Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1005438 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-11
• Released on: 2003-11-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375757174
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
?Slyly intelligent, engaging, hyper-observant of human nature with all its glories, foibles, and fragile pretense, Maupassant?s stories are as relevant today as when they were first written.? ?Elizabeth Berg -- Review

Review
“Slyly intelligent, engaging, hyper-observant of human nature with all its glories, foibles, and fragile pretense, Maupassant’s stories are as relevant today as when they were first written.” —Elizabeth Berg

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Customer Reviews

The Necklace and Other Tales
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
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.