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Summary
Summary
Olivier Bertin is at the height of his career as a painter. After making his name with his Cleopatra , he went on to establish himself as "the chosen painter of the Parisiennes, the most adroit and ingenious artist to reveal their grace, their figures, and their souls." And though his hair may be white, he remains a handsome, vigorous, and engaging bachelor, a prized guest at every table and salon.
Anne, the comtesse de Guilleroy, is a youthful forty, the wife of a busy politician. The painter and the comtesse have been lovers for many years. Anne's daughter, Annette-the spitting image of her mother in her lovely youth-has finished her schooling and is returning to Paris. Her parents are putting together an excellent match. Everything is as it should be-until the painter and comtesse are each seized by an agonizing suspicion, like death...
In its devastating depiction of the treacherous nature of love, Like Death is more than the equal of Swann's Way . Richard Howard's new translation brings out all the penetration and poetry of this masterpiece of nineteenth-century fiction.
Author Notes
Henry-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5, 1850 in France. He was schooled at a seminary in Yvetot and Le Harve. He fought in the Franco-German War, then held civil service posts with the Ministry of the Navy and the Ministry of Public Instruction. He also worked with Gustave Flaubert, who helped him develop his writing talent and introduced him to many literary greats.
During his lifetime, he wrote six novels, three travel books, one book of verse, and over 300 short stories. He is considered one of the fathers of the modern short story. His works include The Necklace, A Piece of String, Mademoiselle Fifi, Miss Harriet, My Uncle Jules, Found on a Drowned Man, and The Wreck.
He suffered from mental illness in his later years and attempted suicide on January 2, 1892. He was committed to a private asylum in Paris, where he died on July 6, 1893.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this slim novel, Maupassant takes as his subject a long affair and its slow burn of love and jealousy. Feted artist Olivier Bertin, "the chosen painter of Parisiennes," enjoyed a career of enduring success; "Fortune led him to the threshold of old age, petting and caressing him all the way." The painter's affair with Anne de Guilleroy, wife of a "Norman Squire," begins when he first sees her dressed in mourning, and he takes her as his muse, inviting her to sit for a painting. The novel charts the early euphoric stage of their love, when "he went to bed early, still vibrating with happiness," through the long plateau of amitié amoureuse. However, as Anna and her daughter enter a party one night, the painter observes that Anna is "like a flower in full bloom" while her 18-year-old daughter, Annette, is "just blossoming." Olivier becomes torn between his affection for the two, and his love becomes complicated, "feeling for the mother his revived passion and covering the daughter with an obscure tenderness." Anna, aware of her lover's increasing ambivalence, becomes tormented and sickened with jealousy of her daughter as well as becoming aware of her own aging, while Annette remains blissfully innocent and oblivious to the amorous drama. Though the novel has its quaint charms, its Freudian love triangle often feels heavy-handed and its characters flat. The novel builds to a dramatic yet predictable climax, lacking the freshness of Maupassant's best work. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Newly translated, this heady novel reveals the decadant, suffocating lives of le beau monde in belle epoque France Olivier Bertin is a celebrated painter, and for 12 years has been the lover of Anne, the Comtesse de Guilleroy. The last time Olivier had seen Anne's daughter, Annette, she was six and being sent off with colouring books while her mother sat for her portrait and began her affair with the artist, now so long established that it has become comfortable, automatic almost. And then the daughter returns from her education, aged 18... Maupassant was more famous for his stories than his novels, but he could pace a narrative of either length superbly, and if this at times feels more like a long-drawn-out story than a novel, that is because of its limited cast of characters, its confinement largely to the drawing rooms, salons and playgrounds of the Parisian beau monde, and not because it is too long. It needs the space to stretch out, to illustrate the suffocating nature of the genteel life. Early on there is an extended passage of about a dozen pages stiff with dukes that pushed me to the limits of my patience, but persevere, it's a necessary backdrop. We are coming up to the final decade of the 19th century, in the hothouse flowering of the belle epoque : the air is thick with it, as with a perfume. You can practically hear the rustling of the ladies' silks, or catch the sobs that are such a feature of the erotic lives of high society. Is that Debussy I hear playing in the background? And my God, is it sexy. This is a love in which intellect and emotion are at play at the same time. There is passion and there is calculation, even down to the precise moment at which the removal of a glove will have its most devastating effect: "She was wearing long gloves that reached to her elbows. To take one off, she held it at the top and quickly slid the glove down her arm, twisting it as if she were skinning a snake." I think Maupassant got a bit of a frisson from writing that. Richard Howard, the translator, makes an interesting point in his introduction, noting Maupassant's use of what he calls "involuntary memory": which, of course, became the foundation of the cathedral of Proust 's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. He wonders how much Proust is in Maupassant's debt; plenty, I'd say; this is like an episode remembered in Proust but which is happening in real time (I would also cite Maupassant's nod to the force of habit, another important element of Proust's work). Meanwhile, underneath the narrative as it were, are stirrings of something else. The poor are glanced at occasionally; the ladies knit ugly but warm rugs for them; it is marvelled that they frequent the Bois de Boulogne; the poem that Annette is given to read while posing for her own portrait is Victor Hugo 's "Les Pauvres Gens" (a title that is also, incidentally, what "les miserables" means). I don't think you could call this a novel that is concerned with the pressing desirability of an equitable society -- but Maupassant is well aware that something is not right here, especially when one of the characters laughingly dismisses the motto " liberte, egalite, fraternite ". This new translation is pretty good, though at times yielding to the forgivable impulse to ramp things up. So " Toutes les maisons sentent le vide " becomes "all the houses stink of emptiness", and " J'ai une envie folle de vous embrasser " "I have a wild desire to make love to you". I am not sure why Annette's affectionately mocking salutation to Bertin -- " monsieur le peintre " -- is first given as "Sir Painter" and then later as an italicised " monsieur le peintre " but it works. Drink deeply of this intoxicating, heady work. Reading it makes you realise that when it comes to sophistication, the French, in their writing as well as their manners, make us look like apes. - Nicholas Lezard.
Kirkus Review
The psychoemotional precision of Maupassant in an elegant new translation by celebrated translator Howard.Olivier Bertin is the most sought-after portraitist in Paris. Exalted not just for his talent and refined technique, but also the ease with which he blends with Parisian society, he is handsome and charming, but, though he never lacks for admirers, he has never loveduntil he's thunderstruck by the sight of a lovely young woman in mourning clothes at a party and contrives to paint her portrait and, with luck, seduce her. Soon Anne, the comtesse de Guilleroy, a canny, resourceful woman, married with a young daughter, comes to sit for him. After minimal resistance or moral questioning, Anne accepts that she returns the painter's affections and bears no remorse as they embark on a passionate affair that, though Anne remains married to the oblivious count, lasts for many years and settles into the comfort, habit, and thoughtless affection of a contented marriage. Now a young woman herself, Anne's daughter, Annette, returns to Paris from her childhood spent at her grandmother's estate in Eure, and, though Anne is pleased to have her home, she is increasingly haunted by her dissipating youth and distressed by comparisons of their beauty: judgments which generally favor the younger woman. Olivier, also realizing the consequences of passing yearson his body and prevailing artistic tastesfeels a surge of renewed passion for his mistress on Annette's return, seeing in her daughter all he admired in Anne when their love was still new. It's here that Maupassant best depicts, with meticulous care and nuance, the neuroses and internal struggles of these lovers as they grapple for control over their emotions and the unstoppable onrush of time. A finely shaded portrait of desire, will, and the complex entanglements of love, set against cutting social commentary from a realist master. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
