BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, NANA & EMILE ZOLA

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,  NANA  &  EMILE  ZOLA

                 

During my teens my dream was to take doctorate in literature.  My mother tongue, national language along with English motivated and attracted me to take a masters degree in arts.

Many writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Shakespeare and a long list of geniuses in literature attracted me.   Many of my Blog posts were about books and movies.  The artists, writers, actors and directors always found mention in my blogs.   The relative studies of Victorian literature and modern classics continued to influence me.  The fascination for literature occupied most of my free time.  Even mythological stories including Greek and Roman always found a deeper insight into my vision and splendor spirits.  The writing was more than a hobby to me and I was always hunting for food for thought and new subjects. 

I must thank my stars and god for being blessed with ideas and storming my brain with untapped talent and resources.

Emile Zola’s work ‘Nana’ was read by me in my curious days of finding world literature and Emile Zola made it to the best of fifteen ranking in the all time writer category.   Emile Zola, the naturalist writer’s classic books were among the Penguin Publishers collections.  Emile Zola was the advocate of naturalist philosophy.

‘Beauty and the Beast’ the term found significance whenever a beautiful wife married to an ugly person or a savage brute possessing a beautiful partner.

Disney cartoons famous ‘Beauty and the Beast’ must have caught your fancy.  Many movies were made in various languages across the world with the subject. 

From the inception of human race ‘Beauty and the Beast’ exists.  Many wars were fought to possess beautiful women.  The emperors were not only won the battles and wars but also captured the enemy’s boudoir beauties.  Man‘s quest for wealth and territory alone was not enough for him but for his interest in the beautiful Venuses and Aphrodite of the femme fatales.

Since we discuss “Beauty and the Beast”  it reminds me of a 2014 French film of the same name.

The movie starred Lea Seydoux  the latest bond girl in the title role.   She has also acted in “The Grand Budapest Hotel”  and “Ingolorious Basterds”.  She was last seen in the bond movie “Spectre” opposite Daniel Craig.  


 

        

Lea Seydoux made it to the Vogue cover feature Bond Bombshell.  She is best known for her role in the award winning movie “Blue is the Warmest Color”.

                                                        Lea Seydoux in "SPECTRE"



                                                
Beauty and the Beast

                        

  

    

                

         

Lantier, the "human beast" of the title, has a hereditary madness and has several times in his life wanted to murder women. At the beginning of the story he is an engine driver, in control of his engine "La Lison". His relationship with "La Lison" is almost sexual and provides some degree of control over his mania.

As a result of a chance remark, Roubaud suspects that Séverine has had an affair some years earlier, with Grandmorin one of the directors of the railway company, who had acted as her patron and who had helped Roubaud get his job. He forces a confession out of her and makes her write a letter to him telling him to take a particular train that evening, the same train Roubaud and Séverine are taking back to Le Havre.

Meanwhile, Lantier who is not working while his engine is being repaired goes to visit his Aunt Phasie who lives in an isolated house by the railway. On leaving he meets his cousin Flore, with whom he has had a longstanding mutual attraction. After a brief conversation with her his passions become inflamed and he is on the verge of raping her but this in turn brings on his homicidal mania. He has a desire to stab her but just about controls himself and rushes away. Finding himself beside the railway track as the train from Paris passes, he sees, in a split second, a figure on the train holding a knife, bent over another person. Shortly after, he finds the body of Grandmorin beside the track with his throat cut. It was also discovered that he had been robbed of his watch and some money.

An investigation is launched and Roubaud and Séverine are prime suspects as they were on the train at the time and were due to inherit some property from Grandmorin. The authorities never suspect their true motive. Lantier sees Roubaud while waiting to be interviewed and identifies him as the murderer on the train, but when questioned says he cannot be sure. The investigating magistrate — believing the killer was Cabuche, a carter who lived nearby — dismisses Roubaud and Séverine. The murder remains unsolved.

Despite being cleared of suspicion, the marriage of Roubaud and Séverine declines. Zola casually tosses in a remark that the money and watch stolen from Grandmorin was hidden behind the skirting board in their apartment, thus confirming the reader’s suspicion that Roubaud was the murderer all along. Séverine and Lantier begin an affair, at first clandestinely but then more blatantly until they are caught in flagrante delicto by Roubaud. Despite his previous jealousy, Roubaud seems unmoved and spends less and less time at home and turns to gambling and drink.

Séverine admits to Lantier that Roubaud committed the murder and that together they disposed of the body. Lantier feels the return of his desire to kill and one morning leaves the apartment to kill the first woman he meets. After having picked a victim he is seen by someone he knows and so abandons the idea. He then realizes that he has the desire no longer. It is his relationship with Séverine and her association with the murder that has abated his desire.

The relationship between Roubaud and his wife deteriorates when she realizes that he has taken the last of the hidden money. Lantier has the opportunity to invest money in a friend’s business venture in New York. Séverine suggests they use the money from the sale of the property they inherited from Grandmorin. Roubaud is now the only obstacle to this new life and they decide to kill him. They approach him one night when he is working as a watchman at the station, hoping that the murder will be attributed to robbers. At the last moment however, Lantier loses his nerve.

Cousin Flore, meanwhile, sees Lantier pass her house every day on the train and noticing Séverine with him, realizes they are having an affair and becomes insanely jealous, wishing to kill them both. She hatches a plot to remove a rail from the line in order to cause a derailment of his train. One morning she seizes the opportunity when Cabuche leaves his wagon and horses unattended by the railway. She drags the horses onto the line shortly before the train arrives. In the resulting crash, numerous people are killed and Lantier is seriously injured. Séverine, however, remains unhurt. Wracked by guilt, Flore commits suicide by walking in front of a train.

Séverine nurses Lantier back to health but, in the absence of "la Lison", his mania returns and he murders her. The unfortunate Cabuche is the first to find her body and is accused of killing her at the behest of Roubaud. Both are put on trial for this and the murder of Grandmorin. They are both convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lantier begins driving again but his new engine is just a number to him. He begins an affair with his fireman's girlfriend.

The novel ends as Lantier is driving a train carrying troops towards the front at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. The resentment between Lantier and his fireman breaks out as the train is travelling at full steam. Both fall to their deaths as the train full of happy, drunken, patriotic and doomed soldiers hurtles driverless through the night.

 

The novels by Emile Zola in alphabetical order :

 

 

 

 

 

 

A

• L'Argent
• L'Assommoir
• Au Bonheur des Dames

B

• La Bête humaine

C

• La Conquête de Plassans
• La Curée

D

• La Débâcle
• Doctor Pascal

F

• La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
• The Fortune of the Rougons

G

• Germinal (novel)

I

• L'Inondation

J

• La Joie de vivre

M

• Madeleine Férat
• Les Mystères de Marseille

N

• Nana (novel)

O

• L'Œuvre

P

• Une Page d'amour

R

• Le Rêve (novel)

S

• Son Excellence Eugène Rougon

T

• La Terre
• Thérèse Raquin

V

• Le Ventre de Paris

NANA – Novel by Emile Zola – Summary

 

      

Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series.

Monsieur Fauchery, theatrical reviewer for a Paris paper, is attending the premiere of The Blonde Venus at the Variety Theatre because he had heard rumors of Nana, the Venus of the new play. She is the epitome of sexuality. Paris’s smart set is well represented at the theater that night, and Fauchery and his cousin Hector de la Faloise note a few of the more interesting people. In the audience are Steiner, a crooked but very rich banker who is the current lover of Rose Mignon, an actor in The Blonde Venus; Mignon, who serves as procurer for his own wife; Daguenet, a reckless spender reputed to be Nana’s lover for the moment; Count Xavier de Vandeuvres; Count Muffat de Beuville and his wife; and several of the city’s well-known courtesans.

The play, a vulgar travesty on the life of the Olympian gods, is becoming boring until Nana finally appears; with beautiful golden hair floating over her shoulders, she walks confidently toward the footlights for her feature song. When she begins to sing, she seems such a crude amateur that murmurs and hisses begin to sound. Suddenly a young student exclaims loudly that Nana is stunning. Everyone laughs, including Nana. It was as though she frankly admitted that she had nothing except her voluptuous self to offer. Nana, however, knew this was sufficient for her audience. As she ends her song, she retires to the back of the stage amid a roar of applause. In the last act, Nana’s body is veiled only by her golden locks and a transparent gauze. The house grows quiet and tense. Nana smiles confidently, knowing that she had conquered them with her flesh.

Thus Nana, product of the streets of Paris, starts her career as mistress of the city. To get money for her scrofulous little son, Louis, and for her own extravagant wants, she sells herself at varying prices to many men. She captivates Steiner, the banker, at an all-night party after her initial success as Venus. He buys her a country place, La Mignotte, a league from Les Fondettes, home of Madame Hugon, whose seventeen-year-old son, George, was the one who called Nana stunning the opening night of The Blonde Venus and who had been enraptured with her at Nana’s party. Nana, making no pretense of belonging exclusively to Steiner, invites a number of friends to visit her at La Mignotte.

Madame Hugon entertains Count Muffat, his wife, Sabine, and their daughter, Estelle, at her home in September. George, who had been expected several times during the summer, suddenly comes home. He had invited Fauchery and Daguenet for a visit. Mme Vandeuvres, who had promised for five years to come to Les Fondettes, was likewise expected. Mme Hugon is unaware of any connection between the coming of Nana to La Mignotte and the simultaneous visits of all of these men to Les Fondettes.

George escapes from his doting mother and leaves in the rain to Nana, who finds him soaking wet as she is gathering strawberries in her garden. While his clothes are drying, he dresses in some of Nana’s clothes. Despite Nana’s feeling that it is wrong to submit to such an younger person she finally concedes.

Nana (nah-NAH), an ignorant courtesan whose beauty, selfishness, and erotic cunning prove disastrous to the men of fashion who patronize her. A product of the Paris streets, she is discovered by a theatrical promoter and becomes a success by captivating men with her sexual charm. Soon she has a clientele that includes the richest men in Paris. Tiring of this life, she goes to live with a brutal comic actor. When her fortunes reach a low ebb, she is reduced to streetwalking. Later, an infatuated nobleman becomes her protector. Her financial and sexual extravagances achieve new extremes as she acquires a lavish mansion, new lovers, and a lesbian prostitute. Many of her lovers ruin themselves; one goes to prison, and two commit suicide. Ironically, she dies of smallpox, her beautiful and notorious body ravaged by the disease lies in a posh hotel bed.

The prominent people in “NANA’s” life.

M. Fauchery

M. Fauchery (foh-sheh-REE), a second-rate journalist who writes about Nana in the press, at first favorably and later adversely. A hanger-on of the theater and society, he spends his time seducing other men’s wives.

M. Steiner

M. Steiner (SHTI-nehr), a wealthy and crooked Jewish banker who pursues actresses. He is twice Nana’s lover, the first time providing her with an estate. His financial career roughly parallels Nana’s erotic career; he is spectacularly successful, suffers heavy losses, and then regains his fortune before he falls again, this time to bankruptcy.

Georges Hugon

Georges Hugon (zhohrzh ew-GOH[N]), a pampered, effeminate, silly young lad.

Critical Evaluation of the novel “NANA”

                       

                
 Emile  Zola

Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series (1871-1893), including Nana, ran to an aggregate of twenty novels, exploring the naturalistic philosophy of literature. This philosophy was strongly influenced by the scientific method outlined in Claude Bernard’s Introduction a l’étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865; An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, 1927). Zola himself explained the relationship between science and literature in his theoretical works: Le Roman expérimental (1880; The Experimental Novel, 1893; a direct application of Bernard’s principle to literature), Les Romanciers naturalistes (1881; The Naturalist Novel, 1964), and Le Naturalisme au théâtre (1881; Naturalism on the Stage, 1893). According to Zola, naturalism combines scientific determinism, pessimistic and mechanistic views of human behavior, pathological assumptions about human motivation, and a predilection for examining the life of the lower socioeconomic classes. Thus, Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series, designed after the model of Honoré de Balzac’s seventeen-volume La Comédie humaine (1829-1848; The Human Comedy, 1895-1896, 1911), seeks to portray the society of the Second Empire by “scientifically” describing conditions of life.

Zola, however, did not recognize that hereditary (biological) determinants cannot rationalize behavior. His attempt to trace through twenty novels a family epic of neuroses and alcoholism was therefore less than successful. Nevertheless, it did produce some memorable character studies—among them, Nana—in the multifaceted collection of one-thousand-odd characters who appear in the series, depicting various social classes, circumstances, and places that Zola knew well.

Indeed, so attentive is Zola to naturalism’s scientific principles that he paints in words as vivid a portrait of Nana as could be painted by the most adept realists. Of course, attention to detail as well as to psychological motivation is paramount in the naturalistic canon. Just as scientific experiments require exacting attention to statistical data, so also do naturalistic novels demand factual accounting. Thus, Nana satisfies its philosophical imperatives by providing such meticulous details as would be necessary for a laboratory report.

Nana – the Novel by Emile Zola another view by a reviewer – The Innocence Lost : 

Monsieur Fauchery, the drama critic, takes his cousin la Faloise to the theater for the opening of a new musical featuring an exciting new star known simply as Nana. At the theater, the two men recognize many people from the fashionable world, among them, the pious Count Muffat de Beuville and his wife, Countess Sabine. When Nana appears onstage, it is obvious that she has no talent, but she possesses one outstanding quality — she is the epitome of sexuality.

At first the audience laughs until a young boy, Georges Hugon, cries out, "She's wonderful." From then until the end of the play, Nana is in control of the audience, especially during the final act when she appears on the stage virtually naked.

The next day, while Nana is making arrangements to receive her lovers, fans who had seen her the preceding evening begin to call upon her. Among the visitors are Count Muffat and his father-in-law, the Marquis de Chouard, who pretends to come to collect money for a charitable organization. Both men are visibly affected by the presence of Nana. A wealthy banker named Steiner also comes, and even though he has a reputation for spending fortunes on actresses, Nana refuses to see him.

The following week, at a party given by the Count Muffat, the discussion between the men concerns a party that Nana is giving after her performance. She has told Fauchery to invite the count to the party, but most of the men think that he will not accept. At the party, more people come than Nana had expected; but the count does not come. At the end of the party, Nana decides it is time to look after her own interest and lets Steiner know that she will accept him as a lover.

As Nana's reputation spreads, soon foreign dignitaries begin to come to the theater to see her. Count Muffat must accompany an English prince to the theater and while there can hardly constrain himself because Nana has aroused in him unknown desires. Before the prince takes her away for the evening, the count discovers that Steiner has bought her a country house close to a family he often visits. She tells him to come see her there.

The country house is owned by Madame Hugon, the mother of Georges, who shouted in the theater that Nana was wonderful. When Georges hears about Nana's visit, he goes to see her. He is so young that Nana does not want to accept him as a lover, but after some mild persuasion she succumbs. This new relationship pleases her so much that she decides to postpone her affair with Count Muffat. After a week, however, Georges' relationship is discovered and his mother forces him to remain at home. Then Count Muffat slips into Nana's bedroom and begins his love affair with her.

Three months later, Nana begins to resent the fact that Count Muffat never gives her much money. Furthermore, she has formed an infatuation for an actor named Fontan. When both Muffat and Steiner arrive and find her in bed with Fontan, Nana throws both her old lovers out and decides to be true to Fontan. However, the actor soon tires of Nana and begins beating her brutally. Finally, he even locks her out of her apartment.

Nana now decides to renew her relationship with Count Muffat but makes it clear to him that she expects much more than she previously received. The count agrees to all her demands, buys her an expensive mansion, furnishes it elegantly, and gives her twelve thousand francs a month for expenses. Still Nana is not satisfied; she begins to have relations with other men, even men whom she picks up from the streets. Out of boredom, she begins to experiment with lesbian love and finds that it is rather pleasant. Count Muffat must learn to accept all of her vagaries or else leave. By now he is so completely enslaved that he cannot deny her anything.

At the famous race, the Prix de Paris, one of the horses is named after Nana. Everyone comes to the race and many bet on the filly, Nana. After the race, which is won by Nana, the owner of the stable, Count Vandeuvres, is suspected of some shady transactions and commits suicide by setting fire to himself and his stables. Nana, however, is celebrated because her namesake won the race.

No amount of money or pleasure seems to satisfy Nana. She begins to spend money so wildly that she has to have many more lovers to supply her insatiable demands. Quickly, she begins to go through the fortunes of many men and leaves them destitute and bankrupt. Through all of her experiences, the count remains imprisoned by her capricious behavior. Only when he unexpectedly discovers her in bed with his decrepit father-in-law is he shocked back into his senses. But by then, he too is a broken man.

One day, Nana disappears from Paris. No one knows of her whereabouts, but rumors begin to grow up about her. All of the rumors concern huge sums of money and fantastic lovers for Nana. One day, it is discovered that Nana is in a hotel in Paris dying of smallpox. Many of the old actresses and courtesans go there to see her, but they are too late. Now, only Nana's body, corrupted by the ravages of the disease, lies unclaimed in the austere hotel room.

Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a Super Hit Broadway Musical.

The “Beauty and the Beast”(La Bete Humaine)  and “NANA” always  fills our imagination and Emile Zola reaffirms he is one of the greatest  novelist and the protagonist of naturalistic philosophy of writing.