Afloat

Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 192K words
Chapters: 20

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Afloat (Sur l'eau) by Guy de MaupassantAuthor: Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jun 29, 2015

Editor's review

Afloat (Sur l'eau) is a short essayistic work by Maupassant that uses experiences of a sea voyage as its thread, linking descriptions of scenery, observation and reflection. Its strength lies in the visual quality and rhythm of the prose: the sea, the light, and the people and events on shore are vividly present, while the narrative often turns to reflections on life, solitude and impermanence, in Maupassant's characteristic cool and slightly somber tone. Of moderate length, it is a good entry point to Maupassant's non-fiction writing and suits reading in fragments while traveling or commuting. Since this is an English translation, readers can also observe how nineteenth-century French prose comes across in another language. Read slowly, note the shifts between descriptive and reflective passages, and consider how the author moves from the scene before him to inward thought.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who like Maupassant's fiction and want his non-fiction or essays
Essay lovers interested in the sea, travel and nature writing
Readers who want to approach nineteenth-century French literature in a shorter form
Students willing to read an English translation and compare it with the original

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a full-length plot and strong dramatic conflict
Readers who accept only Chinese translations and have no interest in reading English
Readers who prefer systematic philosophical argument or practical knowledge books

Reading tips

Read section by section; after each, note the one description of scenery that struck you most.
Watch the joins between description and reflection, and consider how the author moves from outer landscape to inner feeling.
If the English is hard going, find a Chinese translation to compare, focusing on wording differences in key passages.
Read slowly in a quiet setting, using a map or basic nautical knowledge to picture the sea scenes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a novel or an essay?

It is closer to an essayistic work framed by a sea voyage than to a novel with a complete plot. It consists mainly of observations of scenery and reflections, interspersed with thoughts on life and human nature; do not expect a continuous story, and enjoy it in fragments.

Do I need to know French to read it?

No. The edition offered here is an English translation, and a reasonable command of English is enough. To sense the original style, you can compare a French original or a Chinese translation, but understanding the content does not depend on French.

Is it long, and when is it best read?

It is not long and its structure is fairly loose, making it suitable for reading in fragments while commuting or before bed. Reading a short stretch at a time makes it easier to appreciate the details and shifts of tone in the descriptions.

How does it differ from Maupassant's short stories?

Maupassant's short stories excel in twists of plot and human fate, whereas this work leans more toward observation and lyric reflection, with less drama and a slower pace. It is useful for seeing the author's writing beyond fiction.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893 Author

Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) was a renowned French novelist. This library holds 69 of his works, including short-story collections, novels, and complete editions. His representative works include Une vie, Boule de Suif, Bel Ami, and multi-volume complete collections of his short stories and writings. Public information is limited, so his biographical details are not elaborated here; nevertheless, the works in this library show that he excelled at short stories while also writing well-structured novels. His short stories often capture turning points in ordinary lives and human weaknesses through calm, restrained narration, while his novels focus on social class, desire, and fate. His language is concise, his observation precise, and his endings forceful, and his influence on later short-story writing is profound.