Origins
A year before he started to write Nana, Zola did not know anything yet about the Variétés. It was Ludovic Halévy who invited him to see an operetta with him on February 15, 1878, and took him backstage. Halévy told him innumerable stories about the amorous life of the star — Anna Judic, whose ménage à trois would become the model for Rose Mignon, her husband, and Steiner — and also about famous cocottes such as Blanche d'Antigny, Anna Deslions, Delphine de Lizy, and Hortense Schneider, an amalgam of which was to serve the writer as the basis for his principal character.
Read more about this topic: Nana (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
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“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
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“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
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