Guy de Maupassant, a French writer of noble origin, who managed to make a huge fortune on literature. Incredibly loving, he wrote in pleasure and about pleasure, turning fleeting relationships with women into literary short stories and novels.
Carefree childhood
At birth in 1850, the Frenchman was named Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy. The noble family of Maupassant lived in the luxurious estate of Miromenil in the suburbs of Dieppe. Despite the external gloss, the family was poor, since the writer’s grandfather went bankrupt a long time and doomed Father Gustave de Maupassant to work days. My father served on the stock exchange as a broker, but at the same time he remained faithful to his aesthetic taste in life, continuing to read art and even paint watercolors with his own hands. Maupassant's father was a dandy, and there was fame about him as a life-burner.
His mother was familiar with his father from childhood. Laura Le Poitven, despite her seriousness and solidity, nevertheless accepted at one time Gustave's marriage proposal and even bore him two sons. However, the couple quickly broke up, immediately after the birth of their second son, Laura left the estate and moved with her children to her own villa in the town of Etretat.
Children spent time in idleness, walked a lot, ran and frolic, enjoyed fishing on the coast, talking with local fishermen and farmers.
But at the age of 13, everything changed dramatically when Guy was sent to study at a theological seminary. Strict rules and mentoring teachers were not to Maupassant's liking, and he made attempts to escape, was naughty a lot and was restless. As a result, he was expelled from the seminary with the appropriate wording.
Mother sent her son to another school - Rouen Lyceum. And the boy suddenly took root. He showed interest in both the exact sciences and art. He fell in love with books. His true mentor and, in fact, teacher of life was the writer Gustave Flaubert. In the future, he will lay the fertile ground for the development of the literary talent of the writer.
Service
After school, the future writer went to Paris, entered the university as a lawyer. But during this period a war with Prussia began. The student was drafted into the army as a soldier. However, his passion for science remained and grew into love.
After the end of hostilities, Maupassant did not continue training, because school fees were too expensive for parents. But the way was opened to the Ministry of the Sea, where Henri-Rene-Albert-Guy served six full years for a very small salary. During this period, he was captured by a passion for literature, it became his goal and made him happy.
Without giving up service in the ministry, the future great writer, under the auspices of Flaubert, began to create. He wrote a lot and with rapture, then destroyed the written and again proceeded to the work. Mentor Flaubert repeated to the student in order to become great, one must devote himself daily to the “muse” - only this will allow you to hone the pen! The first works could indeed be destroyed, since the "second father" of Maupassant Flaubert simply forbade him to publish.
Thanks to the patronage of the famous writer, Guy was transferred from the Ministry of the Sea to the Ministry of Education.
Becoming a writer
The first published novel by Maupassant was entitled “The Hand of a Corpse”, it was released in the printed press in 1875. Following the same pseudonym, the poem “On the Shore” was published. By the way, a few years later this short story brought the author to the judicial bench, since the supervisory committee attributed the reprinted and changed title “The Girl” to pornographic sketches. Gustave Flaubert again stood up for the student, writing an explanatory letter-review of the poem.
The story “Pyshka”, which made noise, was published in 1880 in a collection of different authors. Now the works of the young author coexisted with the stories of such great prose writers as Emil Zola, Zhoris-Karl Huysmans and others.
The story impressed the literary community, it was so good for its irony and bright, detailed characters. For recognition and a sudden outbreak of reading love for Maupassant at the ministry at the duty station, he was given a six-month vacation.
Behind “Pyshka” was followed by a collection of poetic works of “Poem”.
Guy then decided to resign from office and start a career in the newspaper.
Creation
In the 80s. the period of active creativity of Maupassant came. He found subjects for his works, impressed by what he saw on his travels. He visited Algeria and Corsica, which resulted in magnificent short stories and novels. For example, the traditions and everyday features of the Corsicans formed the basis of Maupassant's book “Life”.
Literary scholars highly value his best novels:
- "On the water"
- Pierre and Jean
- "Under the sun",
short stories and novels:
- "Will",
- "Necklace",
- "Moonlight".
The apogee of creativity was the novel “Dear Friend”, he lifted Maupassant to the firmament of stellar novelists-novelists of France.
Readers idolized Maupassant, who learned to earn money by devoting himself to his beloved work. Guy de Maupassant got rich. His annual income was 60 thousand francs, and this allowed him not to deny himself anything. Of course, he financially supported his mother and brother. Towards the end of his life, he was in a rather solid condition, with many houses, dozens of yachts.
What is the secret of the writer’s popularity? According to Emil Zola, Guy brilliantly plays on feelings. He has a very friendly dialogue with the reader, and humor and satire are subtle and harmless. Leo Tolstoy interpreted the phenomenon of Maupassant in a different way: the Frenchman is a true connoisseur of love.
The writer was quite sociable and sincere in relations with close people, he made friends with eminent colleagues in the literary field: Paul Alexis, Ivan Turgenev, Leon Dierks and others.
Some of Maupassant's literary works were filmed, with Soviet cinema being the first to revive his work. The famous "Pyshka" with the light hand of the domestic director Mikhail Romm was released in 1934. Then there was a film adaptation of “Dear Friend” in 1936. The same work was again filmed by Pierre Cardinal in 1983. And in the 2012th in the film "Dear Friend" directed by Declan Donnellan, the leading actors of Hollywood, Robert Pattinson and Uma Thurman, starred.
Relations and Relations
Quite strange rumors were circulating about the writer’s relationship with Flaubert. According to one of them, Flaubert and the mother of Maupassant Laura had a secret love affair, as a result of which Guy himself appeared. According to another version, the old writer had a passion for the growing genius of literary naturalism, Maupassant. But not one of the gossip has yet been confirmed.
Guy was a famous womanizer and smoothie. He loved all women and did not have serious feelings for any. A lot of random connections, dozens of novels, hundreds of adventures - all this became the basis of the plot lines of his literary works. Maupassant's list of lovers consisted of 300 women.
The writer tried not to disclose the names of his beloved to the press, and in fact only the names of some of the ladies who temporarily took possession of his heart are known: Countess Emanuela Pototskaya, Marie Cann, Ermina. Maupassant was so secretive that he once proposed a duel with a newspaper scribble who printed gossip about his new lover.
In 1882, 11 years before his death, Maupassant suddenly announced his marriage, but this marriage for unknown reasons never became a reality.
