I just finished a very delicious volume of some of Guy de Maupassant's more interesting short stories. I knew it was a delightful find right off the bat on account of I've been reading the guy since 1993. Yes, it was that long ago, and it was some of his very simple works which glued that long name to memory.He's this French writer, dubbed as one of the Fathers of Short Stories, who writes with a twisted appetite for tragedy in its very simple presentations. He seals his stories from spoling; he avoids happy endings as much as he can. He has nothing against killing the main character in a heartbeat, as you would a candle after a power outage. He speaks of lost and unrequited love, of betrayal, of revenge, and he does it well, so well that he makes you root for his characters however pathetic they are right off the get go. He strings his adjectives so effectively, it takes but a few to design, in creating a mental picture, his specific brand of sadness. He makes you root for a prostitute, he makes you feel sympathetic towards a dying old horse, he makes fun of the new found poverty of a middle aged couple, and he does it well with a deceptive plot so brilliantly engineered you'll never guess what happens next. He lived for 43 years, and he masterpieced around 300 short stories in his lifetime. He sufferred a sexually transmitted disease towards the collapse of his sanity with his confinement in an institution for the mentally abandoned. He's horny, and he died in a nuthouse, but he wrote so freaking well he inspired me to write him something in return.
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A Very Strange Fancy That Is Guy de Maupassant Part 2
I wrote in a recent post, in a gratuitous inspiration to kiss ass, the brilliant mind that is Guy de Maupassant. He is decidedly one of those authors I pay the most attention to. Too bad he's dead, and he died in a loony bin with raging syphilis to match. However, it is these little details that caused the attraction towards a magnificent writer, however dead, who was both horny and inspirational at the same time. Here's a sampling of some of his works. 1. Ball of Fat
This here tells the story of Ball of Fat, a spirited prostitute, who suffers the betrayal of the same people she fed and redeemed from confinement. It was about some of the saddest fifty pages.2. Vendetta
An old widow avenges the death of her only son with the help of his old dog Semillante. She starves the poor animal until it's frenetic. This was, however, the beginning of his training. 3. The Necklace
A woman borrows a necklace of imperial value only to lose it and the end of the day. Distraught, she surrenders herself to poverty in order to redeem her precious loss. The necklace has been paid for in full after she suffers ten years of very meager provisions. She then finds out at the end of ten years that it was fake to begin with.4. The Mad Woman
A rich woman turns mad and locks herself up in her manor for several years, conceding her survival and nourishment to the care and services of her maids and help. War invades their territory, and the Prussians take over her property. She's left in the woods with nothing and no one but her cushioned bed to protect her from the stinging cruelty of winter, and she was never heard of again.5. A Sale
A man sells his wife using her volume in water displaced from a large tub as currency. She thinks he's trying to drown her, presents this attempt at murder in the court of law, and he gets away with a reprimand.
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A Very Strange Fancy That Is Guy de Maupassant Part 1
No, its not the resolutions on account of nobody keeps them anyway. Resolutions are the in thing for the last few minutes of the expiring year, and so last year after the first few hours of the fresh year. Never make crappy resolutions you know full well, in your sleep, you'll be violating in a heartbeat. No, don't say you'll quit smoking because, unlike a hole in the head, that will never happen. No, you'll not lose weight. You're packing in two holidays worth of calories, and your losing weight, unlike a hole in the head, will never happen. No, don't say that you're keeping your resolutions this year with such finality because, unlike a hole in the head, that will never happen.A heart attack is final. Your resolutions aren't.That's a really lousy way to kick start the year. So stop making resolutions. Of course, in what might be a flash of tired inspiration, you can resolve to never writing resolutions no more. But that's crazy stupid, and totally nonterminating in itself because it is absolutely, big word alert, nose bleeding PARADOXICAL.
(Grins in satisfaction, I am so smart i'm using a very big word like PARADOXICAL)According to Dictionary.com, 
This makes for a great segue for yet another reference to philosophy. I'm referring, grinning wider in total satisfaction because I'm so suddenly smarter, to the Liar Paradox. Go crazy.
Altogether now. I swear to make no New Years resolutions no more.
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Wikipedia
The Best Part of New Years is not the food on account of most people will be dirt poor from all that Christmas materialism anyway. They're probably serving Christmas leftovers for New Years, maybe add a few round fruits for superstition, and they're all set. Of course that spells C-H-E-A-P-A-S-S, decidedly, but its very possible that your neighbors are drinking eggnog and eating ham and cheese to usher in the New Year. I am now reminded of one New Year's Post I wrote last year.
I have decided, in a heartbeat, to let my loser self spend New Year's Eve at work, tired and with a bad sense of longing to celebrate as we are doing technical support. That's a singularly unhappy thing on the whole. And it really isn't a matter of perspective on account of, sour grape alert, other equally employed people are blessed with the chance to usher in the New Year shit faced, pot bellied, and hopefully, surgery free. Of course, I can choose to refer to some overworked excuse to skip work like diaria, diarhea, the shits and participate in the loud festivities. But I am singularly jumpy, and I curse easy over a firecracker anywhere in my breathing space. So I choose to celebrate in a very quiet environment with double pay, and delight in the following pictures of mangled severity.
Happy New Year to You! May you have fun welcoming the New Year and the celebration's universal appeal regardless of your time zone.
