SUICIDES -- GUY DE MAUPASSANT

When reading a short story, listening to music, watching a play, movie or a dance, one experiences art through a time continuum. However, when viewing a painting, or another form of visual art, one’s entire experience of said work is condensed into a matter of seconds. Though each is produced by the artist over a particular span of time, the presentation of each type of art differs markedly: One is revealed to the audience instantaneously, in a holistic fashion, and while its meaning may not be evident at first, one knows it must be already in view, while the other slowly unwinds to uncover the intended meaning of the artist. I am of the opinion that the finest writers are those who have the ability to capture a moment and freeze it in time the way a painter, photographer or sculptor does. Yes, I admit the impossibility of the human mind to read a page of words instantaneously, but, just as an analogy, I present to you my hypothesis; Guy de Maupassant’s piece, “Suicides” is successful in moving its readers because, it, like a painting or a sculpture zeroes in on a realistic and emotionally charged moment in the protagonist’s life, condensing and harnessing this loaded subject with concise and direct prose. Therefore, although the medium through which the reader experiences this work of art cannot instantaneously transmit the entire story, Guy de Maupassant does achieves what seems impossible working in the genre of the short story; when reading “Suicides”, the reader is left with a single and powerful feeling of loss, despair, fear, and hopelessness, such that it feels as though all emotions are being delivered in a cohesive package, to be experienced all at once.

Particularly fascinating is the way in which Maupassant eases his reader into the subject’s innermost thoughts. What begins as a letter to an acquaintance soon becomes a segment of a newspaper article (depicting suicides as anonymous, nameless, and largely mysterious— a quite general, superficial overview of suicides), which then turns into a more specific tale of a man who couldn’t stand the daily grind of life, feeling perhaps as though all of his senses had betrayed him, or were attacking him, making life unpleasant. We discover everything we know about this suicidal person through his suicide note, which, in turn includes notes within itself. In this sense, I felt as though Guy de Maupassant was peeling back layers of a metaphorical onion throughout his story, in order to unveil the most intimate thoughts of his protagonist. He leaves the readers with a snapshot image of a man lying in a pool of blood in his abandoned apartment, revolver in hand, note on the table, drawer opened, photographs and other memorabilia strewn across the table, blinds cracked: The ultimate scene—A condensed snapshot of a nameless life.

I would like to note that, while it seems somewhat presumptuous to classify an artist’s work as autobiographical, I do not think it is a stretch to say that Maupassant’s ability to speak from the perspective of a suicidal man is aided by his own personal struggle with suicide. In his twenties, Maupassant contracted syphilis, which caused a degenerative mental disorder, and ultimately drove him insane. Later, he tried to kill himself by slitting his own throat, but failed, only to die the following year. Though I never find it fair when people try to align the artist’s life with the artwork itself, forcing the two together, I feel I hear what could only be Maupassant’s own rage and frustration speaking through these lines: “Only Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.”

While reading this story, I immediately came to realize that I was reading a single translation of the piece. Translations are generally very difficult to analyze; when reading a translation, it may be unclear to the reader if the translator has interpreted some other meaning than what the original artist intended. Thus, whether or not the intention of the artist has been left intact through the translation process remains in question. Take, for example, the issue of onomatopoeias, or alliteration; how would a French to English translator keep these important artistic elements in the newly translated piece? Additionally, what becomes even more problematic is that there are words found in French that have no straightforward translation in English, as well as linguistic elements that have more than one possible translation, and therefore must be left up to the translator to interpret. So, as I read, I asked myself, is it really Guy de Maupassant’s work I am reading, or is this the fine work of a translator who has delicately made several artistic choices to convey the meaning of the original piece as accurately as possible? Has the meaning of Maupassant’s work been obscured in the process? As a supplement to the story written in English, I read the original text in French. While I am not by any means a native speaker of French, I have taken French classes for about ten years of my life, and feel very comfortable reading French texts.

There is something poetic about the French text that seems to be lost in the translated English edition. Not only is the fluidity of the original text lost in translation, but also, some hidden meaning (metaphorical in nature) may be lost as well. One portion of this text, which detailed the importance of good digestion to one’s wellbeing, seemed a touch forced, or even out of place. I have a theory as to why this discontinuity occurred, and it has to do with the difference in grammatical structure between the French version and the English version. What is important here is that the word digestion is feminine in French; whether or not Maupassant intended his reader to think of digestion as a feminine character is debatable, but in English, the femininity of the word completely fails to come through: "For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures)… Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.” Whereas in the French version, the first two sentences of that same passage made it seem to me that he was comparing the attainment of good digestion to the attainment of a lover, and thus, without this lover, he can no longer go on, he can only be pessimistic: “Car une bonne digestion est tout dans la vie. C'est elle qui donne l'inspiration à l'artiste, les désirs amoureux aux jeunes gens, des idées claires aux penseurs, la joie de vivre à tout le monde, et elle permet de manger beaucoup (ce qui est encore le plus grand bonheur)... Je ne me tuerais peut-être pas si j'avais bien digéré ce soir.”—consider that, while reading this text in French, one can read the statement, “C’est elle qui donne l’inspiration à artiste…” and think of “elle” not as “digestion”, but as a woman—a strange thought, and whether or not this was the intention of Maupassant is unclear, but something rather interesting to ponder.