The Ladies' Paradise (Oxford World's Classics (Paperback))

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Summary: The Ladies Paradise
Review: After reading the book for an art class I was suprized to find out that I actually enjoyed the book, it had quite a twist to the department store/love story. I think Zola's description of the scenes were wonderful and helped me use my inmagination better. I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes learning about Paris bourgeous life and the mechanical system of the department stores. Definitly a good read.

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Summary: Amazing insight into modern life-essential reading
Review: any one who has started a business or has worked in a business should read this book. It clearly outlines all marketing principles, sales psychology and the benefits of being in distribution rather then production. Amazing. Grow your mind and read.

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Summary: A beautiful, beautiful book
Review: Au Bonheur des Dames is only one of twenty-something novels in the Rougon-Macquart series (detailing the various stories of the various members of a large family--among them a serial killer, a girl who embroiders ceremonial garments, a financier whose wife is sleeping with his own grown son, a spinster dedicating her whole life to caring for her extended family). And, personally, my favorite one, in that it is far less naturalistic and features (spoiler) a happy ending--out of the ones I've read, the only other one that does not leave a feeling of doom and dirt is The Dream (but that one has a very sad ending, actually).

I agree that there is a deep social message in the book: Octave Mouret's grand mega-store (called, of course, Au Bonheur des Dames--Ladies' Happiness, or Paradise, in this translation) eclipsing and eventually ruining small-time clothes merchants--like Denise's own uncle. But the mystery of the book is that you, as a reader, while feeling sorry for ruined lives and businesses, cannot but admire the awesome machine that Octave had built. By the end of the book, I couldn't care less about the small-time merchants. All I wanted was for Denise to give Octave the time of day. Message, shmessage.

The story is actually very, very simple. Octave Mouret, a young widower, is a man who has everything--and every woman he can possibly desire. And not because the store he had inherited from his wife (who died in an accident at its construction site, fatefully) is making him loads of money--also because he is intelligent, handsome, suave and has the eyes "the color of the old gold". But he wants Denise, the one girl he cannot have: the boring, gray, provincial sales clerk at his huge clothing store. Why? Because she has principles and morals and won't be yet another in the succession of women who traverse his bed. Because he cannot have her, he begins to want her more and more; then, he begins to respect her, then... you get the picture.

So, the story being so simple, it is all in the descriptions--rich, beautiful descriptions of the store, the sales, the merchandize, the laces, the dresses. The story revolves around the store; the characters are fleshed out as they buy, sell, count money, steal. After every sale, Octave's managers bring him the day's profits--literally, in bags of gold. The book itself is golden, beautiful, richly written. Every time I step into Nordstrom, I think about Octave Mouret: I like to think that a handsome young man is sitting up there, gold spilling over his desk and shining in his eyes.

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Summary: LATE XIXth CENTURY CAPITALISM
Review: The novel begins with a provincial twenty-year-old girl named Denise Baudu, who had lost her parents to fever, coming to Paris together with two younger brothers to seek some financial backing from her uncle, who owns a small shop. However, because of financial difficulties, the uncle is unable to provide any backing. Denise ends up being hired by the owner of a giant retail store - his name is Octave Mouret and he is one of the thirteen great grandchildren of Adelaide Fouque - which establishes a monopoly on all the products that are intended to meet the needs and the tastes of women. That monopoly brings misery to small establishments, like that of Denise's uncle, which are located around. Nonetheless, Denise is fascinated with the size of the store and its owner. At one time she is terminated, but then hired back ...

The novel describes in great details the way the store operates, the way the people who work there live, the way women do their shopping. These digressions tend to slow down the plot development, but they are not harmful to the novel itself, since they provide a great insight into the morals and manners of the upper class and into the early concepts of the modern economic system. The novel was written in 1883 and we can see that even though the economic system that was in place than resembles the one that is in place now, such things as stiff competition, struggle between monopolies and small businesses, conflicts between coworkers and greed for power were much more conspicuous, as it is seen from the novel. One must bear in mind that professional unions were only gaining strength at that time.

Also, Octave Mouret is one of the most interesting characters in the Rougon-Macquart cycle. In spite of the fact that his parents (who are cousins to one another) die insane in "the Conquest of Passans/la Conquete de Plassans", he remains vigorous, jovial and practical. Furthermore, he is one of the very few characters in the cycle who undergoes some sort of personality change, since in this novel he is a lot different from himself in the novel "Pot Luck/Pot-Bouille", but that is a different story.

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Summary: More top-of-the-line Zola
Review: The rise of department store culture in late 19th century Paris is the subject of this wonderful novel. It's quintessential Zola, in that the book is a top-notch combination of realistic writing and soap opera. Like other classics by Zola - "L'Assomoir," "Germinal" - "The Ladies Paradise" uses a somewhat overheated storyline to comment on social change and how a rapacious capitalism changed the lives of everyone it touched. The novel is especially poignant in its depiction of small, family-owned businesses which are eventually destroyed by the kind of modern marketing techniques that created the department store. A real page-turner, "The Ladies Paradise" works as both exceptional trash novel and social critique. Zola is a real genius and this, one of his more obscure works, is also one of his best.

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Summary: There's nothing new under the sun
Review: This book is particularly interesting for the American reader because it shows that the "modern" mind manipulation techniques used in advertising today were well honed and in operation long before Vance Packard wrote "The Hidden Persuaders" or Madison Avenue was ever heard of. They are all here: loss leaders, careful product placement to prompt "impulse" buying of unnecessary items and all based on the flightiness of female nature learnt by the store owner in the previous volume "Pot-Bouille". And to round it all off, we have the classic message "money can't buy me love", though the ending hints that the male and female lead may yet "come together" in the future. After reading this, and indeed any Zola novel, two thoughts remain: "it's all been done before" and "there's nothing new under the sun". Readers gain an insight into the social forces that led to so many people supporting trade unions and "left wing socialist" political views. The book is contemporary to the First International and Marx's "Das Kapital". It's not Zola's best work, but you do realise why Warner Bros thought him worthy of a biopic in 1937.

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Summary: Virtue is the real theme of this novel
Review: This closely observed novel is set in Paris of the Belle Epoque. It captures even the dust as the great city is reborn and a great bourgeoise revolution sweeps over France and Europe. This is merely the backdrop for the extraordinary character of Denise. Zola was in the thick of things in Paris and this novel is a fabulous documentary but it is mainly a story about virtue and how, in the end, after much suffering, it is rewarded. So it's sweet, too. A great read and a tremendous gift for anyone with a soft spot for France, shopping, romantic love and vicious sexual politics.

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Summary: Retail Realisim
Review: While it is very easy to go into the social issues raised by this book, it is simply a premier for retailing 101. Anyone who has ever worked in a department store will just roar when they see life has not changed in 100 years. A must for anyone thinking about a career in retail. Actually, it makes you think fondly of the days when merchandising was as much magic as science.

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Summary: Nothing New Under The Sun ? Re-Read The Novel
Review: With his Rougon-Macquart series, Emile Zola established the family saga. He put into naturalistic prose and photographic narrative the tales of a family and how their lives are affected by their surroundings. In L'Assomoir, he focused on the lives of the Provencals, those who live in the French countryside, whose lives may appear peaceful and orderly but might not be at a closer look. In Nana, he wrote about the world of the courtesan or high class prostitute operating in the beauty and sex-obscessed French culture of Paris. In "Au Bonheur Des Dames" (The Lady's Paradise) Zola exposes the capitalism and consumer culture of fashion, as expressed in the sales at the department stores.

It was the time of Karl Marx, a time when conservative elements came into conflict with those of individual expression and equal rights. Previously, Emile Zola's novels were bleak, Dickensian and depressing, making a cynical social commentary that progress and idealism is stifled under staunch older generations of Republican power (in this case the French Second Empire under Louis Napoleon III). He conveyed so much pain and suffering in "Germinal" about the coal mine workers in rural France. Like John Steinbeck of the 19th century, Emile Zola immersed himself in what he wrote, treating people as humanly real as possible, touching a chord to so many for his unabashed truths.

In The Ladies Paradise (the title refers to the name of the high class department store in downtown Paris), Zola portrays the fetish and profitable business of women's fashion. Octave Mouret, who at fist comes off as a money-loving, greedy, corporate seducer learns the value of progress and the rights of the individual. Where as he had always dominated women, manipulating them to buy his endless carrousel of hats, silks, gowns and shoes, he cannot win the affections of the newcomer sales girls Denise.

Denis eyes become our eyes as we see into the sexist world of consumer capitalism. Even today, this holds true. Women are encouraged, enforced and expected to be beautiful and attractive, with 0 size dresses, with fashionable tastes and so forth. Those who cannot meet society's self-imposed ideals of beauty crack under the pressure, becoming anorexic, anxious and sick. Super models, department stores, fashion magazines and the latest trends to look like Britney Spears (and behave just as shallow and air-headed) is the way to happiness they say. Emile Zola completely transports you to Paris of the 1870's and 1880's a time when the world seemed to be losing its better values. Is it still losing its values ? Only through advocating women's rights, individual expression, equality, and less stifling elements in society are we truly to be happy.