Rather ponderously, Sartre calle these letters the 'first example
of free association from a pre-Freudian couch', which correctly
indicates their ease of movement and general unbuttonedness. They
are also witty, coarse, tragic, deeply literary and furiously
intelligent. Unfortunately, they have never been translated in
their entirety. Review by Julian Barnes, whose books include
'England, England' (Kirkus UK)
Having been acquitted of the charge of "outrage of public morals
and religion" brought against him upon the publication Madame
Bovary, Gustave Flaubert found himself, in 1857, a celebrity and
one of the most admired literary men of his day. Francis
Steegmuller's volume of Flaubert's letters from the years
culminating in that triumph was hailed by the New York Times as
"brilliantly edited and annotated...a splendid, intimate account of
the development of a writer who changed the nature of the novel."
It went on to garner widespread critical acclaim and to win an
American Book Award for Translation. Now, in the second volume, we
see Flaubert in the years of his fame-the years in which he wrote
Salammbo, L'Education sentimentale, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony, Three Tales, and the unfinished Bouvard and Pecuchet. In
writing the novels, Flaubert followed his precept, "An author in
his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and
visible nowhere," but in these letters of his maturity he gives
full scope to his feelings and expresses forceful opinions on
matters public and private. We see Flaubert traveling to Tunisia to
document the exotic Salammbo, then calling on his own memories and
those of his friends to bring to life the Revolution of 1848 and
the loves of his hero Frederic Moreau in the pages of L'Education
sentimentale, which many today consider his greatest novel.
Flaubert is taken up by the Second Empire Court of Napoleon III and
Eugenie, and becomes a lifelong friend of Princess Mathilde
Bonaparte. But the most powerful feminine presence in this volume
is the warm, sympathetic George Sand, with whom he maintains a
fascinating correspondence for more than ten years. This dialogue
on life, letters, and politics between the "two troubadours," as
they called themselves, reveals both of them at their idiosyncratic
best. The deaths of Flaubert's mother, of his closest friend and
mentor, Louis Bouilhet, and of Theophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve, and
other intimates, and Flaubert's financial ruin at the hands of his
beloved niece Caroline and her rapacious husband, make a somber
story of the post war years. Despite these and other losses,
Flaubert's last years are brightened by the affection of Guy de
Maupassant, Zola, and other younger writers. Together with Francis
Steegmuller's masterly connecting narrative and essential
annotation, these letters, most of which appear here in English for
the first time, constitute an intimate and engrossing new biography
of the great master of the modern novel.
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