I have long been a fan of works of the French naturalists and impressionists of the later 19th century. My reading of these authors and this literature, while occasionally scattershot, has almost always been rewarding and intriguing. Flaubert, Zola, Balzac, Stendhal, and now – surprisingly, for the first time – Guy de Maupassant, whose slender novel Pierre et Jean incorporates his naturalist objective on every page. The author takes his brief but powerful story about two brothers who learn, through an outside inheritance, a perception-shifting secret and synchronizes it with the weather, mood, and metaphor of the port town Le Havre; by doing so, he is able to able to externalize the inner conflict of its key characters.
Older brother Pierre Roland, a newly minted doctor who is poised to take his first steps at establishing a practice, receives most of the novel's focus, and it is through Pierre that the reader most clearly tracks the changing emotions of the family. Maréchal, an old acquaintance, dies and leaves a legacy to the Rolands, which seems like a blessing for the economically confined family. But the money is left only to Pierre's younger brother Jean, who providentially wants to use the windfall to set up his law office. Although Roland père seems to have no curiosity over the inheritance, the gesture creates a chain of doubts in Pierre: Why has his brother benefited but not him? Why do he and Jean bear little physical resemblance? Just what was Maréchal's relationship to the family?
Maupassant gives each moment, linked to a fleeting but powerfully present emotion, a chance for exploration as Pierre modulates from suspicion to denial to jealousy to anger to self-pity. This is very much a novel of psychology, and even though the characters operate from a social and moral perspective that's more than a century old (and a culture removed from this American), every beat seems relatable and right. The weather and setting mirror Pierre's emotions in a way that is both poetic and real, where a clear day of sailing gives way to cold, enveloping fog, much as his private doubts begin to seep in and affect a sunnier outlook:
Maupassant gives each moment, linked to a fleeting but powerfully present emotion, a chance for exploration as Pierre modulates from suspicion to denial to jealousy to anger to self-pity. This is very much a novel of psychology, and even though the characters operate from a social and moral perspective that's more than a century old (and a culture removed from this American), every beat seems relatable and right. The weather and setting mirror Pierre's emotions in a way that is both poetic and real, where a clear day of sailing gives way to cold, enveloping fog, much as his private doubts begin to seep in and affect a sunnier outlook:
As he neared the harbor he heard out to sea a mournful, sinister plaint, like the bellowing of a bull, but longer drawn out and more powerful. It was the wail of a siren, the wail of ships lost in a fog… Pierre walked faster and reached the jetty, thinking of nothing now, content to enter this lugubrious, moaning darkness. (trans. Leonard Tancock)
And in Maupassant's own words:
"En approchant du port il entendit vers la pleine mer une plainte lamentable et sinistre, pareille au meuglement d'un taureau, mais plus longue et plus puissante. C'était le cri d'une sirène, le cri des navires perdus dans la brume… Pierre gagna la jetée a grands pas, ne pensant plus a rien, satisfait d'entrer dans ces ténèbres lugubres et mugissantes."
As a study of human vulnerability, Pierre et Jean is a lovely small-scale work. True pathos is generated through Maupassant's craft and creation of his characters, even as they react in a way that can be considered self-serving or melodramatic. They may be overreacting to a situation that is not life-alteringly tragic when viewed objectively, but the genuineness of their feelings is never in doubt. The story ends on a note that is perfectly bittersweet, with each of the principal characters pursuing a mutual dénouement that seems right in theory but, as the author nimbly crafts the moment, may hardly be the proper solution for anyone. It's a fitting conclusion to a very perceptive – and deceptively simple – book, a tale where naturalism and literate poetry share the page.
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