For a novel published in 1885 and set in the Paris of that period, this novel has a remarkably modern feel. It's about sleazy journalism, corrupt politicians, sex, money and power. And through it all is the Bel-Ami of the title - Georges Duroy, who uses his liaisons with rich and / or powerful women to achieve the wealth and social position he craves. Bel-Ami is the nickname given to him by the daughter of a mistress. It means "handsome (or beautiful) friend", but the nickname, like almost every More...

La lettura di un capolavoro, molto di frequente, concede sin dalle prime righe la possibilità di intuire che ci troviamo di fronte ad un' opera d'arte indiscutibile. Ebbene, la lettura di "Bel ami" ci rende consapevoli del fatto che ci troviamo a fare i conti con un personaggio, Georges Duroy, per molti versi emblematico, uno di quei personaggi che "fanno epoca", cioè che ci parlano dell'epoca loro e dell'epoca nostra. Il contenuto del romanzo si delinea sin dalle prime battute: si seguirnno la More...

Georges Duroy is not a conventional hero: he is selfish, tries to take advantage of everything and he is very stupid. The reason he achieves success is that he is handsome and lucky, incredibly lucky.

It is luck that makes him meet with a journalist and his looks makes him merry the widow of his friend, a smart woman that wrote the articles of his previous husband and now writes Georges'.

The most interesting part regards the newspaper: it has not much quality but it has political sympathies (symp More...

On the surface, the moral of the book is simple: be a complete bastard, treat all the women you meet like dirt and exploit them as much as possible, and you'll be a stunning success. The author stays deadpan thoughout; it's impossible to tell for sure whether he's being ironic, though one strongly suspects he is. Fans of the Flashman series will probably enjoy this too.

Isaiah's comment highlighted for me why the book is so fascinating. Most people don't want to admit to themselves how important More...

Bel-ami, is a novel about money, sex and power. relationships between politics and press, dominated by ferocious self interest prostituted values. This inst a book i would normally pick up and read but i thought to give it a try, and i'm glad i did.

The novel revolves around the activities and adventures of George Duroy, who is an aspiring journalist returning from French-occupied Algeria. He decides to try his luck in Paris, and for some reason, his luck is stellar. He meets one man, who gives h More...

So, the writing isn't GREAT, but I'm sure it loses some zest in the translation; perhaps if I had read the original French I would have given it a 5. However, currently I am limited to what I can read. Admittedly, there are some great moments, and very, very good writing (though affected dialogue). The one glaring annoyance I can report is his general lack of comfort with describing SEX. Yes, the entire book is about it but Maupassant hates to directly discuss what it is that makes Duroy so rich More...

OK, so the guy on the cover is neither handsome nor particularly young looking, but it goes without saying who I pictured in my head while reading this novella ;)

The subtitle "The History of a Scoundrel" certainly describes this book perfectly. Georges Duroy is a cad of the highest order who has little talent but still manages to claw his way to become the editor of a newspaper. He wins a Legion of Honor medal for being the French foreign minister's PR flunkey, and gains a fortune based on borr More...

Напълно безобразно скучна книга. Типична за българската система на образованието. Не бях грабната нито от историята, нито от героите, нито от стила на писателя. За луксове като хубава корица, бъобще не говоря, защото, имайки в предвид, че това е класика,е напълно нормално кориците да са си старомоднички. За това оставям визуалното оформляние назад, назад. Самия сюжет не беше нищо особено и като цяло се движеше много мудно.

Главният герой, който наричат Бел Ами, не е нито мъж на който бих се възхи More...

Come sempre ho trovato la quarta di copertina davvero fuorviante. Leggendola, emerge una figura, quella di Georges Duroy(soprannominato:Bel Ami), come di un uomo bello, abile, scaltro, che attraverso la sua furbizia riesce ad ottenere tutto quello che vuole.

Convinta cos�� di imbattermi in un protagonista tutto sommato anche simpatico, nell'incarnare la figura di "gentiluomo canaglia"inizio a leggere questo romanzo con grande entusiasmo. Ma fin dalle prime pagine, invece mi ritrovo a fronteggiar More...

A rollicking tale from Flaubert’s protégé chronicling the inexorable rise of social climber Georges Duroy. Translated by Douglas Parmée, who rendered A Sentimental Education into irresistibly sumptuous English, Bel-Ami is powered by electrifying dialogue and a terse descriptive prowess Flaubert seemingly overemphasised to Maupassant—the prose is so compact you could park it in your driveway. Duroy is a misanthropic schemer and exploiter, but something of a “working-class hero,” if we understand More...

"Vrhl se k ní a blábolil: 'Tolik vás miluji! Tolik vás miluji!'
Rozevřela paže a padla mu do náruče. Potom k němu zvedla hlavu a dlouze se políbili.
Myslel si: je to snadnější, než jsem doufal. Jde to docela hladce. A když se jejich rty oddělily, beze slova se na ni usmíval a snažil se přitom vložit do svého pohledu nekonečnou lásku.
Také se na něj usmívala tím úsměvem, kterým ženy nabízejí svou touhu, svůj souhlas a vůli oddat se."

Ruku na srdce, každý chlap je tak trochu Georges Duroy, Miláček. (T More...

A fine novel offering a bitter antidote to the stereotypical love story. The nickname of the protagonist, Bel Ami, is an ironic contrast to his actual character. The man is a scoundrel who ruins several women in pursuit of his ambitions. Still the novel ends with his second marriage, a supposedly happy ending that came at the cost of several other people's reputations. De Maupassant brilliantly skewers his protagonist while at the same time never stepping outside the bounds of authorial objectiv More...

I read this book after watching the movie. The book was far superior to the movie (as is often the case).

The movie portrays Duroy as a self-serving, proud, and ambitious man who uses women in his attempt to better himself. In the beginning of the film he almost appears pathetic. In the film, he merely seems youthfully shallow and desperately manipulative in his attempts to gain social status and financial security. One could almost think that he had a lack of self- esteem. While he appears to b More...

Cynicism! Hypocrisy! Venality! Stupidity! Cupidity! Ambition!
Bel-Ami is about all of those things—and more. Georges Duroy is a handsome man. But he is also poor, with a peasant upbringing. Couple those things with cunning and ambition, and you have a man with the skill to work his way to the top, and to pick an extremely efficient and effective way to do so: through women who are cleverer and better connected than he is. This book reminded me fiercely of the line in Woody Allen’s “Match Point”: More...

I don't usually feel angry on reaching the final page of a book, but after this one I was incensed. I read it chiefly because 1) it was free on my Kindle and 2) I remember liking Une Vie when I read it in college. If you would fancy a fictional movie where Bernie Madoff, instead of going to jail, gets away with it all, maybe this book is for you. Page after page I was waiting, desperately hoping for Georges Duroy to get his comeuppance, and of course it never came. Did de Maupassant actually bel More...

A LA Twilight it is always tricky when the main character in a book annoys you. Du Roy in this story began as charming and witty, progressed to the kind of bloke you want to roll your eyes at and ended up a target of my fist. The text, for such a classic book, was surprisingly flowing and easy to read. It had a define addictive quality that has served me well on some long tube journeys. However, I was left disappointed that there was no real climax to the story. Du Roy's actions became somewhat More...

Concepito e scritto nell’arco del 1884, nel 1885 Bel-Ami venne pubblicato a puntate sul giornale “Gil Blas” e in volume presso l’editore Harvard. Ambientato in una Parigi ostaggio di una borghesia cinica e corrotta, Bel-Ami racconta l’ascesa di uno di questi “mostri”, che in virtù del suo disincanto e della sua mancanza di scrupoli si assicura la ricchezza e l’avanzamento sociale.

Il romanzo suscitò molte polemiche per via del personaggio Walter, proprietario ebreo del giornale presso il quale te More...

If Flaubert has his heroine Madame Bovary, then Guy de Maupassant has his hero, George Duroy, nicknamed "Bel Ami" ( can't understand, however, why in the English translation of the book "Bel Ami" is translated as "Pretty Boy" when it actually means "good friend" and "pretty/beautiful boy" is "beaux garcon"). Both characters, you will either love or hate.

Had George Duroy (he later changed it to "George Du Roy" after he succeeded in marrying into money to make his name more aristocratic-sounding) More...

Yes, Bel-Ami was a nasty person. But he wasn't the only one. All of the women were *married* - except for Suzanne, the last (who is the one I feel sorry for). The rest all made conscious decisions to do the wrong thing, and it shouldn't have been surprising to them that bad would come of it.

Having just read "Envy" by Epstein, it's hard for me not to note that Bel Ami was a person driven by that emotion. Up to the very end, when he has attained so much, he looks around him and begins to envy the More...

Maupassant is always easy to read and superbly engaging. I've read a few of his novels in the past, most recently Pierre and Jean, a powerful story about sibling rivalry. That novel, short as it is, managed to capture a very distinct and vivid world, and while Maupassant's characteristic pessimism is there shading the background, it was not overwhelming and it did not mar the story.

With Bel Ami, however, I think the pessimism is a bit too glaring. The story follows the improbable ascendancy of a More...

*may contain spoilers*

I read Bel-Ami for my book club, expecting to "appreciate" but not "enjoy" it. In fact I did both.

Bel-Ami is the story of an ex-cavalry officer who utilises his (slightly inexplicable to me) natural attractiveness to women and wily, sleazy, corrupt scheming to overcome his mediocrity and rise stratespherically in the fields of journalism and then politics.

Bel Ami himself is an unsympathetic childish character. In fact I didn't warm to any of the main characters, apart, per More...

I have been to 19th century Paris, but I barely knew it. Because I have read a book with a style, with themes, with a story, that felt so very, very contemporary.

This is a story of journalists with dubious ethics, of politicians who use their position for personal gain, of men and women caught up in the quest for power, money and social status.

And at the centre of it all is Georges Duroy. He was an ordinary man, a former soldier, who rose from the bottom of society to the very top. An old friend More...

Like most people I read the short story "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant. Loved how in such a short story he was able to create a powerful story with such staying power. So when I saw this book was being turned into a movie, I thought I'd read the book before I saw the movie.

This was an interesting insight into French society - when looks and position were everything and people reinvented themselves on a regular basis. It was a time when the illusion of propriety was everything but the crass More...

The 3-star rating technically means I liked it. Well, actually I didn't exactly enjoy the subject (forget the writing style, I didn't depict anything spectacular, though I read some Maupassant in the past), but the plot in itself must have had something catchy since the book reads in basically no time, once you're into it.

So, there's this guy, Georges Duroy, poor, hungry, not particularly endowed with any skills, wandering the streets of Paris. Once he meets the right people and makes the right More...

I usually do not watch the movie before reading the book, but I watched this movie last night and it was really good. I am not a Robert Pattinson fan at all, and I still think his acting is average, but this story was great. All i kept thinking was "This story must be 10X better as a book". This story is evidence that human nature has not and never will change. I have read comments saying this book has such a modern feel to it because George is so manipulative to get to the top but if you think More...

Ok so I read this because I saw the trailer for the film with Robert Pattinson and was intrigued, as embarrassing as that is to admit.

It was a quick read, the ebook I read was only about 200 pages. The alternative title is 'The History of A Scoundrel' and I think that pretty much says it all. Georges is quite deplorable which is rather unusual for a lead character in a book. I found his exploits entertaining at the start of the book but by the end I was just frustrated with him. Also I found it More...

ძალიან მომწონა.
არ მოველოდი, იმიტომ რომ ფრანგული კლასიკის უმეტესობა ახლა უკვე სათქმელდაკარგულია და ენაც მოუხეშავი, გაწელილსიუჟეტიანი.
მაგრამ მოპასანი ისე კარგად აღწერს დიდებისკენ მიმავალ გზას. ფინალი ყველაზე მეტად მომეწონა - დატოვა მანკიერი გმირი დიდების მწვერვალზე.
მწერლის დამოკიდებულებამ მომხიბლა - თითქოს ერთგვარად ამართლებს კიდეც ასეთ გზას, თუკი მის პირად ცხოვრებას, მრწამსსა და მსოფლმხედველობასაც გავითვალისწინებთ. ზოლასავით მსახვრალი არაა, უფრო ლმობიერი და განყენებულია.

What I liked about this book is that the protagonist (if you can truly call him that) does something that most main characters never do: he doesn't change. Granted, he changes on the "outside" by becoming more successful, wealthy and popular. But he never takes that journey inside himself - realizing his flaws, eradicating them, then enjoying a happy ending - that most characters do. When we first meet DuRoy he is a morally repugnant guy. When the story ends he is the same jerk with a better soc More...