un zīda auduma metru blāķī.

Interesanti, ka atšķirībā no samērā jaunā seriāla pēc romāna motīviem Zolā "Dāmu paradīze" nav vis nekāda slavas dziesma jaunajam, progresīvajam kapitālisma laikmetam, kas atbrīvo ceļu nedižciltīgiem, bet uzņēmīgiem cilvēkiem un ieved pilnvērtīgā darba tirgū sievietes. Nē! Zolā uzmanības centrā ir patēriņa laikmeta dzimšana: alkatība, izpārdošanas, skaudība, parādi, kleptomānija, dempings, mazo veikaliņu bankroti utt. Šīs parādības, protams, ir vienas medaļas divas puses. Jautājums, ko izceļ vairāk. Zolā ir daudz kritiskāks nekā BBC režisori.

Teikšu godīgi, man šajā darbā bija daudz par daudz veikala. Tiešām interesantās galveno varoņu attiecības burtiski noslīka izpārdošanu precēs. Brīžiem pieķēru sevi, ka kārtējo jauno preču pieveduma aprakstu jau lasu pa diagonāli, lai neteiktu, ka pāršķiru. Cieņā pret monumentālo ieceri un trāpīgo laikmeta vērojumu lieku četras zvaigznes, bet, ja pavisam godīgi, bija samērā garlaicīgi.

Varbūt kādam ir padoms, ko no Zolā jūs ieteiktu izlasīt, lai labotu iespaidu? :)

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little too on the nose at times, and the plot itself is pretty perfunctory, but his description of (and critique of) the emergence of the department store is brilliantly done. While his point about the commodification of women is hammered repeatedly over our heads, it is a good enough point, and is being said impressively early enough in the process, to warrant such repetition.

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 19th century novel that is a paean to the consumer welfare standard. A large department store the Ladies Paradise, one of the first in 19th century Paris, displaces a lot of local small businesses in sometimes painful ways. Denise, the heroine of the novel, argues, “Prices, instead of being fixed by about fifty shops as they used to be, are fixed nowadays by four or five, which have lowered them, thanks to the power of their capital and the number of their customers … So much the better for the public.” Protect competition not competitors in fictional form.

The department store is really the leading character in this book, the protagonist of the Bildungsroman. It is like a living, breathing creature with needs, desires and most importantly constant growth. It becomes increasing complex, mature and alive as it develops. From a few departments to many, takes over more and more of the square block—eventually engulfing the one stubborn holdout. The novel also has amazing depictions of innovations, not just classical invention (e.g., an improved type of umbrella at one point) but also management of inventory, holding sales, selling some products at a loss, advertising, managing inventories, and more. I never thought an entire chapter of a novel (and they’re long chapters) devoted to inventory management could be so thrilling but that one was nothing compared to the description of the sale.

In the shadow of the Ladies Paradise are a number of small shops that are having an increasingly difficult time competing. The larger shop buys out some, builds on innovations by others, and aggressively competes on price with still others. Émile Zola does not sugarcoat the pain of all of this, depicting deaths and suicide attempts in the wake of the store. But he does not blame all the maladies on the Ladies Paradise itself and, consistent with the consumer welfare standard, he keeps the focus on the ways in which this profit ultimately benefits customers. Moreover, some of the small businesses do innovate in ways that help keep themselves in business: “longing to create competition for the colossus; [a small business owner] believed that victory would be certain if several specialized shops where customers could find a very varied choice of goods could be created in the neighbourhood.”

Interestingly there is a chapter that reads like an explanation of an economic model, Bertrand competition, in which two competitors keep lowering prices by smaller and smaller amounts until they are pricing as low as they possibly can (their marginal cost). What made this especially interesting to me was that The Ladies Paradise was published in 1883, the same year Joseph Louis François Bertrand published his model.

And it is not just consumers. The novel depicts how the productivity gains the Ladies Paradise makes as a result of its scale and its innovations are passed through to workers in the form of higher pay and improved benefits. For example, early on there is a brutal depiction of the process of laying off workers during the slow time of year. Later on, the store develops a system that is more like furloughs with insurance. And also, unlike the small shops in the area, it has opportunities for advancement within the store, moving up the ranks of managerial positions. Notably, all of this is not because of the benevolence of the owner (as it is in a few other 19th century novels) but because of competition from other stores so the need to attract and retain talent.

All of this makes employment in the colossus considerably better than the smaller, neighboring shops where people are poorly paid, lack opportunities for advancement and face harassment. Although it is still not all wonderful—for example, the department store frowns on women who are married and dismisses them when they have children.

Overall, the combination of low prices for consumers and high expenses—including pay and benefits to attract and retain employees—mean that the business has a very thin profit margin but applies that margin to a very large base: “Doubtless with their heavy trade expenses and their system of low prices the net profit was at most four per cent. But a profit of sixteen hundred thousand francs was still a pretty good sum; one could be content with four per cent when one operated on such a scale.”

The biggest wrinkle in the consumer welfare standard is some of the ambivalence Zola has about consumer preferences themselves. The advent and spread of advertising as manufacturing desires is a big part of the book: “The sixty thousand francs spent on announcements in the newspapers, the ten thousand posters on walls, and the two hundred thousand catalogues which had been sent out had emptied the women’s purses and left their nerves suffering from the shock of their intoxication; they were still shaken by all Mouret’s devices: the reduced prices, the system of ‘returns’, his constantly renewed attentions.”

The idea that people—or women to be more specific—are buying things they do not “need” but “desire” is an issue it grapples with. And that desire can even rise to the level of a mad frenzy, like the sales it depicts or the shoplifters, some of them affluent but driven by an almost mad desire to acquire lace, silk, and more.

All of this is embedded in a larger economic and technological system that is operating in the background: large factories in Lyon that are producing at scale in a way that is symbiotic with the department store, rail transportation to bring the constant inflow of goods, a mail system that supports catalog purchases, and more.

Oh, and there are actual humans. A woman her two brothers comes to Paris from the countryside to support themselves. In typical Zola fashion she and her little brother go as far down as you could imagine into poverty and near starvation before she ascends meteorically. The stores owner becomes an interesting and more complex character as it goes along. There is a love story. All of this is quite good but none of it rises to the level of uniqueness of the depiction of the store and the market competition system it depicts.

I read this based on a recommendation from several people in response to a tweet, “I asked a colleague in the English department if any fiction had positive depictions of business and capitalism (other than Ayn Rand). He mischievously suggested George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara to me--here is my review. Anyone else have other ideas?” Although it might not be as one-sided as I depict above, I’m still astounded about how breathtaking fiction can be made which understands and depicts the ways in which innovation and scale combine with competition to generate benefits for consumers and workers—while also not sugarcoating the many that lose from this process.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strabordante, straripante, grandioso: sono gli aggettivi che mi vengono immediatamente da accostare al libro appena letto. Sono stata incerta fino all’ultimo sulle stelle da assegnargli perché da un lato la lettura è stata pesante, dall’altro mi ha comunque appassionato. La pesantezza è dipesa dalle accurate e approfondite descrizioni del grande magazzino Al paradiso delle signore, aperto al centro di Parigi, che Zola analizza con una ricchezza di particolari che viene da chiedersi quante ore abbia trascorso in mezzo ai nastri, trine, stoffe, abiti, cappelli, mantelli e merci di ogni svariato genere che sono vendute negli scaffali dei grandi magazzini (magari accompagnando la moglie a fare spese). A partire dal nome scelto, questo grande magazzino è una gioia per gli occhi; la ricchezza cromatica creata ad arte attraverso i più begli abbinamenti di stoffe di ogni genere e tipo, dai velluti alle sete, l’eleganza degli addobbi e degli arredi, l’efficienza dei commessi che vi lavorano, tutto è fatto per stupire, ammaliare e conquistare le donne, dalle nobildonne decadute ricche solo dell’orgoglio di casta, alle mogli di ricchi borghesi occupate a spendere i guadagni dei poveri mariti, fino alle giovanette di provincia che si ritrovano sperdute a Parigi senza lavoro, come capita alla protagonista Denise.
Sotto lo splendore e il luccichio delle sete e dei merletti, il paradiso nasconde però la sua “anima nera”, che Zola sottolinea definendolo più volte come un enorme mostro che spalanca le fauci inghiottendo quanto incontra sul suo passaggio: la solidarietà umana, il rispetto, l’onestà scompaiono e viene fuori la natura bestiale di ciascuno. “Homo homini lupus”è la regola della vita nel microcosmo fatto di commessi e clienti del grande magazzino, cui corrisponde, in campo economico, la triste (ed equivalente) realtà del “mors tua, vita mea”, che costituisce la parte più triste ed anche la più attuale del romanzo, consistente nella scomparsa delle piccole botteghe di una volta portate avanti col sudore della fronte del titolare e della sua famiglia, gettate sul lastrico dalla concorrenza inattaccabile dei grandi magazzini, quella che oggi chiamiamo la grande distribuzione.
L’amore tra la commessa Denise e Mouret, il milionario proprietario del supermercato, deciso a non farsi accalappiare da nessuna donna ma di essere soltanto il dominatore incontrastato del suo regno commerciale, ed alla fine folle d’amore per la vergine ritrosa, passa in secondo piano, anche perchè non è certo originale. Un merito riconosco alla fanciulla, verso la quale non ho avuto granchè simpatia: l’essere riuscita, grazie all’ascendente su Mouret, a introdurre nel Paradiso delle signore un inizio, importante, di tutela dei diritti delle donne lavoratrici, che venivano buttate in mezzo alla strada dal momento del matrimonio. Brava Denise!