Bel-Ami
A charming provincial nobody climbs Parisian society on other people's wives and no talent at all.
Georges Duroy arrives in Paris from the provinces with a cavalry moustache, no money and no scruples, and discovers that the newspaper world rewards precisely what he has. He advances through a series of women, each better connected than the last, and Maupassant declines to punish him for any of it. Published in 1885, it is a novel about media, money and social climbing that has not dated in the smallest particular.
Recommended by 1 Person
Keith McNally
I often gravitate to books with an amoral central character, and Bel-Ami contains one of the most compelling. Georges Duroy arrives in Paris as an innocent but opportunistic young man from the provinces who ascends several rungs up the social ladder by exploiting his charm and good looks.
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