Bel-Ami

by Guy de Maupassant

translated by Margaret Mauldon

Georges Duroy, the "Bel-Ami" of the title, is a former officer stationed in North Africa who arrives in Paris penniless, and without prospects, but handsome, alluring, and ambitious. A chance encounter with Forestier, an old army comrade, earns him a job at the newspaper "La Vie Française," where he learns to be as cynical and jaded as his fellow journalists. His gratitude for this favor is short-lived, as he quickly gives way to his insatiable desire to climb the social ladder and bed women. Before long, Duroy is using his charm, wit, and extraordinary success with wealthy women to climb Parisian society, pursuing money and influence with ruthless determination. He begins an affair with Forestier's wife, moving on (but never quite relinquishing either) when another woman offers a more tantalizing prospect. Each promotion, conquest, or fortune merely fuels his envy and greed. The nickname "Bel-Ami" ("beautiful friend") is deeply ironic. Duroy's beauty is only skin-deep, and he is a friend to no one but himself.

For a novel published in 1885, the book feels remarkably modern. Rather than offering a virtuous hero or an obvious moral lesson, Maupassant presents an utterly amoral opportunist and simply lets him succeed, scandalizing his readers. Duroy seduces, manipulates, blackmails, and betrays his way upward, while the novel implicitly condemns society itself for rewarding exactly these qualities. It's difficult to think of many nineteenth-century, or even modern, protagonists as selfish and narcissistic as Duroy, and Maupassant never softens him to win our sympathy. The novel is equally scathing about the institutions surrounding him. Journalism, politics, finance, and colonial policy are shown to be deeply intertwined, with newspapers shaping public opinion to enrich a privileged few. One wonderfully cynical exchange has an experienced reporter admit that he never bothers interviewing foreign dignitaries at all; he simply recycles old articles and changes the names. It's a biting satire of journalism that feels surprisingly relevant today. Despite that modernity, part of the fun for the reader is entering Maupassant's Belle Époque Paris. Maupassant's keen prose vividly recreates the parties, the fashionable salons, cafés, the Folies Bergère, and the countryside. Contemporary details like the construction of the Métro and France's colonial ambitions in Algeria give the novel a rich sense of place. Maupassant's greatest strength, however, lies in his understanding of human behavior. He precisely observes vanity, envy, desire, and self-deception. Duroy himself is fascinating, but the women around him are every bit as compelling, each navigating shifting power dynamics in different ways. Their relationships with Duroy are often more emotionally complex than his own calculating view of them, another way in which the novel is strikingly modern. More than 140 years after its publication, its portrait of ambition, corrupt journalism, transactional relationships, political manipulation, and the seductive pursuit of wealth is contemporary and compelling. 

four stars