A review by lindseysparks
A Day in the Country and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant

5.0

Guy de Maupassant just became my favorite short story writer. I loved nearly every story in this collection. Maupassant excels at building a scene and then giving the story a twist and even though you start expecting the twist he still manages to surprise you. The only story I didn't like was Coco. It's funny that this collection is called A Day in the Country and has a charming Impressionist pairing on the cover becuase many of these stories are rather dark, including a few of my favorites, The Necklace, Rosalie Prudent and The Little Roque Girl. Others like Mademoiselle Pearl are just sad. The Horla shows a man's descent into madness, much like Maupassant's own. When I read Van Gogh's. biography earlier this year it talked about how he liked Maupassant and thought Maupassant wrote in a way that similar to what the Impressionists were doing with art. He was creating impressions of scenes, showing things through a different perspective. There are perhaps a few stories by other authors that I like better but as a whole I think this is he strongest collection I've read.