Boule de Suif
4/5
()
About this ebook
Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant was a French writer and poet considered to be one of the pioneers of the modern short story whose best-known works include "Boule de Suif," "Mother Sauvage," and "The Necklace." De Maupassant was heavily influenced by his mother, a divorcée who raised her sons on her own, and whose own love of the written word inspired his passion for writing. While studying poetry in Rouen, de Maupassant made the acquaintance of Gustave Flaubert, who became a supporter and life-long influence for the author. De Maupassant died in 1893 after being committed to an asylum in Paris.
Read more from Guy De Maupassant
Famous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Very French Christmas: The Greatest French Holiday Stories of All Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Big Book of Christmas Tales: 250+ Short Stories, Fairytales and Holiday Myths & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Guy de Maupassant MEGAPACK ®: 144 Novels and Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Necklace and Other Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUne Vie: A Woman’s Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBoule De Suif: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/513 Short Scary Stories: Masterpieces of the greatest writers Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5TRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set: 200+ Eerie Tales from the Greatest Storytellers: Horror Classics, Mysterious Cases, Gothic Novels, Monster Tales & Supernatural Stories: Sweeney Todd, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Frankenstein, The Vampire, Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, From Beyond… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Necklace and Other Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Boule de Suif
Related ebooks
Three Men in a Boat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From a View to a Death: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diaries Volume 5: Outside, Inside, 2003–2005 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsColonel Chabert Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Amy Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inheritors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanity Fair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/57 best short stories by Margaret Oliphant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Aleksandar Hemon's "Islands" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEve's Ransom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Innocence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Misadventures of John Nicholson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Julius Caesar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deerslayer: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRousseau's Reader: Strategies of Persuasion and Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrime and Punishment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMicromegas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Study Guide to Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRue du Retour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Prairie: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Diary of a Nobody Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaniel Deronda Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFathers and Sons (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #54] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVillette (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Marjoribanks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Writing You from Tehran: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Past and Their Country's Future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Short Stories For You
The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hellbound Heart: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Short Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures: a joyful and heart-warming novel you won't want to miss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Skin Folk: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of Mystery and Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Tuesdays in Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Boule de Suif
4 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A nice story, on an interesting idea, but Maupassant would go on and create much better things later. It was his first published work and I think it shows. There's nothing wrong technically, and the story has heart, but it feels a little like an academic exercise in writing a "good" short story at times.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I first read this terrific short story, years ago, I liked it very much but failed to see how elegantly economical it is -- a complete story, on a subject worth the time, yet without a word wasted. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Often called his best work, Boule de Suif is also Maupassant's first published short story. In my collection, as in many others, it is grouped with several works about the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent occupation of France.In this story, Maupassant first describes the changing atmosphere of a town that first sees the retreat of their own army and then the arrival of an occupying force. The townspeople's mood moves from fear and despair, to acceptance and practical business dealings. Some even befriend the young men. Then, Maupassant shows the emotional and ethical accommodations that a small group of disparate people undergo when in a stressful situation. One informs and reflects the other. Although I did not find this story as tight and polished as some of his others, the impact of this story is particularly poignant.Rouen has been occupied by the Prussians, and several wealthy citizens have procured much desired travel permits allowing them to leave for Le Havre, which is still in French hands. As the coach jounces along, the passengers eye one another and try to determine each other's social status. There are an upstart wine merchant and his wife, a well-established mill owner and his wife, a Comte and Comtesse, a politician, two nuns, and a woman of easy virtue, known as Boule de Suif (Ball of Fat or Dumpling). At first the passengers are careful to maintain their distances from one another based on social standing, but after many hours of travel beyond what they were expecting, they are ready and willing to take advantage of Boule de Suif's offer to share her generous feast, which she had the foresight to pack. Over chicken legs and bottles of claret, the group bonds and social distinctions cease to be the overriding concern. At the inn where they stop for the night, a Prussian officer makes a pass at Boule de Suif, who rebuffs him. Stung, the officer refuses to let the party continue their journey until she sleeps with him. A staunch patriot, she continues to refuse, while the others slide from outrage on her behalf to frustration that they are being held hostage to her denial. The story that unfolds is both sad and seemingly inevitable.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ongenadige observatie van de kleine, schamele mens, de hypocrisie; toch ook mogelijkheid tot geluk!
Book preview
Boule de Suif - Guy de Maupassant
Suif
Guy De Maupassant
Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born in 1850 at the Château de Miromesnil, near Dieppe, France. He came from a prosperous family, but when Maupassant was eleven, his mother risked social disgrace by trying to secure a legal separation from her husband. After the split, Maupassant lived with his mother till he was thirteen, and inherited her love of classical literature, especially Shakespeare. Upon entering high school, he met the great author Gustave Flaubert, and despite being something of an unruly student proved himself as a good scholar, delighting in poetry and theatre.
Not long after he graduated from college in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and Maupassant enlisted voluntarily. Afterwards, he moved to Paris, where he spent ten years as a clerk in the Navy Department, and began to write fiction under the guidance of Flaubert. At Flaubert’s home he met a number of distinguished authors, including Émile Zola and Ivan Turgenev. In 1878, Maupassant became a contributing editor of several major newspapers, including Le Figaro, Gil Blas, Le Gaulois and l’Écho de Paris, writing fiction in his spare time.
In 1880, Maupassant published his first – and, according to many, his best – short story, entitled ‘Boule de Suif’ (‘Ball of Fat’). It was an instant success. He went on to be extremely prolific during the 1880s, working methodically to produce up to four volumes of short fiction every year. In 1883 and 1885 respectively, Maupassant published Une Vie (A Woman’s Life) and Bel-Ami, both of which rank among his best-known works. In 1887, by then a very famous and very wealthy literary figure, he published what is widely regarded as his finest novel, Pierre et Jean.
As well as being a well-known opponent of the construction of the Eiffel Tower, Maupassant was a solitary, withdrawn man with an aversion to public life. In his later years, as a result of the syphilis he had contracted earlier in life, he developed a powerful fear of death and became deeply paranoid. In early 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat, and was committed to a private asylum in Paris. He died here some eighteen months later, aged 42. He penned his own epitaph: I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.
Some years later, in his autobiography, Friedrich Nietzsche called Maupassant one of the stronger race, a genuine Latin to whom I am particularly attached.
Boule de Suif
For several days in succession fragments of a defeated army had passed through the town. They were mere disorganized bands, not disciplined forces. The men wore long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they advanced in listless fashion, without a flag, without a leader. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching onward merely by force of habit, and dropping to the ground with fatigue the moment they halted. One saw, in particular, many enlisted men, peaceful citizens, men who lived quietly on their income, bending beneath the weight of their rifles; and little active volunteers, easily frightened but full of enthusiasm, as eager to attack as they were ready to take to flight; and amid these, a sprinkling of red-breeched soldiers, the pitiful remnant of a division cut down in a great battle; somber artillerymen, side by side with nondescript foot-soldiers; and, here and there, the gleaming helmet of a heavy-footed dragoon who had difficulty in keeping up with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the line. Legions of irregulars with high-sounding names Avengers of Defeat,
Citizens of the Tomb,
Brethren in Death
—passed in their turn, looking like banditti. Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants, or tallow or soap chandlers—warriors by force of circumstances, officers by reason of their mustachios or their money—covered with weapons, flannel and gold lace, spoke in an impressive manner, discussed plans of campaign, and behaved as though they alone bore the fortunes of dying France on their braggart shoulders; though, in truth, they frequently were afraid of their own men—scoundrels often brave beyond measure, but pillagers and debauchees.
Rumor had it that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen.
The members of the National Guard, who for the past two months had been reconnoitering with the utmost caution in the neighboring woods, occasionally shooting their own sentinels, and making ready for fight whenever a rabbit rustled in the undergrowth, had now returned to their homes. Their arms, their uniforms, all the death-dealing paraphernalia with which