Maupassant, Guy de Books - Page 4

Contes Du Jour Et De La Nuit (Garnier-Flammarion) (French Edition)

Guy de Maupassant

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Pierre Et Jean (French Edition)

Guy de Maupassant

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Mademoiselle Fifi

Guy de Maupassant

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Editorial Review:

The girls did not understand his witticisms, and their intelligence did not seem to be awakened until he sputtered obscene words, rough expressions, crippled by his accent. Then all in a chorus began to laugh as if they were demented, falling on the laps of their neighbors, repeating the words which the Baron disfigured purposely in order to make them say filthy things. They vomited at will plenty of them, intoxicated after drinking from the first bottles of wine; and relapsing into their real selves, opening the gates to their habits, they kissed mustaches on their right and those on their left, pinched arms, uttered furious screams, drank out of all the glasses, sang French couplets and bits of German songs they had learned in their daily intercourse with the enemy.

El Horla (Spanish Edition)

Guy de Maupassant

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Absolutely outstanding 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

It's not for no reason that The Horla is widely regarded as the best horror story ever told. I advise anyone who contemplates reading this to pour themselves a good stiff gin before turning the pages!

The Horla is written in the style of a diary, and is set in a rural area of northern France, near the medieval city of Rouen. The author of the diary is a rich, reclusive gentleman who wants for nothing, and spends most his time and energy contemplating the great philosophical questions of life. He enjoys the simple pleasures of his existence - such as watching ships whizz along the Seine.

The story begins in a happy mood with the diarist full of life and complety content, but as the days pass by he becomes ill. At first he believes the ailment is physical, but it soon becomes apparent that the illness is mental. As strange things begin to happen around him - which can only be explained rationally by his own actions of which he is not aware - the reader is drawn into the mystery that forms the crux of the plot: is he really mad, or are supernatural forces at work?

Maupassant leaves us guessing all the way, and while initially it looks like a clear-cut case of madness, the diarist contemplates other, more terrifying explanations of the bizarre incidents that seem to take place in his house. The story ends in a shocking climax - which I won't spoil by revealing it here!

What makes The Horla the masterpiece that it is, is that it "works" on so many levels. The entries in the diary reveal that the author is completely clear-headed and lucid, and because he admits the possibility of being mad, this gives his later ideas of the supernatural the credibility they need to make the reader think twice about his condition. The horror builds gradually, and much of it is left unsaid. The reader is forced to employ a lot of imagination.

This a gem of a tale, and no self-respecting connoisseur of horror worth their salt should go without The Horla on their bookshelf!

The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant: Short Stories- 1917

Guy de Maupassant

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Editorial Review:

For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamed of that first kiss which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor on her eyes, whose curling lashes looked like little wings, because that would have made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not, which I must not, possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as much as her voice did with languorous softness, on that evening when our flirtation began, at the Souverettes...

The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

right guy, wrong edition 4 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

This review is in two parts: (1) praise of Maupassant's genius; (2) telling you which edition to buy (not this one).

It is annoying that Maupassant's name so often arises just in the history of the short story, as though his works might be mostly of interest as some kind of historical stepping stones along the way to greater geniuses. One even sees a hint of this in the book description above, where it has him "generally considered the greatest French short story writer of his day"---unwarrantably faint praise for arguably the greatest short story writer of all time, anywhere. In truth, Maupassant achieved a unique perfection in the art of the short story that has not been equalled since. Other masters---Chekhov, Saki, Roald Dahl, Henry James, Jack Vance, Philip K. Dick, Ambrose Bierce---are as good, but in entirely different ways.

Maupassant's standard of quality is not consistently high, and a good fraction of these stories are mediocre at best. It's not so low as Saki's, where a few gems outshine all the others combined, nor so high as Dahl's, where almost every tale is brilliant. But many, many, many of them are extremely good or better, and it's important to get the complete works since smaller anthologies invariably make lots of bad selection decisions in Maupassant's case; moreover there's no excuse not to get the complete works, for how often can one possess almost the entire genius of a great man in a single volume?

I'm partial to the humorous, the cynical, the dark, and my very favourites are: "The Old Man", "Walter Schnaffs' Adventure", "The Relic", "That Pig of a Morin", "The Devil", "A Madman", "The Sisters Rondoli", "The Noncommissioned Officer", "Old Amable", "The False Gems", "The Horla", "How He Got the Legion of Honor", "Of Doctor Heraclius Gloss". Almost as good are: "Ball of Fat", "A Bad Error", "Growing Old", "Making a Convert", "On Cats", "A Traveler's Notes", "The Umbrella", "Selfishness", "An Idyl", "A Vagabond", "A Sale", "The Revenge", "Our Friends the English". One could go on; yet another forty or so are almost as good as these.

Some might call Maupassant's writing immoral, but it's more as though he has his own rakish personal morality, unique and unconventional (especially by 19th century standards), whereby, for instance, the secret seduction of another man's wife is the greatest good. I mostly disagree with him, but this in no way detracts from the enjoyment of his tales; indeed, what is more tedious than a moralizing, holier-than-thou author? Maupassant's stories usually are short, and he has an amazing talent for telling a lot, covering much time and territory, with few words---not by writing in generalities, but by always giving just the right details. A precious, disturbing, few, written near the end of his short life as he was declining into insanity, are unlike anything you will find anywhere else.

So, which edition? This one, unfortunately, appears to be a reprint of the ubiquitous, error-filled 1903 first American edition of his "complete" works. This not only misses a few of Maupassant's stories, it somehow---shockingly---falsely includes under his name sixty-five stories not even written by him (source: the introduction to the edition I'm about to recommend). Fortunately, there is a beautiful, but more difficult to find, edition of his complete short stories, lovingly edited by a certain Artine Artinian, a Maupassant scholar. It's called "The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant", Hanover House, Garden City, New York, Copyright 1955 by Doubleday & Co. This is a high quality volume of 1339 pages of thin, tightly bound acid-free paper. Find a copy.

Editorial Review:

1903. Part One contains Volumes I-IV of X. French author of the naturalistic school, Maupassant is generally considered to be the greatest French short story writer of his day. The Complete Short Stories contains the 300 short stories Maupassant wrote during the 1880s, including his horror fiction, which consists of some 39 stories, only a tenth of his total. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Other volumes in this set are ISBN(s): 1417936150.

Fort Comme La Mort (Folio) (French Edition)

Guy de Maupassant

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Editorial Review:

Classic French novel, in French. According to Wikipedia: "Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 â€" 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. As a protégé of Flaubert, his short stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient effortless dénouement. He also wrote six short novels. A number of his stories often denote the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught, emerge changed - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s."

The Horla (The Art of the Novella)

Guy de Maupassant

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

REALLY GREAT! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is a really great story (stories) in a neat new format. It is actually the same story -- of the author's descent into madness -- told in three different ways. He was trying to work out the best way to tell this story, and never did decide which one worked best for him. I found the first version in this book to be fabulously frightening! I have read other books by de Maupassant and had never heard of this one, but am so glad I discovered it, and read it. I have since recommended it to others who also found it to be fascinating. There are more books/stories in this series, and I plan to take a look at all of them. But this one is a keeper!

I Heart Short Books 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If you like short books you'll love this one. This skinny little book contains three versions of the story.

Although the introduction claims this isn't in any way autobiographical it is a fairly good example of something that seems to have been written by a paranoid schizophrenic. Was he schizophrenic? I don't know, Wikipedia says he had paranoid delusions because of syphilis and committed suicide (not long after writing this book.)

Editorial Review:

A brilliant new translation of a masterpiece of early psychological realism: The chilling tale, told in a series of journal entries, of one man's terrifying descent into paranoia and madness. Also included are two of the author's earlier versions.

The Necklace and Other Tales (Modern Library Classics)

Guy De Maupassant

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

The Necklace and Other Tales 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is not up to Modern Library Standards. It contains a meager selection of de Maupassant stories with a rather sophomoric translation into "American idiom". Since this idiom is in a constant state of flux, the new translations are often jarring.

Good 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I recently purchased a number of the Dover Thrift Editions of classic works by well-known writers whose work has now lapsed into public domain. One of the most noteworthy is a collection of nine tales by the acclaimed French short story master Guy de Mauppasant, whose tales are lifted from many apparent translators, none of whom are credited- which is a slight disappointment for it would have been nice to see if one or another translator was responsible for the better or worse stories, so to reckon the effect or not translation had on the original tales in French. Many critics have rightly hailed him as a skilled writer, and there is certainly much to admire in these tales. That said, there is also alot that simply is very dated, in terms of character development and plotting. Maupassant is definitely a pre-modern writer, who has far more truck with American O. Henry than the Russian Anton Chekhov, or even other Russian short story writers that predated him. Like O. Henry, Maupassant's tales are fairly predictable and his characters exist merely to tell the story, not as beings upon whom a tale intrudes. Now, both premises can work for a story, but a fully mature and modern story tends not to be merely plot-driven, and only incorporate the O. Henry approach, which often places its whole bevy of eggs in the socko payoff at end, but take the best elements from both approaches, while leaning more toward character exploration- either internally or not....There is a nice tension, in these tales, between sunny optimism and deep pessimism over the human condition, yet the tales are often a Punch And Judy show, as the manner in which such themes are dealt with is all overt. While the lack of complex didacticism hints at the future modern tendencies it sired, none of the tales, at least in this book, fully realizes a complete and human character, and it is not as if Maupassant could not be didactic. The Necklace, in fact, viciously punishes its lead characters for their needless guilt and dishonesty, signs of vanity, in a very heavy-handed way. Here is how it ends, with the protagonist encountering, after a decade of slaving to repay her debt for the diamond necklace she lost, the woman who owned the necklace:


One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself after the labors of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.
Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?
She went up to her.
`Good morning, Jeanne.'
The other did not recognize her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman.
`But...Madame...' she stammered. `I don't know...you must be making a mistake.'
`No...I am Mathilde Loisel.'
Her friend uttered a cry.
`Oh!...my poor Mathilde, how you have changed!...'
`Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows...and all on your account.'
`On my account!...How was that?'
`You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?'
`Yes. Well?'
`Well, I lost it.'
`How could you? Why, you brought it back.'
`I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You realize it wasn't easy for us; we had no money....Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed.'
Madame Forestier had halted.
`You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?'
`Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike.'
And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness. Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.
`Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!'

Such coincidences do occur in life, and taken as an isolated tale it does not matter, but Maupassant's tales, like those of O. Henry, are best read in small bunches, as this collection has, where the stock manipulations do not get repetitive as a hammer. Read Maupassant, and check out the Dover Books website, but realize the former works best as a curio of a lost time, and not a thing of the now.

Editorial Review:

Includes The Necklace, Butterball, The Tellier House, On the Water, Mademoiselle Fifi, The Mask, The Inn, A Day in the Country, The Hand, The Jewels, The Model, The Entity (The Horla)

These stories—poignant scrutinies of social pretension, wicked tales of lust and love, and harrowing examinations of terror and madness—display the full genius of Guy de Maupassant in an enthralling new translation by Joachim Neugroschel. They reveal Maupassant’s remarkable range, his technical perfection, his sexual realism, and his ability to create whole worlds and sum up intricate universes of feeling in a few pages

Boule de Suif (Pocket Classics) (French Edition)

Guy de Maupassant

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Editorial Review:

In this collection of short stories, Maupassant examines the vices and passions of ordinary people. "Boule de Suif" is a depiction of bourgeois hypocrisy, while other stories explore avarice, adultery, marriage, prostitution, murder and war.