#bel-ami

[republique-francaise-officiel]

avant les gouvernements s'effondraient avec un peu de style, du genre un ministre était pris en flagrant délit d'adultère avec la femme d'un journaliste, ou une esclave affranchie par un comte italian super shady témoignait devant le parlement qu'un général avait commis des crimes de guerre en grèce. De nos jours il n'y a vraiment pas de quoi écrire un roman

[aedislumen]

If Bel-Ami had been written from Madeleine Forestier's point of view not only I would have actually enjoyed it, but it would have also become my favourite book hands down.

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon Soir 🆕️ 👀🎙💙

Pierre de Maere 🎶 Bel-Ami

(Regarde-Moi)

[readerbookclub]

Morally Grey - August Book List

Hello everyone! I’m very excited to be back with the first book list in a loooong time. Looking forward to reading with you again :)

The characters on this list aren’t perfect--they might not even be good. These stories are all about people who are flawed and make morally questionable choices. 

As always, please vote for which one we should read next. The link is at the bottom of this post. 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Sparks

At the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and outspokenly, in her prime. She is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods and strives to bring out the best in each one of her students. Determined to instill in them independence, passion, and ambition, Miss Brodie advises them, "Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth, and Beauty come first. Follow me." And they do--but one of them will betray her.

Eileen, by Otessa Moshfegh

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. But her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Bel-Ami, by Guy de Maupassant

Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives - the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses and wily financiers - and swiftly learns to become an arch-seducer, blackmailer and social climber in a world where love is only a means to an end. Written when Maupassant was at the height of his powers, Bel-Ami is a novel of great frankness and cynicism, but it is also infused with the sheer joy of life - depicting the scenes and characters of Paris in the belle epoque with wit, sensitivity and humanity.

The Secret History, by Donna Tart

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

Stay with Me, by  Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage--after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures--Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time--until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does--but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. An electrifying novel of enormous emotional power, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.

Vote here for which book we should read :)

[petits-bleus]

Mais il en garda le souvenir, les jours suivants, plus que le souvenir, une sorte de sensation de la présence irréelle et persistante de cette femme. Il lui semblait avoir pris quelque chose d'elle, l'image de son corps restée dans ses yeux et la saveur de son être moral restée en son cœur. Il demeurait sous l'obsession de son image, comme il arrive quelque fois quand on a passé des heures charmantes auprès d'un être.

Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

[richwall101]

Bel-Ami 200 Juke Box (1958)

[frammento]

Avrebbe dovuto capire, pensava lui, che in amore ci vuole estremo tatto, accortezza, prudenza, precisione; e che, essendosi data a lui matura, madre di famiglia, signora della società, avrebbe dovuto farlo con serietà, con una specie di slancio trattenuto, austero, magari piangendo, ma piangendo come Didone, non come Giulietta.

Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

[le-nid-du-poete]

C'était un de ces visages de femme dont chaque ligne révèle une grâce particulière, semble avoir une signification, dont chaque mouvement paraît dire ou cacher quelque chose.

Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami, Paris, Belin Gallimard, Collection Classico Lycée , 2009, 448 pages.