216 pp "A Women's Life is built to the measure of those long, leisurely narratives in which we see a human life shaping its slow course over a long span of years, with its promise and performance , its vital trends and sorrows, its faltering plans, its failures. But it is only when the book is read and read again, and enjoyed and understood, that its real theme become evident. It becomes evident then that for Maupassant the life of a woman is typical of all of life; it may even be suggested that he said to himself, in whatever might have been the French argo of the day. 'Them women, they're all the same. ' "