If you haven’t read a classic French novel for a while, Maupassant’s Bel-Ami is highly recommended. It follows the high flying career of Georges Duroy, a man of humble peasant origins who rises to become a leading editor and aspiring politician through his cunning intelligence and roving penis. Maupassant wrote this novel when he was dying of syphilis in his forties after his own rise to fame and masterfully represents Duroy’s sleazy deceit and hypocrisy. Duroy is comparable in trickery and manipulation to Shakespeare’s Machiavellian characters Iago and Edmund, and is sometimes, as likable. After he marries, Duroy learns from his mistress that his boss’s wife secretly admires him so he plots to seduce her, and later, after he has his fill of her sexual & political usefulness, he absconds with her rich virginal daughter to consolidate his power..
The seedy context in which the novel is narrated, may in part, excuse Duroy for his unscrupulous behaviour. France’s Third Republic is depicted as corrupt, both politically and financially. We see insider trading, the cozy relationship between government and big business and the declining influence of the church and the aristocracy. Duroy is clearly represented as an amoral product of his times.
The novel is written in a clear, naturalistic way and was highly influenced by Zola, and especially Flaubert, who mentored much of Maupassant's early work. Maupassant does not attempt to preach a moral lesson, but rather, attempts to present life for what it is. As a writer he demanded absolute liberty in choosing whatever subject he wanted and to treat it in whatever way he wished. He describes the outer world as accurately as possible with the purpose of expressing an ‘unexplored territory’ to say something new.
Maupassant is probably better known for his short stories but Bel-Ami is easy to read and is satisfying to follow on many levels- whether it be the shrewdness of Duroy’s wicked behaviour, Maupassant's underlying ironic intent or his uplifting universal statements about life or death.
UPDATE (19 April 2012): The film 'Bel-Ami finally opens in Australia on the 24 May 2012.
A film version of the novel will be released in August 2011 http://belamifilm.com/ starring Robert Pattinson as Georges Duroy and Uma Thurman as Madeleleine Forestier, his first wife.
UPDATE (19 April 2012): The film 'Bel-Ami finally opens in Australia on the 24 May 2012.
