(Originally Written Feb. 18, 2008 in the Journal)
Part V: Introduction to the works of Guy de Maupassant
In reading the first story La Masion Tellier Tolstoy recognized the author had talent in spite of the indecency and insignificance of the subject.
Talent consists in "the capacity to direct intense concentrated attention, according to the author's tastes, on this or that subject, in consequence of which the man endowed with this capacity sees in the things to which he directs his attention some new aspect which others have overlooked" (Maude, 21).
Thus, talent of a writer, is to see that which others have seen, but overlooked.
Maupassant possessed talent but lacked the chief of the three conditions (aside from talent) to produce a true work of art.
Three Conditions:
1. A Moral relation of the author to his subject.
2. Clearness of expression or beauty of form (the two are identical)
3. Sincerity: a sincere love or hatred of what the artist depicts.
Maupassant possessed the latter two, but wholly lacked the chief and first condition.
Maupassant lacked a moral relation to his subject because he lacked a knowledge of the difference between good and evil. He loved and described what he ought not to love or describe.
Upon reading Maupassant's novel Une Vie, Tolstoy changed his opinion of Maupassant.
A thought from me: An artist then can create works that resemble art but are not true art and then later create true art later. Once an artist, always an artist does not apply.
Bel Ami, another Maupassant novel is a 'very dirty book' but at its base has a very serious idea and sentiment.
But in later novels Maupassant's moral connection to the subjects become confused. Thus, the reader cannot know what the author intends.
Maupassant falls prey to his own success and delivers work based on what the public and critics and publishers want. Though his mastery of form may increase to be even better than before, he loses his moral connection and the work ceases to be art.
He only loves what pleases him and hates what displeases him. There is no acknowledgment of good and evil.
Maupassant becomes entwined with fashionable stories and becomes a hack. He loses his basis of moral demands and feeds us ridiculous lines.
It is absurd in French novels that husbands are always portrayed as deceived and ridiculous, but the lovers of the husband's wives then becomes husbands themselves but do not become deceived and ridiculous, but heroic. It is absurd how all women are portrayed as depraved, but mothers are shown to be saintly.
"When suffering is recognized and understood, it is redeemed" (Maude, 31).
In Une Vie, Maupassant asks, 'Why do the good suffer?' In Bel Ami he asks, 'Why do wealth and fame go the unworthy?' In the next book, Mont-Oriol these questions disappear. Maupassant only describes sensuality because he likes the titillation.
Maupassant fell to the popular theory that pervades society that: "for a work of art is not only unnecessary to have a clear conception of what is right and wrong, but on the contrary an artist should completely ignore all moral questions there being a certain merit in doing so" (Maude, 33).
An artist once told Tolstoy with condescension that it was not the place of the artist to know about good and evil, but only to represent life.
"Maupassant wrote his novels, naively imagining that what was considered beautiful in his circle was that beauty which art should serve" (Maude, 34).
The aim of a novel is the description of a whole human life, or many human lives. A writer therefore must possess a clear and firm conception of good and evil in life.
Unlike untalented writers who can easily write their opinions and have a consistent book, Maupassant had talent. Thus, he could see truth, good and evil, and involuntarily saw the evil in that which he wished to consider good. Thus his novels after Une Vie became inconsistent and confused. By doing this, shifting from portraying evil as good and good as veil to good as good and evil as evil he destroyed the framework of his novels.
The cement which binds a novel together is not the continuity of plot or characters, but the continuity of the author's moral center or convictions.
When we read a book we always ask, "what sort of man is the author? Whatever the artist depicts - saints, robbers, kings or lackeys - we seek and see only the artist's own soul" (Maude, 38).
A man that does not have a clear, definite and just view of the universe can write much and admirably, but cannot produce a work of art.
When Maupassant wrote from a clear and just view of the universe he produced art. When he wrote simply to produce something beautiful, he produced work, not art.
Had Maupassant only wrote novels he would be a tragic example of a waste of talent. But, he wrote short stories, not for the purpose of creating something beautiful but writing on what touched or revolted his moral feeling.
Talent ought to lead him forward on the path of moral development.
"An artist is an artist because he sees things not as he wishes to see them but as they really are" (Maude, 40).
Talent, when unaltered by personal taste makes the observer love what should be loved and hate what ought to be hated.
Maupassant, in his short stories to extol sex-love, but the more he touted it, the more he cursed it for its misfortunes and suffering that lay with sex-love.
The tragedy of Maupassant's life is that his talent, which naturally tends toward good, was freeing him from his wicked circle of influence, only he had not the final strength to break to freedom and died in chains to his chosen master
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