The Horla and Others: The Best Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories of Guy de Maupassant

 

Guy de Maupassant is a 19th century French writer, and master of the short story. He did not write only macabre or ghost stories but he wrote enough to be called the Gallic Poe. In turn he influenced the writing of H.P. Lovecraft, perhaps we could call Lovecraft the American de Maupassant, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. By the way, it’s Guy (ghee, rhymes with “he”) de Maupassant (mahñ-pah-sawñ). The “N” is almost, but not entirely silent, or just…unpronounceable for anglophones.

• Author: Guy De Maupassant
• Illustrator: Michael Grant Kellermeyer
• Horror, Short Stories, French Literature
• First Published: 1886
• My edition: Oldstyle Tales, 2016

 

The Gallic Poe is fitting, especially for this collection. It is very reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. The terror is seldom a snarling blood-thirsty beast, or even ethereal specter, but rather the nameless fear, the shadowy phantasm, that troubles the otherwise rational mind…especially at night. The title story, “The Horla” is particularly styled along these lines. The horla or “outsider” takes up residence in the apartments of a comfortable, rational young Frenchman. It’s something like a vampire, only invisible. It drains the life force of its victim and bends their will to its own.

 

I loved this exchange between the young Frenchman as he asks a monk if he believes in the supernatural. The monk replied…

Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what exists? Look here; there is the wind, which is the strangest force in nature, which knocks down men, and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea into mountains of water, destroys cliffs and casts great ships onto the breakers; the wind which kills, which whistles, which sighs, which roars, — have you ever seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all that, however.

And the young Frenchman’s response.

The man was a philosopher, or perhaps a fool; I could not say which exactly, so I held my tongue.

Most of de Maupassant’s main characters are unnamed, hence “the young Frenchman”. But most of the stories are told by first-person narrators. Are they reliable or not? That is the question de Maupassant does not answer.

 

An excerpt from “Magnetism” another unnamed character…

The populace, and imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: “Amuse yourself” and it amuses itself,. Say to it: “Go and fight with your neighbor,” and it goes and fights. Say to it: “ Vote for the Emperor,” and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to it: “Vote for the Republic,” and it votes for the Republic.

 

Those who direct it are also stupid.

The Horla, both the short story and the others in this collection, have no snarling beasts, nor satisfying closure. Someone may die, or go mad, or simply disappear, but the reader is left wondering…”What was that?” (Nod to Meriadoc Brandybuck intentional.)

 

I do not care for de Maupassant’s cynicisms. But, if his purpose in writing was to express them, he was successful.

 

And he was wildly successful in writing creepy, unnerving tales fit for October. I thought "The Horla" was the best.

 

Like Poe, de Maupassant was a troubled soul, only worse. The following is his own epitaph:

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.

Have you read de Mauppassant? Any recommendations for non-spooky stories by GdM?

 

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A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin — novel #265

  

There is no bleaker moment in the life of the city than that one which crosses the boundary lines between those who have not slept all night and those who are going to work. It was for Sabina as if two races of men and women lived on earth, the night people and the day people, never meeting face to face except at this moment.

 

·      Author: Anaïs Nin

·      American lit; Avant-garde

·      First Published: 1954

·      My edition: Sky Blue Press (eBook)

·      Setting: New York City, mid 1950s

 

A Spy in the House of Love is the story of Sabina, a thirty-year-old actress who leads a double life while facing an existential crisis of identity.

 

She is married to Alan, a gentle older man, who is more father-figure than lover. Sabina loves him for the security and normalcy he provides. But she is restless and has a series of brief affairs and lies to Alan by feigning acting commitments, in order to protect him.

I must always be on guard, to protect his happiness, always on guard to protect my guardian angel.

 

…so much did her feelings about Alan seem not like those of a woman wanting to be faithful or loyal but those of an adolescent escaping home for some forbidden games.

It’s unclear if Sabina has much of a professional acting career, though she is constantly acting, playing a part for Alan, her lovers, and indeed for herself. 

What I corrupted was what is called the truth in favor of a more marvelous world. I could always improve on the facts.

She thrills at the nearly casual encounters, but agonizes over the guilt. All the time she is desperately trying to form a perception of her own identity.

 

Sabina considers herself an “international spy in the house of love”—a clandestine participant, dangerously involved in scenes and lives to which she never belongs.

 

 

This book has been described as avant-garde:

 

…experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time.

[Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory]

 

That’s about right, and although I am not of the artistic establishment of any time, I didn’t find it acceptable. I’m probably very simple, but I have no use for too much navel-gazing and arcane babble.

 

I was nervous about reading this due to Nin’s association with Henry Miller. I find him obscene, arrogant, and insulting. So I had my misgivings about this, but I believe I gave it a good faith read. Nin portrayed Sabina’s affairs without being at all graphic, much less obscene—just scandalous. So, I don’t fault her for that. Nonetheless, I don’t believe I’ll be reading any more Anaïs Nin either. Though, at times she writes beautifully, as in the quotation at the opening of this review. Great title too! For those two points, I’ll give it a half-star bump to…

 

 

2 ½ /5 stars

 

 

 

 

This is title #32 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

Am I too harsh? Is there some work by Anaïs Nin you recommend?

 

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The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers — novel #264

  

It was not a common thing to have an unknown hunchback walk to the store at midnight and then sit down and cry.

• Author: Carson McCullers
• Southern Gothic, American Lit, Novella
• First Published: in Harper's Bazaar 1943; in book form in 1951
• My edition: Mariner Books, 1979 (eBook)
• Setting: Small mill town, Southern U.S.A. probably 1930s
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding 

 

You might infer from the title and my opening hook that this novella involves a hunchback, and a café. Indeed, there are really only four characters: Lymon the hunchback; Miss Amelia his second step-cousin or something and owner of the café; Marvin Macy, Miss Amelia’s husband; and the fourth—the café.

 

I think it was the town that was sad, before there was a café. It was previously a store operated by Miss Amelia, selling among other things her own bootleg whiskey. If not a leading citizen of the unnamed town she is its dominant character. She is tall, rich from suing people, cross-eyed, stoic, and fiercely independent. She had a brief disastrous marriage to town troublemaker Marvin Macy, but he left, more precisely was pushed away by Miss Amelia and ended up in prison. It was a sad, sleepy place until Cousin Lymon strolls into town late one night, professes to be a distant relative of Miss Amelia, and sits down and cries. Surprisingly, Miss Amelia takes him into her home, and the two form a bond. In fact, Miss Amelia loves him.

When she watched him her face had a bright, soft look, and when she spoke his name there lingered in her voice the undertone of love.

But, the author offers a memorable discourse on love that leaves the reader apprehensive of the happy ending. I’ll come back to that.

 

Happily, Lymon’s arrival inspires the advent of the Café, which becomes the town’s center point, a place of comfort and contentment. 

For the atmosphere of a proper café implies these qualities: fellowship, the satisfactions of the belly, and a certain gaiety and grace of behavior.

All is good, until Marvin returns. He makes no attempt on his conjugal rights, nor claims on Miss Amelia’s money, but the tension is rising. The town, and the reader sense a showdown coming.

 

Like most of McCullers’ writing, this story is character driven, but there’s still a plot. I believe it has to do with those famous few paragraphs about love, or on the unequal nature of love.

First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons—but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved.

And…

The beloved fears and hates the lover…

There’s much more on the subject, and I understand some find it poignant and profound. I can’t say I agree.

 

But that didn’t stop me from liking this novella. I disdain cliché or I’d call it “hauntingly beautiful”; fairly certain someone has already described it that way. It is southern gothic after all. McCullers’ writing is definitely beautiful and evoking sympathy. I felt for all the characters, even Marvin. There’s no happy ending. In fact it ends with a chain gang on the outskirts of town, singing a melancholy tune—a sad ballad even.

The music will swell until at last it seems that the sound does not come from the twelve men on the gang, but from the earth itself, or the wide sky. It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright.

My rating 4 out of 5 stars

 

This is title #32 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

This review is only for the novella. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is also the title of a book of collected stories by McCullers: Ballad plus six short stores. I will read and review the short stories separately.

 

 

As an alternative to McCullers’ definition of love, I offer the following. I like this much better.

 

1 Corinthians 13:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. ⁵ It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, ⁶ it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (NASB)

 

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