Product Description
Pierre et Jean is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the French language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The es(sense) of life and the novel
These two small texts, an essay about the (technique of the) novel and the story "Pierre and Jean', are the works of a genius.

The novel has to be artless
The object of the novel is life which is `made of the most differing, unforeseen, contradictory, ill-assorted things; it is brutal, arbitrary, disconnected, full of inexplicable, illogical and contradictory disasters.'
The aim of the novel is not to tell a story, to amuse or touch our hearts, but to force us to think and understand the profound, hidden meaning of events. The author must put his work together in such a skillful, hidden and apparently artless way that it should be impossible to perceive his plan and intentions. He must demonstrate how people are modified through the influence of circumstances, how feelings and passions develop, how people struggle in all sorts of social environments, how interests clash. The psychology of the characters should be concealed behind the events of life.

Pierre and Jean
This formidable short story is a perfect example of de Maupassant's theory of the novel.
Its central subject is parental doubt, provoked by an unexpected event: an old friend leaves his entire fortune to a member of a family.
The writing is ingeniously elliptic: the boat which enters the port at the beginning of the story leaves it at the end under totally different circumstances.
The images are brilliant: `a short, round man, round through having rolled over the seven seas, whose ideas seemed round like pebbles on the shore.' `All those multicolored dresses, covering the sand like beds of flowers, these gaudy sunshades, the seductive art of gesture, voice and smile, the coquetry displayed on this beach, suddenly were revealed to him as an immense flowering of female perversity.'
The endless stream of revelations, of emotionally charged personal confrontations and of the dramatic psychological shocks, ultimately uncovers the es(sense) of life, the passion of love, for an individual human being.
This sublime text is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

A Classic Short Story
This has to be one of the nicest novella's I have ever had the pleasure of perusing.I guess one should expect nothing less from this Maupassant masterpiece.After all, Maupassant (along with Chekov) is considered one of the founding fathers of the modern day short story, and this is considered to be his greatest work.There is more to this book than the old Cain and Abel story of sibling rivalry.It's also a telling tale of filial love, forgiveness, and the steadfast, unconditional love of a mother.It's very powerfully told with all the passion and emotion one would expect from a disciple of Flaubert and a friend of both Zola & Turgenev.

I will definitely be placing this work on my top shelf of favorites.It is one of those rare stories that will leave you thinking about it long after you turn the last page.Maupassant created a character in Pierre that is so sublimely human, such a complex, abstruse, big ball of paradox.At times, it is easy to despise him and at other times you can't help but identify with, and feel compassion for the man.After all, how heartless can one be not to sympathize with a man who has gone his whole entire life playing second fiddle to his more attractive, amicable, and younger brother Jean.Jean gets the girl, he gets the inheritance, gets the luxury flat Pierre originally had his sights on, and most importantly perhaps (because this has been going on since childhood) Jean is his parent's favorite.Come now, it's so easy to pass judgment on this man, but who among us wouldn't be experiencing the same inner torment that plagues Pierre?

"There was within him some little place that hurt, one of those almost imperceptible bruises that cannot be located, yet fidget, tire, depress and irritate you, an unidentifiable, trifling pain, a sort of seed of unhappiness."

I highly recommend this one!

doubtful paternity
This is a short novel, easy to follow, and enjoyable to read.

Here's what it's about basically. There's these two brothers, right?--as the title indicates. One of them gets a really nice inheritance from a family friend. The other brother gets NOTHING. He's jealous of his brother for his good fortune, and gets suspicious about WHY his brother got the inheritance. He finds out that it's because their mother had an affair with the family friend and his brother was born illegitimately from the affair. He confronts his mother about it and she admits it. That's why his brother got the inheritance, because he was the family friend's true son, it was a shameful secret that the mother kept from her husband (their father). That's all there is to it. It's not a complex book and the story's pretty simple, but the underlying psychology is really interesting and the book is very well-written--very tight and engaging. Maupassant's best novel, I would say.

David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness.

A STUDY OF FAMILY RELATIONS
WHAT CAN BE EXPECTED TO HAPPEN IN A FAMILY WHEN ONE OF ITS MEMBERS INHERITS A LARGE SUM OF MONEY? EVERYBODY IS HAPPIER AND BETTER OFF, RIGHT? WRONG! AS WE SEE FROM THIS STORY, THE WHOLE FABRIC OF THE FAMILY CAN BECOME TORN. YET, BY EMPLOYING SOME SUBTLE TACTICS, MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY CAN FIND A WAY TO STAY TOGETHER. AT A BIG PRICE THOUGH, BECAUSE ONE OF THE MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY HAS TO HOLD HIMSELF ALOOF IN ORDER TO PRESERVE FAMILY BOUNDS. A VERY DELICATE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT!

Sibling Rivalry
This short novel just blew me away with intense and detailed characterzations and a plot that builds tension based on the interaction between the members of a family that is nearly rocked by a seemingly positive development. The two grown brothers are established as near opposites in almost every detail and when one inherits money from an old family acquaintance the reason behind their differences becomes the driving force of the story and it's revelation nearly rips the family apart.
A short novel that will stay with you for some time after reading it. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Bel Ami free version
I understand that this book was a free download and was translated from the original French by volunteers, but I felt that this version really lost a lot in the translation. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 13 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Guy de Maupassant was a popular French writer in the 19th century.He was one of the first writers to write short stories.Many of his stories were set during the Franco-Prussian war.His stories show the futility of war and war's effects on the innocent. Strong as Death is the love story of a lower class painter who is in love with a countess.As she grows older she fears the artist will fall in love with her beautiful daughter.The fear of growing old is timeless. An excerpt reads, "The attraction that impelled him toward this girl a little resembled those obscure yet innocent desires that go to make up part of all the ceaseless and unappeasable vibrations of human nerves. His eye of the artist, as well as that of the man, was captivated by her freshness, by that springing of beautiful clear life, by that essence of youth that glowed in her; and his heart, full of memories of his long intimacy with the Countess, finding in the extraordinary resemblance of Annette to her mother a reawakening of old feelings, of emotions sleeping since the beginning of his love, had been startled perhaps by the sensation of an awakening. An awakening? Yes. Was it that?" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

LATE MAUPASSANT
Chronologically "Strong as Death/Fort comme la Mort" (first published in 1889) is the penultimate novel by Maupassant and the subject-matter of his late literary productions was much more narrow than that of his early ones. The plot in which a painter first falls in love with a countess, but later is tormented by his love for her daughter, because the daughter bears a physical resemblance of the mother (in her juvenile period the daughter looked absolutely identical to the mother, when the painter's love toward the latter started to grow) gives a lot of material for musing on the topic of love. The title is borrowed from the Bible, where the love is said to be as "strong as death". Nevertheless, the main idea here seems to be not that people of art tend to fall desperately in love and that their love may take eccentric forms, but that delving into something monotonous allows no room for novelty and, consequently, may destroy creative forces. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 04 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Guy de Maupassant was a popular French writer in the 19th century.He was one of the first writers to write short stories.Many of his stories were set during the Franco-Prussian war.His stories show the futility of war and war's effects on the innocent. Bel Ami, published in 1885, is the story of journalist Georges Duroy.He manipulated a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses in order to become one of the most powerful men in Paris.After 3 years of military service in Algeria, he arrives in Paris and six months later he was working as a clerk.An encounter with his former comrade, Forestier, enables him to start a career as a journalist.From here he works his way up the ladder of success climbing over anyone in his way. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 03 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 07 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories, Complete, Volumes 1-13 - An Index to All Stories is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 10 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Original Short Stories - Volume 12 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Guy de Maupassant is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Guy de Maupassant then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Novel of Haute Normandie
What are the secrets, most carefully concealed, of those with whom we share a life? What are the limits and depths of our ignorance and naiveté? When the final twilight falls and disdains to tarry, what will be left to see us through? Upon what can we pour out the last of our days? These are but a few of the cavernous questions which yawn ahead with a reading of this book. The heroine is likeable to a fault, yet even as we like her--and we do so to the end--we begin to wonder if she's really quite all there. Can she have done nothing to prevent some of the horrors which assail? Is she the innocent victim of those who decide her fate and have made her what she is? Perhaps, strange to say, the most endearing of characters in this novel is the family estate where most of the action occurs. Perched upon a cliff near Yport, in the Pays de Caux of Haute Normandie, it gazes out over the sea in fair weather and foul, loved by its inhabitants, yet much disserviced in the end. Still, it knows tenacity and moderation and its place. If only those it shelters could take a lesson from its lines, from its silent sense of measure, from its order and repose.

Perspective, from 19th Century France
Is reading a novel set in the first half of 19th Century France relevant today?Maupassant's novel is set in Normandy, in a manor house with the surrounding countryside. It is a political and social microclimate. Paris is a very long way away, and the larger events of France, as it emerges from the turmoil of the Revolution and the Napoleonic period are not related. The novel is primarily a character study of Jeanne, the woman born of the manor, and a coterie of friends and relatives, who disappoint her, and ultimately lead her to ruin.

Philandering, political or otherwise, is not a monopoly of the United States, in the early 21st Century. It was the accepted norm of the French countryside, and even the prudent priests looked the other way. Jeanne is truly disillusioned when she realizes that even her own mother was guilty of it.Religious fanaticism? Maupassant draws a telling portrait of a priest who believes he truly is God's personal agent on earth, and manages to manipulate particularly the women in a most vindictive manner. One of the priest's classic lines, as relevant today as when it was written: "In order to be powerful and respected, we must act together. If the church and the mansion go hand in hand, the cottage will fear us and obey." A hierarchical society? As the gap between rich and poor continues to increase in the United States, accompanied by the propaganda that this is the natural course of "free markets," it's important to reflect on a society that still had serious economic disparities even after its Revolution.

With the hype and sometimes fraud that accompanies numerous "best sellers" pushed the publishing industry today, particularly "memoirs," for me it proved much more beneficial to enjoy the study of a society and its characters that was written a century and a half ago. Maupassant clearly has insights into "Man's Fate," particularly when it is a woman's.

A portrait of meekness, brilliantly drawn.
Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant was born at Chateau de Miromesnil near Dieppe, Normandy, and educated in Rouen and Yvetot, likewise in that Northern French region bordering on the Channel and the North Sea. Introduced to Gustave Flaubert by his mother, an old friend of Flaubert's, the creator of "Madame Bovary" soon became Maupassant's mentor and in turn, introduced him to Emile Zola, Tourgeniev and other proponents of literary realism. And encouraged by Flaubert, the erstwhile volunteer of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 eventually turned to journalism and published his first book, a collection of poetry, in 1880. He soon became known as a masterful short story writer, owing the clarity and concise nature of his prose in no small part to the lessons learned from his fatherly friend. Normandy, the beloved land of his childhood and adolescence, plays a dominant role in much of Maupassant's writing; both as a backdrop and as a means of highlighting emotions and plot developments.

In six novels, Maupassant condensed the motifs explored in his numerous short stories, which would ultimately count over 300. "Une Vie" ("A Life") is the first of these novels, published in 1883. It traces the life of Jeanne de Lamare, nee Jeanne des Vauds, only daughter and heiress to the fortune of a Norman aristocrat family, from the moment she leaves her convent school at the age of seventeen, to advanced age and grandmotherhood. Naive by nature and sheltered from the harsh realities of life behind the walls of the convent, young Jeanne's outlook on life upon returning to her parents' chateau on the Norman coast, les Peuples, which she shall eventually inhabit with her husband, is innocently optimistic. Only a few months after her arrival, she falls in love with the viscount de Lamare whom she marries in very short order. But from here on out her life changes rapidly, because once married, her husband drops any pretence at the charm he has displayed while wooing her. Jeanne, wholly unprepared by nature and education to adequately respond to her husband's miserly attitude and multiple forms of abuse, nor finding forceful support in her parents, sees no other way than to passively tolerate his behavior; even when she stumbles into proof after proof of the extent of his transgressions against common decency and against his marital vows. And her son, in his childhood her one remaining pride and joy (and therefore, hopelessly spoiled), once grown to manhood turns out another major disappointment. Jeanne grows disillusioned and bitter, frequently complaining that life has treated her excessively unfairly.

"Une Vie" draws, inter alia, on themes developed in seven short stories published in the years 1881 - 1883. The critically acclaimed novel sold 25,000 copies within the first few months after its publication. It has all the features of the writing style for which Maupassant, by then, had already become known: a crisp prose very much to the point being expressed; a sharp eye for the heroine's social context and the daily life of the Norman aristocracy; a vibrant tableau of Normandy's sea, fields, woods, seasons and weather; wit, irony, and great insight into human nature. From the torrential rain storm which accompanies Jeanne's transition from the convent to her familial chateau at the beginning of the story to a tranquil sunset several decades later when Jeanne finally makes her peace with life, nature is brilliantly used to highlight the heroine's feelings, trials and tribulations.

In her passivity and weakness, Jeanne is not an easy heroine to like or at least, to emphasize with; nor does Maupassant make the point that she had no alternative to her inert tolerance of her husband's and her son's wrongdoings: the image of her bonne Rosalie, pragmatic and down to earth and ultimately much better equipped than Jeanne to deal with life's uncertainties and deceptions, and the example of several other local noblewomen makes it clear that it is Jeanne's character more than anything else that renders her unable to adequately respond to her situation in life and to the abuse she suffers. Yet, Maupassant was not interested in those other women - so little, in fact, that their characterization barely exceeds the level of a superficial sketch; including and in particular the portrayal of the one woman with whom Jeanne's husband is involved in a lasting and profound affair and who claims, nevertheless, to be Jeanne's friend. Similarly, Jeanne's husband is almost two-dimensional in his boorishness. Nevertheless, from the first page on there is no denying that this novel was written by one of the master storytellers of his time.

Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 43 years, of an illness which drove him to madness and alcohol abuse and rendered him unable to write during the last three years of his life, thus forcing him to leave only fragments of his last two novels, L'Ame Etrangere and L'Angelus. Emile Zola said at his funeral that future generations who, unlike Maupassant's numerous friends, would only know him through his literary work, would come to love him for the eternal love song to life which he sang in his writings. Although given the pessimistic outlook to life taken by its heroine, "Une Vie" is an unlikely candidate to put these words to proof, and although it does not quite reach the brilliance of Maupassant's short stories and later novels, particularly the piercingly accurate and sardonic "Bel Ami," the writer's first novel is the manifestation of a unique talent and, yes, a declaration of love to a life which is after all, as Jeanne's bonne Rosalie muses, "never as good nor as bad as one believes."

Also recommended:
Bel-Ami (Penguin Classics)
Selected Short Stories (Penguin Popular Classics)
Madame Bovary (Bantam Classics)

The masterpiece of the naturalistic literature
The first time I read this novel, I thought that the naturalism was bored, because there was no elan vital like Stendhal's novels. Twenty years later,I have now re-estimated it. It has no fantasy and little romance, but someimportant reality.

This is a story of a woman living as a fallingaristocratic landowner in some French country. It may be supposed that ifreaders don't have the exotics against the past French country, they cannotfind any significance of this novel. It is, however, not the case. Whiletalking a woman or looking at her gestures, suddenly I have remembered someplots of this novel to find their resemblance. At the same time I havebegun to wonder if she is strongly responsible and doesn't believe in loveand give up almost all trivial pleasures.

The boredom of the naturalismat my adolescence has gradually turned out its applause, as I haveexperienced much. This novel doesn't make readers happy, but widens theirability to understand women, in particular, rural and naivegirls.

Although the importance of this novel is hard to see, it should beevaluated fairly.

Intersting, but bland
A story of a typical 19th C. woman in rural France. While the story seems true to the actual experiance of woman, it is the truthfulness of the story which makes it balnd. However, a good read for some insight on these women. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

"Complete" is misleading
I had begun reading the Penguin translation of "Bel-Ami," but wanted to see other of De Maupassant's novels as well.I couldn't believe one book could contain the "complete" novels--and it DOESN'T.Sure all the titles are there, but at least for "Bel-Ami" all M's subtle character description, his satirical portraits of the nouveau riche and bourgeois wanna-be's have been stripped away, along with the sexual episodes, and such bizarre images as the Arch de Triomphe seeming ready to march into Paris. You'll never understand why Georges turns against Madeleine by reading this expurgated, bare bones narrative.Also, you'll never understand why De Maupassant is considered a remarkable (ifnot exactly great) writer. ... Read more

Product Description
Set in the nouveau riche Paris of society women, prostitutes, and playboys; in the Normandy countryside; and on the French Riviera where Maupassant had lived, the thirty-four short stories in this volume are among the most darkly humorous and brilliant in French literature. They focus on the complexity of close relationships: between lovers, as in the poignant fantasy "A Parisian Affair" or the touchingly ironical "The Jewels"; between siblings, as in "At Sea"; and between former partners, as in "Encounter." They reveal two sides of human nature: its grace and generosity and also, as in "Boule de Suif," its greed and hypocrisy. Piquant and varied, Maupassant’s stories lay humanity bare with deft wit and devastating honesty. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Literary vandalism.Buy the Roger Colet translation instead.
Reading this new edition is like visiting a museum that has just been looted. Astonishingly, several of the very best Maupassant stories (particularly "Madame Tellier's Establishment" and "Mouche") have been deleted and replaced with facile selections like "The Necklace," which was intentionally omitted from the 1973 Roger Colet translation because it was rightly deemed inferior and unrepresentative of the author. Inexplicably, and criminally, translator Sian Miles chooses the first (again inferior and greatly truncated) version of "The Horla" rather than the classic mood-swinging, diary-entry style of the famous final published version. Additionally, "The Christening" here is benign and slight compared to the harrowing story of the same title featured in the earliest Penguin Classics collection translated by H.N.P. Sloman (a very different group of stories, but as highly recommended as the Colet). What Miles has done in essence is anaesthetize the great short story writer (perhaps second only to D.H. Lawrence) and give us Maupassant Lite.

Worst of all is the sense of biographical revisionism and political correctness that pervades this collection. In her Introduction, Ms. Miles claims that previous Maupassant collections reveal him as "if not misogynistic, at least deeply cynical in his portrayal of women," and she has taken it upon herself to "redress that previous imbalance." Hard to believe Penguin let her get away with such nonsense. First of all, Maupassant was cynical about humankind: both men AND women. If anything, he largely pokes fun at men's egos and their consequent foibles in dealing with women, who mostly come across as more subtle and intuitive. Secondly, Miles's reading of Maupassant as a misogynist fails to account for the great female Maupassant heroines like Mouche, Madame Tellier, Boule de Suif, Mother Sauvage, and of course the tragic Jeanne from the novel "A Woman's Life (Un Vie)." In truth, Maupassant's greatest characters defy the kind of easy, simplistic categorization that Miles celebrates in describing "the stupid and brutal count in 'A Woman's Confession' or the insufferably chauvinistic doctor in 'Madame Husson's Rose King.'" Comments like these reduce Maupassant to a kind of 19th century Dr. Phil.

The difference in translations is also important to note. Take for example the closing passage of "Idyll":

Note how flat, clumsy and almost too contemporary Miles's translation is:
"'That's enough. I feel much better now. It's put new life in me.'
He got up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. As she replaced inside her dress the two living gourds of her bosom, she said, 'That was a great help, Monsieur. Thanks very much.'
Gratefully, he replied, 'My pleasure, Madame, I'll tell you. I've had no food for two days.'"

Now note how Colet carefully captures the flavor of the rustic dialogue. Also note the impact of his adding the paragraph break:
"'That's enough, I feel better now. That's put new life into me.'
He had stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Pushing her breasts inside her dress, she said: 'That was a real good turn you did me, Monsieur. Thank you very much.'
And he replied gratefully: 'It's me as has to thank you, Madame. I hadn't had a thing to eat for two days.'"

The difference between "That was a great help" vs "That was a real good turn" and "My pleasure" vs "It's me as had to thank you" speaks for itself. This sort of thing is make-or-break when determining a quality translation.

Finally, Miles's Introduction fails to capture the loving and haunting quality that Roger Colet's does. Among other things, Colet's Introduction revisits the serious possibility that Flaubert may have been Maupassant's real father. The subject of illegitimacy is an important one in Maupassant's work (see the wonderful "Pierre and Jean"), but this fascinating and ambiguous connection is not even touched upon here. It is one of numerous egregious omissions and revisions that make this publication tantamount to literary vandalism. ... Read more