438 pages
English language
Published July 18, 2008 by Oxford University Press.
"Through charm, drive, and diligent effort Octave Mouret has become the director of one of the finest new department stores in Paris, Au Bonheur des Dames. Supremely aware of the power of his position, Mouret seeks to exploit the desire that his luxuriantly displayed merchandise arouses in the ladies who shop, and the aspirations of the young female assistants he employs. Charting the beginnings of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society, Zola captures in lavish detail the greedy customers and gossiping staff, and the obsession with image, fashion, and gratification that was a phenomenon of nineteenth-century French consumer society. Of all Zola's novels, this may be the one with the most relevance for our own time"--The publisher.
Un magnifique roman de Zola mêlant amour, amitié et émergence des grands magasins dans le Paris du XIXe siècle (et la chute des petits commerces malheureusement). On y suit Denise, provinciale, qui essaie de s'en sortir dans la capitale et y trouver sa place. Par contre, il faut aimer les grandes et longues descriptions
