The Medical School: Stories of the Medically Macabre
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De Maupassant (18501893) is regarded by some as one of the formulative masters of the short story. He is little-known today due to the lack of readily available translations of his work, and also, perhaps, due to his ignominious end: He died in an asyhun at the age of forty-two. His death was most ironic, since de Maupassant was possessed by a fear of insanity for most of his life. This fear is reflected in many of his stories, including such aptly-titled tales as "Diary of a Madman,"'The Madwoman," and "Was He Mad?" A great many of his stories feature characters seemingly teetering on the brink of madness, and one of his last stories (the final story in this collection), "Who Knows?," is narrated in the first person by a man in a mental hospital. "The Horla," de Maupassant's most frequentlyanthologized tale, centers on a man plagued by an invisible being and eventually driven to suicide when he is unable to rid himself of his unseen tormentor. Among the best of the thirtyone stories collected in this volume are: "The Dead Girl," in which the dead rise from their graves to eradicate the sentimental eulogies on their tombstones and replace them with remarks that reveal their true character; "Diary of a Madman," in which the diary of a deceased court judge discloses his descent into madness and murder; and "Was He Mad?" in which the narrator details his unwanted ability to attract both objects and other beings like a human magnet. A few of the tales are simple cameos of country life, spotlighting the brutality and greed that de Maupassant witnessed. Many, though, are more complex explorations of the borders of reality and sanity. This is an excellent, albeit somewhat gloomy, collectiom
The Medical School: Stories of the Medically Macabre,G. P. Hosmer,Acropolis Books Inc,0933905149,Popular American Fiction,Science Fiction
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