let’s Start with the fact that one of the most erotic writers in the world have started their studies at the Seminary, where he was, however, expelled just for erotic poetry. Born in an aristocratic noble family, the original Norman manor house, but as a child preferred to communicate with the children of peasants and fishermen. His mother was a sickly woman, suffering from neurosis, and the son was an athlete, fond of rowing and in the photos gives the impression of a buxom beauty. At the same time led a hectic life, especially after he died a friend of his mother, his teacher and mentor Gustave Flaubert, who taught him that a writer is obliged to work eight hours a day. Was a favorite of women and an over-achiever, he earned 60 francs a year (huge money!) bought a boat, and at the end of life suffered from hypochondria, I stinica, went mad and died in a psychiatric hospital. As written by Isaac Babel in his story “guy de Maupassant”, the last entry in mournful sheet read: “Mr. Maupassant turned into an animal”.
Paradoxical at all… Categorically opposed to the construction in Paris of the Eiffel tower, it is at the end of construction had dinner at the restaurant of the tower. “This is the only place in Paris, – he said – where it is not visible”.
But all this does not matter in comparison with that great literary legacy he left. And of course, the value of Maupassant for Russian literature can not be overestimated. His work was admired by Turgenev, who was acquainted with him. But his prose is highly appreciated and such a strict critic like Leo Tolstoy, who wrote for the Russian edition of the works of guy de Maupassant huge Preface and personally made the translation of one of his story – “the port”. He exerted a lasting influence on Chekhov and Bunin. But Maupassant himself he thought of his master Turgenev wrote, as we would say today, “a remake of” his story “Mumu” called “Mademoiselle Cocotte”.
As a writer he was a genius of precision in psychological detail, believing that people “represent themselves”, and the task of the writer is to see behind that mask the true nature. But it rejected “naturalism” in the spirit of Emile Zola and sought subsequently Bitter will celebrate Chekhov – realism, which “rises to spiritualized and deeply thoughtful character”. It was already in his debut novel “Chunk”, which earned him a deserved fame in France and then abroad. It is in his novels “Life,” “Dear friend”, “Mont-Oriol” and others that examines in detail in his Preface to Leo Tolstoy, while again noting the paradox of the human and creative nature of Maupassant:
“Hardly was another such writer, so sincerely believed that everything is good, the whole meaning of life in a woman, in love, and with t��hell by the power of passion, describing all sides of the woman and her love, and hardly ever been a writer that to such clarity and precision showed all the terrible sides of the same phenomenon, which seemed to him the most high and giving the greatest good of life.”
Such estimates of Leo Tolstoy are expensive!
