Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies’ Delight) is a department store run by Octave Mouret, an intriguing character previously introduced by Zola in Pot-Bouille. However, this novel is very much a counterpart, rather than a sequel, to its predecesssor. Whilst Pot-Bouille savagely exposed the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, Au Bonheur des Dames is a more positive portrayal of the class, showing how their desire for financial success results in glittering achievement. The translator, who also writes the introduction, sees the novel as an unequivocal celebration of this capitalist enterprise. However, this is to take a simplistic view. Although Zola clearly understands the need for progress and admires Baron Haussman’s restructuring of Paris, he also regrets the concomitant Darwinian struggle for survival which leaves the independent trader broken and desperate. The suicide attempt of one shopkeeper is perhaps the most poignant episode in the novel.
Zola also warns of the dangers of the “commercial cathedral” to which women flock to worship the god of consumerism, parting with money they can ill afford. This theme is of course particularly resonant in the current economic climate, and one can’t help but think of Tesco (Every Little Hurts) when reading of Mouret’s frenzied attempts to crush all local independent businesses. Zola makes much of the idea of “phalanstery of trade”, suggesting that business can be successful without exploiting their workforce by building profit-sharing communities, rather than simply squeezing everything they can out of their beleaguered and expendable staff. That’s certainly more John Lewis than Tesco.
The characterisation perhaps isn’t as strong as in some of the other novels of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, but the portrayal of the department store as a microcosm is particularly compelling – the ostentatious wealth of the customers contrasting with the ascetic conditions of the staff who live in tiny attic rooms above. Zola, as ever, did his research into the environment he was describing, and this attention to detail makes the novel never less than absorbing.
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