Collected Stories Of Guy De Maupassant

by Guy de Maupassant

Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant is part of the  series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

Guy de Maupassant is one of the few writers whose short stories—witty, economical, elegant, yet straightforward in style—are so forceful that his literary reputation can rest on them alone. Beneath their deceptively simple surfaces lies a deep understanding of the complexities of the human psyche. Maupassant explores the full panoply of late-nineteenth-century French society, from prostitutes in Parisian brothels and peasants in rural cottages, to adulterousaristocrats at expensive spas and patrician parties.

This collection begins with “Ball-of-Fat,” the first story Maupassant published under his own name. Called a masterpiece by his friend and mentor Gustave Flaubert, it instantly raised the young author to celebrity status and created a clamor for more of his work. He responded with over three hundred stories (and six novels) written in a dozen years. Among others included here are the favorites “The Necklace,” “The Horla,” “The False Gems,” and “Useless Beauty.”

Richard Fusco received his Ph.D. from Duke University and is Associate Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. A specialist in nineteenth-century American literature and in short-story narrative theory, his published criticism includes Maupassant and the American Short Story: The Influence of Form at the Turn of the Century and Fin de millénaire: Poe’s Legacy for the Detective Story.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, France, 19th Century, French Literature, Literature

Kindle Edition

About the author

Henri 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.

Reviews

[A.J. McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guy de Maupassant is very likely the greatest short story writer who ever lived. His gift for capturing whole worlds in just a few pages is without equal. He had the most astonishing imagination allied to a perfect grasp of language. His writing is superbly disciplined, his visual sense is such that he can make you see the scenes he is describing in your mind's eye, and his sense of character is such that the people in his stories are living, breathing, believable characters. Nothing is perfect, but Maupassant comes close.

[Rohit Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I finished the fattest book of the year (750+ pages) and picked up even more fattier (1035+ pages) Stephen King (The Stand) as stuck inside the house for last three weeks which is going to last I guess another two weeks for sure :). I got this book as gift from a very darling friend of mine who accompanied me on my first visit to my favorite bookstore (Blossoms Bangalore). Wifey had bought her first iPhone and we got a cash back of five grand :) which she let me splurge on anything that I wanted. Since I was to visit our Bangalore office that same week, I dreamed of picking up a load of books from Blossoms. I told the bookstore guy that I was on a strict budget and would not like to spend anything upwards of 150/- on a book and I was there to pick up the maximum I could as I practically carried an empty bag on the flight to Bangalore. I end up picking precisely 29 books in five grand, mostly classics, all used old books, may be a few brand new. I don't know why but I find it charming to read used books which have seen better days and passed from so many hands, some of them have those side notes, some underlines, some highlights and so much more, I love all that. Looking at my diligence and the load that I picked up, my friend offered to buy me a brand new book of my choice and I was delighted to immediately grab the nearest fattest book with a name of an unknown author (to me at that time). During my return flight, my bag was scanned thrice and the cops at the airport were surprised to find only books in my bag and they actually questioned me why I came all the way to Bangalore to buy so many books :) guess none of them was a reader but they let me go with a smile. It took me almost two year to reach this one on my book-rack to read but I must say what an amazing 10 days I had with 153 stories from Guy De Maupassant. Another six months and I will be qualify for a second visit to my favorite bookstore.

Paris, as far as I know is the Art, Fashion and Romance capital of the world, only romantics or arts eccentrics live or go there :) and if 153 stories from Guy De Maupassant to be believed from the late 19th century, a major of them qualify to be perverts of a different kind. Unbelievable was the word which kept coming to my mind as I progressed from one story to another much to my own delight as they were actually not only hilarious, some were super romantic and so many of them were so heart touching that they choked me up big time. But I must say that French sense of humor is totally out of this world, as I guess this was my first experience from that part of the world as far as literature is concerned. It was quite a shocking experience to know that almost a majority of the couples were having extra-marital affairs. Not only almost all the husbands had a mistress or two at their disposal but also the wives had their own crushes in place and why not? But it was a beautiful experience to explore not only Paris, but also Venice, Italy, London and so many other iconic cities from a French eye. I seriously wished that I had taken French classes back in school / college to have read these amazing stories in their original language but translation takes nothing away from them for sure as they totally intrigued me. And I must say that the entire 750 pages of 153 stories were dedicated either to Love, Romance, Relationships of rich and poor alike or to the down trodden of the then society who tried their own ways to keep up with the evolving world. A few of the stories where the protagonist fought for a crumb of bread or for a small roof to rest under or to go through a harrowing experience just for a days survival was totally heart-touching and nerve wrecking experience. Also, I must mention that Guy De Maupassant is not at all easy on his audience from any standards, the brutality, the reality of the situation or the abrupt shocking endings of a quarter of his stories frustrated me to no end at times. He did leave so many of his stories to my own imagination (and that is frustrating) with such abrupt endings that I wished I was reading a complete novel more than reading a collection of short stories :).

Although it is very tough to pick up one favorite from a collection of 150+ but in this case undoubtedly the very first story will remain my personal favorite for a very long long time. A story that I will never forget in my life ever for two reasons, first is that a man's best friend has a huge crush on his wife and second, that on top of that the man puts a prize on his wife for his own friend to sell her. How they settle the deal by selling / buying a women by Cubic Meters was totally hilarious. The logic, formula and how the entire deal settles was one unbelievable experience. Another thing that I loved and hated in equal measures for Guy De Maupassant's stories is their length :). Some stories are as short as one and a half pages and the longest ones are like no more than 10 odd pages at the most. What hurt me was that the stories that I was falling in love with were really too short (and lets not even talk about their endings) and a few which were really not so good, kept on going to pages and pages with again no resolution by the time they ended. But overall it was a fantastic first hand experience of reading French literature at its best, giving us an amazing picture of the times in late 19th century.

Have you read Guy De Maupassant's stories? Do let me know how you liked them and if you have a favorite Maupassant novel, do tell me about it. I am big time looking forward to read one of his fledged novel at the earliest.

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of vivid, lively stories, some of which contain colorful, rich characters, interacting with each other, revealing an aspect of life. Others are graphic, incomplete snapshots of cruelty, hypocrisy or intolerance. Perhaps the point of the latter is to shine light upon real life examples of this and expose it. These particular tales left me frustrated, anguished, and unsatisfied, like somehow the story was missing the point of closure. There were cruel stories which broke my heart, yet they told a complete tale. Perhaps ‘told’ isn’t the right word, much of the time for Guy de Maupassant’s stories. One weakness I cannot accuse him of is telling rather than showing. His descriptions are fully fleshed out, dynamic, and a part of the action, offering up a wealth of personal detail. These descriptions can be seductive and compelling or sickening. Ordinary people often out-monstered creatures of myth and legend in their casual cruelty, hypocrisy, and intolerance. At times this felt deliberate on the part of the author. At others, he seems unaware of the horror he’s invoking over the gap of time. Part of this may be due to just that, the gap of time between himself and me. Many things were acceptable and part of life when Guy de Maupassant lived which I found unjust. There are times when he falls prey to stereotyping when women and women’s relations with me are concerned. These moments are when his descriptive powers develop blinders, stumbling in their character development.

In spite of the flaws and how miserable his stories made me (if cruelty to animals bothers you, beware), Guy de Maupassant’s prose has power and passion. I was disappointed to find the story I’d hoped to find in this collection, The Horla, wasn’t there. (This remains my favorite story by Maupassant.) Taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of this collection of tales as a whole, I give this book three stars.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extensive, entertaining, engaging collection of 184 short stories, most are six to ten pages long, covering a range of human interest stories about the life of the lower and middle classes. His writing style is concise and stark.

Here’s a selection of what the stories are about:

A husband’s mother is pronounced dead by the doctor but next morning is alive and notices expensive items missing from her bedroom;
A young woman has a child secretly and the father finds out five years later;
A carpenter becomes religious so that he can do work for the church;
A married woman borrows a diamond necklace and losses it:
A husband finds out his wife is having an affair and allows his wife and child to leave him, which he regrets later on;
A 41 year old woman remains with the family that had adopted her when she was six weeks old;
A clerk decides to have an outing in the country and hires a horse and carriage. The horse bolts causing injury to an old woman;
A beautiful married woman has had seven children. She wants to go to parties and socialise, so she tells her husband that one of the seven children is not his;
An aristocrat who finds herself struggling financially ends up keeping her expensive jewellery with the retail jeweller referring well-to-do customers to her;
A office clerk discovers that his dead wife’s jewels were real, not fake;


There are a number of very good short stories. My favourites include:
Boule de Suif, A family affair, The Diamond Necklace, Monsieur Parent, Useless Beauty, The Father, The Baroness, The False Gems, My Wife, An Artifice, Mopther of Monsters, and An Uncomfortable Bed.

The author was born in 1850 and died in 1893.

[Anomander Rake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time to write a reivew. I don't feel like it, but the sheer brilliance of Maupassant has forced me to write one. I've read "The Best of Maupassant" a long time ago and I wasn't that impressed. The problem with all those best of collections is that you sometimes miss out on some really amazing things just because the person responsible for putting together the book didn't think they were that great. That is precisely the case here. Most of my favourite stories weren't even included in that collection. What's more, "best of" would imply those writings are better than the rest of the author's opus which clearly isn't the case here - Maupassant manages to keep all of his stories (barring a few oddballs) at a very high level. That's extremely impressive. Also, now that I'm older, I tend to appreciate the bitterness (or bittersweetness in some cases) of his stories a lot more. Most are very relatable and not dated at all. The mood he sets, which happens to be one of the things I value the most, is brilliant in most of his stories. His influence on Lovecraft is undeniable. In conclusion, Maupassant is one of the best (if not the best) short story writers I've ever read.

Now would also be a good time to elaborate my ratings:
Clearly, the ratings added in bulk after creating my Goodreads accounts are somewhat inaccurate. Misclicks might've happended, and it's harder to rate books properly if you don't stop for a few moments and think about them, which I clearly didn't do because I had so many books to add. Also, some ratings change after I read the book for the second (or third) time; nowadays I tend to appreciate some things a lot more than I used to. Obivously, all of the ratings are subjective. An enjoyable read and a lasting impact equal a higher rating. Clearly, great writing leads to both of the aforementioned things.

No rating:
Books I've read a long long time ago or just didn't know how to rate.
1 star:
Crème de la crème, the complete and utter shit that doesn't deserve to be called literature.
2 stars:
Books I regret having read, a waste of my precious time.
3 stars:
Books I'm glad I've read, but couldn't relate to or found them too lacking in most areas. Some of the books here are actually really well written, but not my cup of tea. Let's throw in a quote from the movie In Bruges: "...kind of like the in-betweeny one. You weren't really shit, but you weren't all that great either. Like Tottenham."
4 stars:
All of the books here had one flaw too many to get a five star rating. That's pretty much all I can say.
5 stars:
These are the great works that have left a huge impression on me, that are really well written or manage to be so enjoyable that I can look past some flaws (think Looking for Alaska).

Some books deserve more than 5 stars. A prime example would be The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, the best thing I've ever read. It deserves a thousand stars. I don't think perfection exists, but that is as close as it gets.

[Tanya Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection of the short story. His ability to note what was going on around him is supreme. I realize that for an observant author every big or small event that occurs lends itself to the compactness of a story with a moral, a laugh, a comment, an unexpected outcome. Learning to guess the game of where a story is going is great fun with a master like Guy de Maupassant. Nothing more relaxing than a volume of best short stories.

[Anukriti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book cannot be reviewed by mortals. I have read hundreds of short story collections- none quite as rich in variety and amazing in character portrayal as Maupassant's tales. I think I need to come up with a superlative for LOVE to describe what infinite reverence and affection I feel for the writer and his work.

[Susan Kraus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Endles stories of seduction, and betrayal. Women are unfathomable playthings. I realize that he was writing about the culture and social set he was involved in, but it was all too much for me. He died of syphilis - I understand why.

[Godly Gadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Father of the modern short story (3 stars)

Guy De Maupassant (1850-1893) is a 19th century French author who is often considered the father of the modern short story. Much of his work has a pessimistic tone, or is set in the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, and describes the suffering of innocent civilians caught up in the conflict.

"Boule de Suif" is his most famous story, and is considerably longer than most of his other stories. The two De Maupassant stories I especially recommend are "The Necklace" and "Two Friends":
• The Necklace: A woman borrows a necklace for a gala, loses it, and faces years of hardship to replace it - but there's a twist.
• Two Friends: Two Parisian men are executed by Prussian soldiers after refusing to betray their loyalty to each other.

I also read a number of other De Maupassant stories, but none of these really captivated me, although I can appreciate De Maupassant's gift with words.
• Boule de Suif: A virtuous prostitute exposes the hypocrisy of her fellow travelers after she sacrifices herself to save them.
• Mademoiselle Fifi: A group of French soldiers encounter a beautiful, defiant German woman during wartime.
• My Uncle Jules: A man's nostalgic memories of his eccentric uncle.
• The Hand: A man becomes obsessed with a severed hand, leading to madness as he seeks its mysterious owner.
• The Horrible: A man encounters a grotesque, terrifying vision that leaves him traumatized.
• The Piece of String: A farmer is falsely accused of theft over a discarded piece of string.
• Useless Beauty: A woman becomes infatuated with a beautiful vase.

[Yuri Ulrych · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893), um dos principais nomes dos contos realistas oitocentistas franceses, carregava na pena escrita uma habilidade sem igual, a de controlar a gravidade do riso leitor a julgamentos negativos ou positivos. Nas crônicas de seu tempo discorre sobre a decadência francesa do fim do século XIX permeado por crises republicanas e imperiais em fragmentos de cenas de rua, do campo e da cidade. Especialista nas sátiras rurais e urbanas dos tipos sociais, seus personagens tomam os pés pelas mãos e ninguém escapa de suas pilhérias, pois pelo poder, corajosos e covardes lutam pra ver quem tem a menor saia curta. Nessa prosa colorida onde reside a surpresa lógica, a belle époque da nova burguesia e aristocracia nunca se repetiu com tanta comicidade. Contudo, as vítimas de sua compaixão condoída, os pobres comuns, nem sempre, conseguiam ser heróis. E é nesse ponto que o autor arremata o público em plateia cativa. De sucesso popular absoluto, tocou em temas delicados como a guerra franco-prussiana, a beleza incontestável da pintura impressionista, e o nepotismo no serviço público. Na sua escrita viveram crianças, donas de casa, faxineiras, camponeses, cocheiros, idosos, ladrões, alemães, funcionários, padres, soldados, pintores, prostitutas, marinheiros, arrivistas, burgueses, nobres, aristocratas e políticos. Sua habilidade escrita mostra como é possível entender sucintamente a complexidade da vida em uma outra época tão turbulenta e singular na história humana.

(Yuri Ulrych)

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the love of Guy de Maupassant

Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised.
"Miss Harriet"

Widely regarded as the ‘Father of Modern Short Story’ writing, Guy de Maupassant (1850 – 1893) was one of the greatest French writers in the 19th century. His stories strikingly captured various aspects of day-to-day life in France during that time. Many of his stories were based on the Franco-Prussian War and the lives of innocent people who were caught in it. He has written more than 300 short stories, six novels, travel books and also a book of poetry. Some of his well-known works include, ‘Boule de Suif', 'Bel Ami' and 'Mademoiselle Fifi'. Soon after graduation, Maupassant served as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War, after which he pursued a career as a civil servant working in the Navy Department and the Ministry of Public Instruction. In his 20s Guy de Maupassant began to suffer from syphilis, which caused him much mental agony and trouble for the rest of his living years.

Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient. Many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences.

'Mademoiselle Fifi'
In this short story Guy de Maupassant describes the Prussian soldiers who have seized the château as crude, destructive, and rather stupid men who don't value the manor or its beautiful furniture and costly paintings and art objects. Nearly all of them are violent, brutish womanizers, possibly the worst of these men is the short and slender Count Wilhelm von Eyrick, whom the other soldiers nickname ''Mademoiselle Fifi.''
Fifi is angry that the priest of the local church won't ring the bell at the usual times. It's the town's only form of non-compliance toward the soldiers, and the locals are quite proud of it.
The soldiers, amuse themselves by getting extremely drunk and shooting or vandalizing various objects. Eventually they get tired of that, too, and their captain proposes that they hire some local prostitutes to attend a ''dinner party'' at the wrecked manor. When the prostitutes arrive, everyone gets drunk. The soldiers crack dirty jokes in bad French then start making disparaging remarks about the French people in general and toasting their own victory over the country. Most of the prostitutes are too drunk to protest much.
One Jewish girl named Rachel, however, is furious at Mademoiselle Fifi for having bitten her during a kiss. She tells him: ''You will have to pay for that!'' Later, she gets in an insult of her own, declaring that these men can't have any real French women since ''[prostitutes are] all that Prussians want.'' When she can't take it anymore, she stabs Fifi in the neck with a dessert knife and jumps out the window to escape. Fifi dies within minutes. The Prussians search the château and grounds and later the entire town for Rachel but can't find her. The priest is ordered to ring the church bells for Mademoiselle Fifi's funeral, and he complies. Afterward, the bells mysteriously ring out every day. When the war is over, it's revealed that the priest hid Rachel in his church, and she rang the bells as a celebration of her victory over Mademoiselle Fifi.
In this story Guy de Maupassant deals with themes as civility versus brutality and masculinity versus femininity.

Guy de Maupassant’s stories are only second to Shakespeare in their inspiration of movie adaptations with films. Often his stories give ‘plot’ to a movie like in John Ford’s Stagecoach, Ford claimed that his inspiration in expanding Stagecoach beyond the bare-bones plot given in "The Stage to Lordsburg" was his familiarity with another short story, "Boule de Suif" “Lump of Fat” by Guy de Maupassant. The same story inspired the Japanese director Kawaguchi Matsutaro’s for his movie “Oyuki the Virgin”. It is discussion weather plots of Guy de Maupassant's short stories are used in famous movies such as Citizen Kane (by Orson Welch) and Masculine Feminine (by Jean Luc Godard).

The beautiful short story "The Love of Long Ago" gives us perhaps the best answer to why #MeToo in France is always looked at a little different then in the United States. The story consist of a conversation between a grandmother and -daughter on the subject of love and marriage:

The grandmother ceased to smile. If she had kept in her soul some of Voltaire’s irony, she had also a little of Jean–Jacques’s glowing philosophy: “No honour! because we loved, and dared to say so, and even boasted of it? But, my child, if one of us, among the greatest ladies in France, were to live without a lover, she would have the entire court laughing at her. Those who wished to live differently had only to enter a convent. And you imagine, perhaps, that your husbands will love you alone all their lives. As if, indeed, this could be the case. I tell you that marriage is a thing necessary in order that Society should exist, but it is not in the nature of our race, do you understand? There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.” The young girl caught the old woman’s trembling hands in her own. “Hold your tongue, I beg of you, grandmamma!” And, on her knees, with tears in her eyes, she prayed to Heaven to bestow on her a great passion, one eternal passion alone, in accordance with the dream of modern poets, while the grandmother, kissing her on the forehead, quite penetrated still by that charming, healthy logic by which the philosophers of gallantry sprinkled salt with the life of the eighteenth century, murmured: “Take care, my poor darling! If you believe in such follies as this, you will be very unhappy.”

Maupassant is considered one of the fathers of the modern short story. He delighted in clever plotting, and served as a model for Somerset Maugham and many others in this respect. One of his famous short stories, "The Necklace", was imitated with a twist by Maugham ("Mr Know-All", "A String of Beads")

[Veysel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guy de Maupassant – Otel

Beyaz köpükten kımıl kımıl bir bulut, derin ve ağırlıksız, üzerlerine ses çıkarmadan dökülüyor, yavaş yavaş onları köpükten, kalın ve dilsiz bir şiltenin altında bırakıyordu.

Gün batıyordu. Karlar pembeleşiyor, onların billurlaşmış yüzünde kuru ve dondurucu bir yel zaman zaman canlanıp esiyordu.

[Sofia Wise]

I really enjoyed these stories! They were very ironic and... French, I suppose. Some were very strange. But in a fun way! I would read more of his work. My favorites: The Jewels, Imprudence, In the Bedroom, A Ruse, and Madame Tellier's Establishment. I don't know if there was any story that I didn't enjoy though. The writing was obviously old-fashioned (for now), but it read very easily.

[Jimbo Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve not actually read all of these stories but this was one of my focuses on my last year of teacher training. The Short Story. All that I read were great and I often would read a selection out loud to my students. Sometimes to just fill up time at the end of a class🤪 But the stories always produced good discussions👍

[Archana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading these short stories is a joy. I prolonged it for as long as I could, its over. These stories are ahead of its time and a lot of them question social norms and still deliver a delightful plot.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

These DO take you to another time and place. Melodrama, soap opera prime- yes. In every good way- to an excellent carving.

Lots of effusive people that are too passionate to have cognitive ability, IMHO.

He sure had a whole lot to say for the short time he was here.

[Michael Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

masterful short stories

[Matías · Rating 5 out of 5]

geniales relatos cortos

[Loki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a surprisingly unpretentious way, these stories are very real, with elements of humour, but by and large they are rather depressing. A sad reflection of life.

[Deb Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish the whole book. While well-written, the stories did not appeal to me.

[Anna Marie Regner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but why are the women always either strumpets or lesbians? Guy had some complex istg

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favourite stories:
Ball of fat
Paul’s mistress
The awakening
Regret
A meeting
The wreck
The horla
Useless beauty
Graveyard sirens

[Joe Sweeney]

Best stories: Ball-Of-Fat, Paul’s Mistress, The Necklace, Moonlight, Graveyard Sirens, Yvette, The False Gems, The Avenger, The Horla, Useless Beauty

[Raya Minkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

very thought-provoking for me. it made me so much more grateful for the way my life is not similar to theirs.

[DaviD. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primer libro que leí en mi adolescencia.
Me encantó.
Lo recomiendo. Relatos cortos y bien escritos.

[Nila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not all stories are equally engaging but I found them all well-written and like a glimpse through a window into a moment of the characters' lives.

[Vivek Naskar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was gifted to me when I was at school. I quickly fell in love with the French writer who has a unique way of narrating stories. Stories that we see and hear every day.

[Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read -

On the River - 3/5
The Diary of a Madman - 2/5
The Horla - 4/5
The Spectre - 3/5
The White Wolf - 2/5
Who Knows? - 3/5

[Louiza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read the Necklace by Guy De Maupassant years ago and I loved it! A couple of people had suggested to me long ago to read the rest of his stories, and I am glad I finally did.

My thoughts on Maupassant after I had first read his collected stories.

 (I certainly need to reread them). 


Guy De Maupassant is considered, and rightly so, among the best. He has certainly earned a very favorable place in my reading heart.


I found his stories powerful, even shocking. If his stories were a picture, I think it would be a juxtaposition of light and dark shadows. His stories are dark and cynical, but with doses of light that shock you — when you suddenly realize the darkness he had been holding until the very end, before you even knew it.


Many of Maupassant's characters are obnoxious and self-absorbed, shallow people. They repel you as much as they draw you in.



What I found really interesting in reading Maupassant was that I could feel the strong influence of other well-known writers — whether they were writers who influenced him or were influenced by him. A couple of stories, especially A Peculiar Case, reminded me of the cynicism in Nabokov's novel Laughter in the Dark, though I find Nabokov darker and more extreme.


In other stories, such as The Awakening, I was reminded strongly of The Awakening by the American author Kate Chopin. It would be interesting to compare how the two stories unfold — and the very different ways Maupassant’s short story and Chopin’s novel end.


In Useless Beauty, I was reminded of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which again develops, unfolds, and ends in a vastly different way. Nevertheless, the similar feelings and echoes it stirs up, I don’t think will be lost on readers familiar with both works.


Although I enjoyed all of them, my favorite stories from this collection — for now — are: The Horla, Useless Beauty, and The Necklace.

[anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

It has been my preference to read collected short works of an author, for I found selected works to be just a glimpse and often taken from a wrong angle. in past years I've read several books where some of Maupassant's stories were mentioned, which was a major reason to pick up this huge volume. It really gave me a perfect opportunity to follow his work: from his early literatu attempts through his mature creative oeuvres to his obsession with madness and suicides. Undoubtedly his best stories are about coutry life and nature, and his most ironic about Paris, most brutal abour peasants and somewhat comic about Prussian soldiers.
Boule de Suif
Nadamne Parisse is often referred to in several novels and esseys.
The Trip of Le Horla and the Excursion in Country as well as Claire de Luna is one of the most romantic stories about moonlit country side.
The Terror, story about a fear of loneliness.
A Wagabond, the story of social injustice.
Martine
All over, probably one of ideas behind "Fort Comme la Mort"
Coward, about a duel.
The Son
The Diary of the Madman, the Mask and the Mountain Pool indicate the mental decline of the author.