Yvette (review)

"Yvette" is a novella by French author Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1884. It is much longer than many of his short stories, coming in at 80 pages in my edition. This extended length allowed it to develop characters more than in many of Maupassant's short stories, which function more as parables than stories.

The story begins with two young men, Jean de Servigne and Leon Saval, approaching a house to go to a party. The house is a house of leisure for fashionable young men of status---although not as much status as they pretend to have. The house is run by the Marquis Obardi, a courtesan who manages to straddle the line between the world of the nobility and the seamier side of Paris. (Or at least that was my impression---as is often the case with Maupassant, I am not sure about the connotations of everyone's social status). Obardi also has an eighteen year old daughter, Yvette, who is witty and sophisticated, but not as sophisticated as she appears at first---she is not aware of how her mother makes money. Jean and Yvette start a flirtatious relationship, with Yvette enjoying the affection but also not being aware quite of what Jean might want from her.

At this point in the work, I realized that much of this was familiar to me: a few months ago, I watched the film "Gigi", which was also about a sophisticated but naive girl who was not quite aware of what being a courtesan entailed. Presumably, the author of the book that movie was based on was at least somewhat familiar with this book.

When Yvette finds out just what her mother's occupation is, she becomes distraught and plans to commit suicide, and buys as much chloroform as she can. Taking the chloroform makes her swoon into fantasies, but is not strong enough to kill her. Her mother and Jean climb into her bedroom and rescue her, and the story ends with a presumed "legitimate" relationship between Jean and Yvette.

I liked this novella more than I liked Maupassant's short stories. The main difference is that Yvette is more fully described as a character. In stories like "The Necklace" and "An Adventure in Paris", women's romantic and sexual desires are described in terms that seem one-dimensional and preachy. Here, we actually get to see Yvette as a person---adventurous, energetic but also naive about the world. And the book also has a more three-dimensional treatment of women's lack of opportunities, with the Marquis Obardi giving an impassioned explanation of what she is doing---her only other alternative was to be a maid working for pennies. The story isn't perfect, and we have to suspend some modern viewpoints, but in general, this story seemed to be a much more three-dimensional view of sexuality and romance from a woman's perspective than in Maupassant's short stories.