Hello! Welcome to Classics Read Aloud. I’m Ruby Love, and I’m delighted to bring you a curated stream of excellent literature—mostly short stories, and the occasional novel.
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“Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries.”
Guy de Maupassant was like a flash of lightning on the literary scene. He had a short life and a shorter writing career that left a slowly fading echo of brilliance in the night sky. As Maupassant himself acknowledged, “I entered the literary life like a meteor, and I will come out like a love at first sight.”
Love at first sight, in Maupassant’s world, comes to a lonely, regrettable end.
In his ten intense years of writing, the author created over 300 short stories and six novels, among a number of other creative pursuits. Maupassant called himself a naturalist and pressed beauty right up against pain and suffering in stories that quickly won the fawning attention of readers who were ready for a radical departure from the romanticism that reigned in the first half of the 19th century.
Friend and fellow naturalist Emile Zola called Maupassant “the happiest and unhappiest of men.” It is easy to see this deportment take shape in a story like “The Necklace,” in which a beautiful woman, desperate for a beautiful life, is served a slice of her soul’s desire only for it to digest into years of penance and misery.
“The Necklace” remains one of Maupassant’s best-known works, which we can surely appreciate once we experience the painful twist of his ending.
Please enjoy…
Listening: Maupassant’s tale of the vain Matilde, a woman at her best and her worst, calls for a solid dose of Lucius, the uber-talented duo that spent years sharing one microphone to incredible effect. They can boast a number of excellent albums, but Good Grief from 2016 really fits the bill here.
“Eveline” by James Joyce, 1904
“Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1931
“The Egg” by Sherwood Anderson, 1921
