FLAUBERT AND MADAME BOVARY Hardcover – 1 Jan. 1947

No Flaubertian can afford to miss on this

Francis Steegmuller was the expert on Gustave Flaubert. Steegmuller died October 20, 1994, age 88. The positive reviews on "Flaubert and Madame Bovary" are excellent. I can do no better than to add my recommendation of this book to anyone wishing to learn more about Gustave. I will include the New York Review Books description of the 2004 edition published by NYRB Classics. We owe much to Francis Steegmuller for his diligent work on Flaubert."Francis Steegmuller’s beautifully executed double portrait of Madame Bovary and her maker is a remarkable and unusual biographical study, a sensitive and detailed account of how an unpromising young man turns himself into one of the world’s greatest novelists. Steegmuller starts with the young Flaubert, prone to mysterious fits, hypochondriacal, at odds with and yet dependent on his bourgeois family. Then, drawing on Flaubert’s voluminous correspondence, Steegmuller tracks his subject through friendships and love affairs, a trip to the Orient, nervous breakdown and tenuous recovery, and finally into the study, where a mind at once restless and jaded finds a focus in the precisely detailed reality of an imagined woman, utterly ordinary in her unhappiness, whose story was to revolutionize literature."

Steegmuller's translation of Madam Bovary and his account here of Flaubert's writing of that famous novel both benefit from Steegmuller's evident talents as a novelist. The narrative draws heavily on the correspondence of Flaubert and his intimates but all is artfully deployed. This story of the story adds considerably to the experience of reading Madame B.

Not a beach read, for sure, but an engaging and challenging read for those who have read Madame Bovary and know Flaubert's reputation. Much to be learned here.

This author (or publisher) heavily censors Flaubert’s letters when extracts are used in this book. He even goes so far as to change Flaubert’s words! I tried to upload an example of Flaubert’s letter from another book with this review, but Amazon labeled my example “obscene” and rejected my review. What year are we living in?