Pierre et Jean

by Guy de Maupassant

Overview

Henry James's admiration for "this masterly little novel" has been echoed throughout the twentieth century by readers of Pierre et Jean. It marked a turning point in the development of French fiction, situated as it is between traditional social realism and the psychological novel. It is recognized as a classic study of filial jealousy, triggered by one of the two brothers of its title finding himself the sole inheritor of the fortune of his mother's former lover.

Pierre et Jean is set in Le Havre in the 1880s and is notable for its evocation of the Normandy coastline captured by the Impressionists. But Maupassant's greatest achievement is to have woven from this simple plot in a maritime context a brilliantly crafted exploration of the complexities at the heart of family life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9782035866769
Publisher:	Larousse
Publication date:	08/27/2008
Series:	Petits Classiques Larousse
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB
Language:	French

About the Author

1850 - 1893. Admirateur et ami de Flaubert, il publia sa première nouvelle (Boule de Suif) dans le manifeste du naturalisme des Soirées de Médan (1880). Il est l'auteur de contes et de nouvelles réalistes, évoquant la vie des paysans normands, des petits-bourgeois, narrant des aventures amoureuses ou les hallucinations de la folie : la Maison Tellier (1881), les Contes de la bécasse (1883), le Horla (1887). Il publia également des romans (Une vie, 1883 ; Bel-Ami, 1885). Atteint de troubles nerveux, il mourut dans un état voisin de la démence.