The Horla

Book summary

Alone in his Normandy house, a man keeps a journal of the disturbances that began when a Brazilian three-master sailed past. He sleeps badly, drinks from his carafe at night without remembering it, and becomes sure an invisible being lives beside him. His notes, methodical at first, become a struggle against a presence he can neither show nor name. Around it the volume gathers other tales by Maupassant, where fear and everyday cruelty work on narrow lives. The author explores the border between hallucination and reality, and never settles it.