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Post by wireman on Jun 1, 2022 12:55:45 GMT
Today's discussion is for On The River by Guy de Maupassant
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Post by wireman on Jun 1, 2022 18:28:01 GMT
My take on this story is that it's about fear. Fear of what we can't see. I like the passage about the river in the beginning that kind of sets the mood for the story
To him, it's a mysterious thing, profound, unknown, a land of mirages and phantasmagoria, where one sees by night things that do not exist, hears sounds that one does not recognize, trembles without knowing why, as in night passing through a cemetery-and it is in fact the most sinister of cemeteries, one which has no tomb.
The fisherman was enjoying himself on a beautiful night on the river and he heard a couple of unexplained sounds that caused an inexplicable fear. He started seeing something sinister in almost all his surroundings and fearing the things he could not see. He went from perfectly content to afraid in a very short period of time. And in the end, he finds that something tragic had happened where he was anchored.
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Post by spideyman on Jun 1, 2022 20:29:24 GMT
Excellent description and setting of the mood- calm on the river, enjoyable a boat ride. And then.... fear and even hopelessness. The attempts to get the anchor up-- all failing. One could consider the ending a "surprise", however, the reader almost knew it wasn't going to end well.
I did enjoy reading this short story.
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Post by edwardjohn on Jun 1, 2022 21:42:55 GMT
This is one of these kind of stories that can be interpreted in so many different ways. My take is that the fisherman was experiencing everything that the woman that was pulled up at the end of the story went through; things go from serene hopefulness to fear. It gets a bit psychedelic as well, a bit expressionist. He seems to travel, via the river, to some kind of great beyond, continuing his experience of the women's sorrow, I think.
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Post by spideyman on Jun 4, 2022 15:32:11 GMT
Any suggestion for the next reading group story?
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Post by wireman on Jun 5, 2022 9:35:52 GMT
The discussion for Wednesday will be The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce
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