Customer Reviews

Pierre Et Jean

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love the book <<Pierre et Jean>>. I first read it in my Advanced Placement French Language/Literature class. After reading this particular English translation - the Penguin version - I was dismayed at the lack of English grammar the translator exhibited. The book has major grammar mistakes in almost every chapter. Some of these mistakes are not too picky either. For example, the subjunctive mood is often tossed aside by the author. I recommend the book to everyone, but please purchase a different translation - he didn't do the best job with this one. Enjoy!

This short novel just blew me away with intense and detailed characterzations and a plot that builds tension based on the interaction between the members of a family that is nearly rocked by a seemingly positive development. The two grown brothers are established as near opposites in almost every detail and when one inherits money from an old family acquaintance the reason behind their differences becomes the driving force of the story and it's revelation nearly rips the family apart.
A short novel that will stay with you for some time after reading it.

This book is one of Maupassant's finest works. It concerns the intruiges between two brothers (Pierre et Jean) when Jean inherits a large sum of money from a "familly friend" whom Pierre secretly suspects of being the father of his brother Jean. A great book, and a very interesting look at French society in the mid 1880's.

Pierre and Jean was one of Maupassant's better-known works, but it was not one of his best. Pierre and Jean demonstrates qualities of an interesting novel in that there is a love triangle and a brotherly rivalry. Both men display something of an Oedipus complex, but are both strong and active characters. The father was created to be a flat and uninteresting personality, but the reader becomes very interested in his actions insofar as Maupassant makes a great game of mocking him and painting him as the typical bourgeois fool. Maupassant's strength is his characterization. In this, he mirrors Dickens. I recommend this book.

With excellent attention to deatil, Maupassant tells the story of a family on the brink of total collapse. While the storyline and events that took place in the novel were undeniably believable, it was at times somewhat boring to read, as would be many of our everyday lives should they be put on paper. However, everyone that reads this book will be able to relate to it in some way, and will undoubtedly learn something about themselves at the same time.

I haven't seen any other edition of this novella, but this one is very good in analysis. It is a pleasure to read the footnotes while reading the book, as if you are listening to a discussion in a French literature class.

This is a short novel, easy to follow, and enjoyable to read.

Here's what it's about basically. There's these two brothers, right?--as the title indicates. One of them gets a really nice inheritance from a family friend. The other brother gets NOTHING. He's jealous of his brother for his good fortune, and gets suspicious about WHY his brother got the inheritance. He finds out that it's because their mother had an affair with the family friend and his brother was born illegitimately from the affair. He confronts his mother about it and she admits it. That's why his brother got the inheritance, because he was the family friend's true son, it was a shameful secret that the mother kept from her husband (their father). That's all there is to it. It's not a complex book and the story's pretty simple, but the underlying psychology is really interesting and the book is very well-written--very tight and engaging. Maupassant's best novel, I would say.

David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness.

Un roman très triste, c'est l'histoire d'une famille dans le port de Le Havre. Il y a deux frères (Pierre et Jean, docteur et avocat) dans la famille. L'occasion d'un héritage énorme deviens la raison pour beaucoup de soupçons, doutes, et colère entre eux. Ça finit par détruire la famille. Maupassant explore les motivations profonds des gens, et il trouve que, au fond, les gens ne sont pas genereux sinon méfiantes, jaloux, et avides. Même l'amour ne peut pas surmonter ses problèmes.

These two small texts, an essay about the (technique of the) novel and the story "Pierre and Jean', are the works of a genius.

The novel has to be artless
The object of the novel is life which is `made of the most differing, unforeseen, contradictory, ill-assorted things; it is brutal, arbitrary, disconnected, full of inexplicable, illogical and contradictory disasters.'
The aim of the novel is not to tell a story, to amuse or touch our hearts, but to force us to think and understand the profound, hidden meaning of events. The author must put his work together in such a skillful, hidden and apparently artless way that it should be impossible to perceive his plan and intentions. He must demonstrate how people are modified through the influence of circumstances, how feelings and passions develop, how people struggle in all sorts of social environments, how interests clash. The psychology of the characters should be concealed behind the events of life.

Pierre and Jean
This formidable short story is a perfect example of de Maupassant's theory of the novel.
Its central subject is parental doubt, provoked by an unexpected event: an old friend leaves his entire fortune to a member of a family.
The writing is ingeniously elliptic: the boat which enters the port at the beginning of the story leaves it at the end under totally different circumstances.
The images are brilliant: `a short, round man, round through having rolled over the seven seas, whose ideas seemed round like pebbles on the shore.' `All those multicolored dresses, covering the sand like beds of flowers, these gaudy sunshades, the seductive art of gesture, voice and smile, the coquetry displayed on this beach, suddenly were revealed to him as an immense flowering of female perversity.'
The endless stream of revelations, of emotionally charged personal confrontations and of the dramatic psychological shocks, ultimately uncovers the es(sense) of life, the passion of love, for an individual human being.
This sublime text is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

This has to be one of the nicest novella's I have ever had the pleasure of perusing. I guess one should expect nothing less from this Maupassant masterpiece. After all, Maupassant (along with Chekov) is considered one of the founding fathers of the modern day short story, and this is considered to be his greatest work. There is more to this book than the old Cain and Abel story of sibling rivalry. It's also a telling tale of filial love, forgiveness, and the steadfast, unconditional love of a mother. It's very powerfully told with all the passion and emotion one would expect from a disciple of Flaubert and a friend of both Zola & Turgenev.

I will definitely be placing this work on my top shelf of favorites. It is one of those rare stories that will leave you thinking about it long after you turn the last page. Maupassant created a character in Pierre that is so sublimely human, such a complex, abstruse, big ball of paradox. At times, it is easy to despise him and at other times you can't help but identify with, and feel compassion for the man. After all, how heartless can one be not to sympathize with a man who has gone his whole entire life playing second fiddle to his more attractive, amicable, and younger brother Jean. Jean gets the girl, he gets the inheritance, gets the luxury flat Pierre originally had his sights on, and most importantly perhaps (because this has been going on since childhood) Jean is his parent's favorite. Come now, it's so easy to pass judgment on this man, but who among us wouldn't be experiencing the same inner torment that plagues Pierre?

"There was within him some little place that hurt, one of those almost imperceptible bruises that cannot be located, yet fidget, tire, depress and irritate you, an unidentifiable, trifling pain, a sort of seed of unhappiness."

I highly recommend this one!