Rating: 
Summary: French Tickler
Review: We can always learn something from the French, and this novel of one journalist's rise in 1880s Paris is full of little 'life lessons' about the way of the World and how to turn things to one's own advantage. Others may see it as a bleak ironic tale depicting the triumph of cynicism and amorality in an ultimately meaningless Universe. Meaning all depends on what peg you hang everything on. If you are looking for confirmation of some universal moral values, you won't find them here, but on the other hand you'll find an entertaining, sometimes disturbing, but always fascinating tale of a talented man with appetites and passions. The conventional wisdom would be to view Georges Duroy as a cad, and with top hat and twirly moustaches, he definitely fits that visual stereotype, but he starts at the bottom and gets to the top merely by playing the rules of the game that is already in progress. He gains success partly through the help of several women, and perhaps the way he treats them looks somewhat callous, but I would venture to defend him on this point. It is true he uses women at every stage of his ascent, but this, after all, can only be done with their consent and all the females who are so used, do this quite willingly, charmed by his good looks and personality. Of course, one's moral view of this character depend on whether you take a male or female view of sexual morality. Men are by nature more promiscuous, whereas women view sensuality in pair bonding terms. Men, while paying lip service to this view because of its important role in rearing the next generation, believe that there should be a little icing on the cake. When Georges apparently 'betrays' the devotion of Madame Walter - who is herself 'betraying' her husband - or Clotilde, his mistress, in favor of other females who equally want to monopolize his affections, he is merely switching from female to male sexuality morality. As he says quite rightly when casting off Madame Walter: "We fancied each other and that's that. Now it's over."
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