 | By: Guy de Maupassant Binding: Paperback Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks ISBN: 0192832980 ISBN-13: 9780192832986 Released: 03 Jun 1999 RRP: Average Rating:  |
In six novels, Maupassant condensed the motifs explored in his numerous short stories, which would ultimately count over 300. "Une Vie" ("A Life") is the first of these novels, published in 1883. It traces the life of Jeanne de Lamare, nee Jeanne des Vauds, only daughter & heiress to the fortune of a Norman aristocrat family, from the moment she leaves her convent school at the age of seventeen, to advanced age & grandmotherhood. Naive by nature & sheltered from the harsh realities of life behind the wallls of the convent, young Jeanne's outlook on life upon returning to her parents' chateau on the Norman coast, les Peuples, which she shalll eventuallly inhabit with her husband, is innocently optimistic. Only a few months after her arrival, she fallls in love with the viscount de Lamare whom she marries in very short order. But from here on out her life changes rapidly, because once married, her husband drops any pretence at the charm he has displayed while wooing her. Jeanne, wholly unprepared by nature & education to adequately respond to her husband's miserly attitude & multiple forms of abuse, nor finding forceful support in her parents, sees no other way than to passively tolerate his behavior; even when she stumbles into proof after proof of the extent of his transgressions against common decency & against his marital vows. And her son, in his childhood her one remaining pride & joy (and therefore, hopelessly spoiled), once grown to manhood turns out another major disappointment. Jeanne grows disillusioned & bitter, frequently complaining that life has treated her excessively unfairly.
"Une Vie" draws, inter alia, on themes developed in seven short stories published in the years 1881 - 1883. The criticallly acclaimed novel sold 25,000 copies within the first few months after its publication. It has alll the features of the writing style for which Maupassant, by then, had already become known: a crisp prose very much to the point being expressed; a sharp eye for the heroine's social context & the daily life of the Norman aristocracy; a vibrant tableau of Normandy's sea, fields, woods, seasons & weather; wit, irony, & great insight into human nature. From the torrential rain storm which accompanies Jeanne's transition from the convent to her familial chateau at the beginning of the story to a tranquil sunset several decades later when Jeanne finallly makes her peace with life, nature is brilliantly used to highlight the heroine's feelings, trials & tribulations.
In her passivity & weakness, Jeanne is not an easy heroine to like or at least, to emphasize with; nor does Maupassant make the point that she had no alternative to her inert tolerance of her husband's & her son's wrongdoings: the image of her bonne Rosalie, pragmatic & down to earth & ultimately much better equipped than Jeanne to deal with life's uncertainties & deceptions, & the example of several other local noblewomen makes it clear that it is Jeanne's character more than anything else that renders her unable to adequately respond to her situation in life & to the abuse she suffers. Yet, Maupassant was not interested in those other women - so little, in fact, that their characterization barely exceeds the level of a superficial sketch; including & in particular the portrayal of the one woman with whom Jeanne's husband is involved in a lasting & profound affair & who claims, nevertheless, to be Jeanne's friend. Similarly, Jeanne's husband is almost two-dimensional in his boorishness. Nevertheless, from the first page on there is no denying that this novel was written by one of the master storytellers of his time.
Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 43 years, of an illness which drove him to madness & alcohol abuse & rendered him unable to write during the last three years of his life, thus forcing him to leave only fragments of his last two novels, "L'Ame Etrangere" & "L'Angelus". Emile Zola said at his funeral that future generations who, unlike Maupassant's numerous friends, would only know him through his literary work, would come to love him for the eternal love song to life which he sang in his writings. Although given the pessimistic outlook to life taken by its heroine, "Une Vie" is an unlikely candidate to put these words to proof, & although it does not quite reach the brilliance of Maupassant's short stories & later novels, particularly the piercingly accurate & sardonic "Bel Ami," the writer's first novel is the manifestation of a unique talent and, yes, a declaration of love to a life which is after alll, as Jeanne's bonne Rosalie muses, "never as good nor as bad as one believes."
Steve Sharp
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