The Ladies' Paradise [Paperback]

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.

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.