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Butterball
Set during the Franco-Prussian war, Butterball is a sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute's mistreatment at the hands of a cold-hearted bourgeoisie. It is published here with a selection of stories about prostitutes, making this a unique collection. When Butterball's carriage is halted by Prussian soldiers, they demand her sexual services as ransom. Her fellow passengers--hitherto disdainful of her company--are suddenly more than happy to benefit from her "immoral" trade. But Butterball is a loyal French nationalist, and she refuses to sleep with the enemy. Through the warmth and generosity of his heroine, Maupassant exposes the hypocrisy of the French middle class. French writer Guy de Maupassant is most famous for his short stories, which depict the humdrum fate of the middle and working classes.
101 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1880
3 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Guy de Maupassant
7,493 books3,057 followersHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's 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 get crushed in it - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 23, 2014
Hace que quiera golpear a alguien al final.
March 11, 2017
This volume, published by Hesperus Classics in their 100 Pages line, contains two stories that do not appear in Project Gutenberg's collection of The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant. The two would be The Confession and Bed 29. Bed 29 should appear in any collection of the Master's work. The story revolves around a dashing figure of a Captain in the Emperor's service and begins just a bit before the the Prussian-Franco War. The Captain preens himself publicly and has women falling at his feet. He is especially enamoured with a rich man's mistress. Their torrid affair is interrupted by the outbreak of war. His return after the armistice brings him back to this woman. That is it. However, the story grabs you and holds on until the final sentences. A very powerful story. The other stand out is Butterball which is a new translation of Boule de Suif. I did not find this translation to be much better than the one we have from a century ago. There are another four stories in this volume and all her engaging and perfectly readable, but they do not stand up to the masterpieces at the two ends of the book.
June 20, 2019
Brilliant!
Maupassant has been one of my favourite short story writers and re-reading this book after a very long time reinforced my belief that Maupassant was a terrific story teller. In this power packed short tale, he has brought forth the most base and vile traits that only man can display towards a member of his own species. The world indeed can be a nasty place.
Maupassant has been one of my favourite short story writers and re-reading this book after a very long time reinforced my belief that Maupassant was a terrific story teller. In this power packed short tale, he has brought forth the most base and vile traits that only man can display towards a member of his own species. The world indeed can be a nasty place.
January 6, 2021
What a bunch of JERKS!
February 22, 2023
Having belatedly discovered that Marina Sofia has been posting for #FrenchFebruary I scoured the TBR for something I could read quickly so that I could contribute. I don't know who to thank for my purchase of Guy de Maupassant's Butterball ('Boule de suif') but it is a perfect little novella to share. With the added bonus that I can use it to make a contribution to my long-neglected collaborative Marvellous Maupassant site.
Butterball was first published as part of the collection known as Les soirées de Médan by authors Émile Zola; Joris-Karl Huysmans; Henri Céard; Léon Hennique; Paul Alexis and Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). The authors were all associated with French Naturalism (of which Zola is the best known exponent) and all six stories all concern the Franco-Prussian War. As Wikipedia explains:
Well, Butterball certainly does that!
It's a satire of bourgeois hypocrisy set in the wake of the occupation of Rouen by Prussian forces in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). It begins with streets deserted and shops closed as the inhabitants await the arrival of the Prussians. Hasty preparations are made to secure vital interests, and strategic relationships covertly emerge when Prussian officers billet themselves in the comfort of bourgeois homes. And so it is that before dawn a carriage is able to set out for Dieppe without interference.
When the sun rises the passengers are able to see who their companions are. They are a microcosm of bourgeois French society: two nuns; a wine merchant and his wife; a wealthy cotton merchant and his wife; a count and countess; and the terror of respectable folk, the Democrat Cornudet who has spent his inheritance in anticipation of The Republic.
And there is Elisabeth Rousset.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/02/22/b...
Butterball was first published as part of the collection known as Les soirées de Médan by authors Émile Zola; Joris-Karl Huysmans; Henri Céard; Léon Hennique; Paul Alexis and Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). The authors were all associated with French Naturalism (of which Zola is the best known exponent) and all six stories all concern the Franco-Prussian War. As Wikipedia explains:
The aim of the collection was to promote the ideals of Naturalism, by treating the events of the Franco-Prussian War in a realistic and often unheroic way, in contrast to officially approved patriotic views of the war.
Well, Butterball certainly does that!
It's a satire of bourgeois hypocrisy set in the wake of the occupation of Rouen by Prussian forces in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). It begins with streets deserted and shops closed as the inhabitants await the arrival of the Prussians. Hasty preparations are made to secure vital interests, and strategic relationships covertly emerge when Prussian officers billet themselves in the comfort of bourgeois homes. And so it is that before dawn a carriage is able to set out for Dieppe without interference.
When the sun rises the passengers are able to see who their companions are. They are a microcosm of bourgeois French society: two nuns; a wine merchant and his wife; a wealthy cotton merchant and his wife; a count and countess; and the terror of respectable folk, the Democrat Cornudet who has spent his inheritance in anticipation of The Republic.
And there is Elisabeth Rousset.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/02/22/b...
August 20, 2024
This is an assortment of five short stories by Guy de Maupassant; Butterball, The Confession, First Snow, Rose, The Dowry and Bed 29. The tales spins around the Franco-Prussian war and how it impacted the commoners. What made these stories stand out was that a great deal of sufferings to the people were not due to the Prussians (as assumed would be during a war) but by their own people.
This quote really encapsulates the effect of war on people. Even holds to this day and sadly would in the future. The poor and the common folks are crushed with the burden of warfare the most and still they remain a class below the elites above.
The book also conveys how the effect of war is skewed towards women, throwing a blanket conclusion, we can say that women during wartime are the most suppressed classes in the history of humanity. The story even being short tries to tell us the extent of sufferings in that particular setting and it is not a setting which will make readers comfortable. One more excerpt to bring out the utter shame in humanity goes as follows (Story: Butterball):
Even though I am not a huge fan of short stories as the details of characters, the depth of setting and the over all development of plot is missing. But this short story collection really makes me sit and wonder at the hardship of conflict.
I would rate it a 3.5 out of 5.
PS - To any reader who wants to take on this book I would highly recommend NOT to start and finish the entire book in one sitting. Read a story and then try to absorb the entire plot, try to realise yourself in place of the protagonist and imagine the situation you are up against. For those who have escaped war in their life can at least try to have an essence at what the unfortunate among us feel and empower ourself to put an end to conflicts present and future.
"You see, Monsieur, poor folks have to help each other out... It's the high and mighty that make war."
This quote really encapsulates the effect of war on people. Even holds to this day and sadly would in the future. The poor and the common folks are crushed with the burden of warfare the most and still they remain a class below the elites above.
The book also conveys how the effect of war is skewed towards women, throwing a blanket conclusion, we can say that women during wartime are the most suppressed classes in the history of humanity. The story even being short tries to tell us the extent of sufferings in that particular setting and it is not a setting which will make readers comfortable. One more excerpt to bring out the utter shame in humanity goes as follows (Story: Butterball):
"They prepared the blockade at length, as if they were about to lay siege to a fortress. Everyone agreed on the role they were to play, the arguments they would rely on, the manoeuvres they would need to execute. They settled the plan of attack, the ruses they would employ, and the surprise assaults they would launch, to force that living citadel to receive the enemy into her walls."
Even though I am not a huge fan of short stories as the details of characters, the depth of setting and the over all development of plot is missing. But this short story collection really makes me sit and wonder at the hardship of conflict.
I would rate it a 3.5 out of 5.
PS - To any reader who wants to take on this book I would highly recommend NOT to start and finish the entire book in one sitting. Read a story and then try to absorb the entire plot, try to realise yourself in place of the protagonist and imagine the situation you are up against. For those who have escaped war in their life can at least try to have an essence at what the unfortunate among us feel and empower ourself to put an end to conflicts present and future.
October 17, 2022
The first Guy de Maupassant collection I’ve read. Thoroughly enjoyed, alternately moving and scathingly satiric
December 1, 2022
Humanist literature is feminist literature
July 31, 2023
Didn't realize I already read this.
November 17, 2024
being a woman is constantly being in the wrong
February 23, 2025
Πολύ στοχευμένη ηθογραφία και ψυχογραφία της εποχής των Φραγκοπρωσικών πολέμων (αν και οι αλήθειες που αναφέρονται για την υποκρισία της ανώτερης προς την κατώτερη τάξη είναι ωμές και διαχρονικές)
November 17, 2007
The stories are set around the 1870-1 war between France and Prussia. Men are dressed up in military scarlet, admiring their thighs in shop window reflections. Others are smug in their radical bearded leftness or their seigneurial title or their possession of a horse-and-cart. All prey on women, women who are by turns fat, slender, diseased, virginal, clueless and savvy. All have the aura of the injured Marianne--one leaves her syphilis untreated so she can infect as many occupying Prussians as possible before she dies--but with the edge of the abused housewife reaching for the butcher knife. It was working women--seamstresses, maidservants, prostitutes--most living umarried with men because of the price of marriage certificates, who initiated the revolution to establish the Commune in the occupied Paris of 1871. The Commune cancelled rents, turned abandoned factories into worker's cooperatives and for the first time in history, established equal voting rights for women. Butterball briefly triumphant (before being put against the wall and shot with 20,000 others).
September 26, 2014
"-En momentos difíciles como el presente, consuela encontrar almas generosas."
"-Aceptamos, agradecidos a su mucha cortesía."
"¿Prefiere vernos aquí víctimas del enemigo y expuestos a sus violencias, a las represalias que seguirían indudablemente a una derrota?"
"Sí, por cierto. Se me ocurre decir a ustedes que han fraguado una canallada."
"Ninguno la miró ni se preocupó de su presencia; sentíase la infeliz sumergida en el desprecio de la turba honrada que la obligó a sacrificarse, y después la rechazó, como un objeto inservible y asqueroso."
"Y la moza lloraba sin cesar; a veces un sollozo, que no podía contener, se mezclaba con las notas del himno entre las tinieblas de la noche."
"-Aceptamos, agradecidos a su mucha cortesía."
"¿Prefiere vernos aquí víctimas del enemigo y expuestos a sus violencias, a las represalias que seguirían indudablemente a una derrota?"
"Sí, por cierto. Se me ocurre decir a ustedes que han fraguado una canallada."
"Ninguno la miró ni se preocupó de su presencia; sentíase la infeliz sumergida en el desprecio de la turba honrada que la obligó a sacrificarse, y después la rechazó, como un objeto inservible y asqueroso."
"Y la moza lloraba sin cesar; a veces un sollozo, que no podía contener, se mezclaba con las notas del himno entre las tinieblas de la noche."
January 5, 2014
The subtitle for this short story collection should be "And 5 other women who put out with disastrous results." Along with the wry title story about a chubby, patriotic prostitute who's encouraged to screw an enemy soldier to appease her fellow travelers, every tale here concerns a woman ruined in part by a jinxed seduction. My favorite of the lot is "Bed 29" which has a particularly delicious surprise ending. De Maupassant has mastered the art of conveying an optimistic doom.
August 11, 2009
A mixed bag of Maupassant short stories with a particular focus on the 1870-1 war betwixt France and Prussia. Butterball might be more familiarly titled and known as Boile de Suif, it was to me.
The Hesperus Classics deserve a wider readership; this is one of its more accessible titles.
The Hesperus Classics deserve a wider readership; this is one of its more accessible titles.
Want to read
December 27, 2010Got this for Xmas; I'd put it on my wishlist. I'm not sure where I first heard of it — it was in the work of either Anton Chekov or Maira Kalman (you'd think I'd remember which??). I chose this translation because I'm interested in Greer as the translator.
Read
January 25, 2012It made me cry.
July 7, 2013
Interesting how times change but people's selfishness stays the same...
June 23, 2018
Part of the UH summer camp reading material. A well-written story that tugged at our heartstrings; it gave our class insight into the Franco-Prussian war and the social inequalities of that time.
March 13, 2023
the most unlikable group of people I hate them to the bone but the message of this story is incredible
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews