I recently bought a dvd called ‘Chez Maupassant’ with a few stories of Guy de Maupassant. I haven’t really read all his work, just heard about most of it. But the dvd looked very interesting and I liked the stories on it. It was worth it. Fine acting and the atmosphere of the time was well achieved. You learn certain life lessons from the stories. Also some irony. He showed how sometimes cultural habbits can be ridicilous, troublesome for nothing, sometimes it’s better to let certain habbits go. There was a bit of sarcasm as well in the different stories.
My children liked most of all, one story of a woman who is never satisfied with anything in her life, always complaining to her husband about how rich her friend is and how many more things she has, etc. Poor husband tries to please her with difficulty. One day she lends an expensive necklace of a friend, then looses it. They loose their money by buying a similar one, they even have to lend money which takes them years to pay back. The friend never knows anything, until one day she sees the woman in town. She doesn’t recognise her first, because the woman had to send away her one servant and worked for different people in their homes to be able to pay the debts because of that one necklace and looks terrible now. She confesses to the friend now what really had happened. Then her friend tells her that necklace never was real, but a fake!
The children and I couldn’t stop laughing. We felt a bit sorry for the woman, but not much, because she had been annoying. The other stories are worth watching too. I think one day I’ll read something more of Maupassant.