Reading Order
Notre cœur Reading Order
Notre cœur (Our Heart, 1890) by Guy de Maupassant is his sixth and final completed novel — the last work of fiction he was able to write before the syphilis that had been destroying his mind since the early 1880s became too severe for sustained literary production. Notre cœur is a study of the femme de salon — the sophisticated upper-class Parisian woman, Michèle de Burne, who receives the love of men but does not return it, who enjoys the intellectual stimulation and emotional tribute of her admirers without the capacity or the desire to give herself fully to any of them. The protagonist, André Mariolle, falls deeply in love with Michèle and is eventually permitted a liaison, only to discover that her physical presence is as emotionally inaccessible as her public self — she can give her body but not her heart, and her incapacity for full emotional commitment destroys him. Notre cœur is Maupassant's most personal novel — written as his mental deterioration accelerated, it has a quality of despair and resignation that distinguishes it from the controlled irony of his earlier work, and the figure of Michèle de Burne reflects Maupassant's complex relationships with the society women who were his social world in the 1880s.
Where to start
Notre cœur (1890) — the novel is moderate length (about 300 pages) and accessible; the English title is Our Heart. Read as the conclusion to Maupassant's novelistic career and alongside Fort comme la mort (1889) to understand the psychological register of his final period, which contrasts with the sociological satire of Bel-Ami and the naturalistic tragedy of Une vie.
Complete Notre cœur Book List
- 1Buy
Notre cœur
Guy de Maupassant·1890·Sixth and final completed novel. Maupassant attempted a seventh novel (L'Âme étrangère) but was committed to the psychiatric clinic of Dr. Blanche in January 1892 after a breakdown, and died in the clinic in July 1893. Notre cœur is therefore the last substantial work of his career, and its quality of resigned melancholy is inseparable from the biographical context of its composition.
Notre cœur — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the femme de salon in Notre cœur?
The femme de salon (salon woman) is a specific social type of the late nineteenth-century French upper bourgeoisie: a married or widowed woman of sufficient wealth, intelligence, and social position to maintain a salon — a regular gathering place for writers, artists, politicians, and intellectuals — and to occupy a position of cultural authority within it. In Notre cœur (1890), Michèle de Burne is the ideal femme de salon: beautiful, intelligent, witty, socially masterful, and emotionally inaccessible. Her salon is a place where men come to worship her and compete for her attention, and where she distributes favor with the detachment of a queen distributing honors — valuing the tribute more than the giver, enjoying the performance of desire more than any particular desirer. Maupassant's treatment of this type is ambivalent but ultimately sympathetic: Michèle de Burne is not malicious, and her incapacity for emotional commitment is not a choice but a constitutional limitation — she is genuinely incapable of the complete self-abandonment that love requires, and she is honest (within her limits) about this incapacity. The novel's argument is not that Michèle is bad but that the social world that produced her — the Parisian salon culture of the Third Republic — has cultivated exactly this incapacity as a social virtue: the woman who manages her emotional resources with intelligence and detachment is better adapted to the salon world than the woman who loves completely and is consumed.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.