Reviews

Alien Hearts by Richard Howard, Guy de Maupassant

nnab5's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

haeji's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A well written exploration on the complex nature of male and female love. While I enjoyed many parts of this, many of the novellas themes do not translate well to today's day and age.

cjt64's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

krobart's review against another edition

2.0

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/review-2039-alien-hearts/

eric_peartree's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

shawnwhy's review against another edition

5.0

Finally finished this thing after all these years, so very very dense with poetic description of fleeting moments , Flaubert train this guy really really well, the bit with Rodin is great. The writing is more exciting to me than Marcel's.

msand3's review against another edition

5.0

Maupassant’s final finished novel finds him at the height of his powers, writing about the sublime fear and thrill of love: the passions, joys, suffering, and pain -- all the irrational, compulsive actions and long, obsessive, self-reflective inner journeys that accompany love, break-up, rebound, and reunion. It’s quite an emotionally turbulent experience to read, appropriately mirroring the subject matter. Even before reading the introduction (which I always do after reading the novel), I suspected that Maupassant’s characters were all representative sides of a single psyche, perhaps even Maupassant’s own. I certainly found myself reflected in just about every character, from the tormented Mariolle, to the impossible to love and be loved Madame de Burne, to the cynical writer who disdains love (while always seeking it), and even to the servant girl who is the “rebound,” doomed to have Mariolle do to her precisely what was done to him by de Burne.

Besides the multifaceted character study, Maupassant delivers his usual gorgeous prose at the sentence level, including a symbolic section at Mont Saint-Michel, in which Mariolle and de Burne enter into their love affair while precariously walking along the edge of a precipice, signifying all the danger, excitement, foolishness, and sublimity of flourishing love.

This has instantly become one of my favorite novels of passion and heartache.