Aimée by Jacques Rivière
"Aimée" by Jacques Rivière is a novel written in the early 20th century. It is an intimate psychological exploration of love, marriage, and self-sabotage, told by a hypersensitive narrator whose craving for emotional intensity unsettles his happy union with Marthe and draws him toward his friend Georges’s formidable fiancée—and later wife—Aimée. The work centers on the narrator, Marthe, Georges Bourguignon, and Aimée Laval, probing the frictions between desire, loyalty, and the need
to suffer. The opening of the novel follows the narrator from a childhood awe of women and a timid, almost worshipful sensuality to a serene marriage with Marthe that soon feels too smooth for his restless heart. He befriends Georges, a pleasure-loving friend whose easy worldliness and family circle loosen the narrator’s inhibitions. When Georges confides a long-standing engagement to Aimée, the narrator meets her, is first calmed by her composure, then watches Georges marry her and immediately begin to evade the intensity of her presence under a pact of “freedom.” As Georges drifts away, Aimée’s proud reserve refuses pity, Marthe senses a change, and the narrator finds himself isolated among all three until a casual slight by Georges triggers his sudden, overwhelming realization that he loves Aimée, plunging him into sleepless, feverish turmoil. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Rivière, Jacques, 1886-1925 |
|---|---|
| Title | Aimée |
| Original Publication | Paris: Gallimard, 1922, copyright 1923. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | French fiction -- 20th century |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78207 |
| Release Date | Mar 14, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 189 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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