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Handsome, debonair and penniless, Georges Duroy, an ex-cavalry home from Algeria, is a struggling, determined and ambitious social climber in 1880’s Paris. Using his allure and wit, he seduces wealthy and influential women and rises to become one of the richest men in Paris in the newspaper industry. Duroy (aka Bel-Ami) is as amoral as they come, but then so is everyone else in the book, and Bel-Ami becomes the one to root for. No question, he is an insatiable, unredeemable scoundrel, but Maupassant remains steadfastly unapologetic and never punishes him for his unscrupulousness. Even in the novel’s last pages, minutes after getting married to young Suzanne, already Bel-Ami is setting up a tryst with former lover, Madame de Marcelle. Maupassant writes: she “sends a thrill though his body� and he has “a sudden desire to go back to her again.�

Set against the background of French colonization of North Africa, not only is the sleaziness of the times satirized but also the corruption in politics and journalism. Though at times there’s a lack of emotional connect with some of the characters, at the same time the book has a very modern feel to it. As always Maupassant’s style comes across as effortless and clever and reads not really like the novel it is but a short story (and a very long one), for which he is well-known.