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The Letters of Gustave Flaubert / by Gustave Flaubert; edited and translated from the French by Francis Steegmuller.- 2023 - 715 Pages - A Paris in July 2024 Work
Gustave Flaubert
Born 12 - 12 - 1821
Madame Bovary - 1857
Salammbó 1862
Sentimental Education 1869
The Temptation of Saint Anthony 1874
Dies 5- 8 - 1882
Madame Bovary is without dispute among the greatest of all novels. Sentimental Education is masterpiece. His other two novels are "strange".
The Letters of Gustave Flaubert -edited and translated from the French by Francis Steegmuller.- 2023 - 715 Pages is an extraordinarly valuable work for all seriously into Flaubert but lacking fluency in French.
--“If there is one article of faith that dominates the Credo of Gustave Flaubert’s correspondence,” Francis Steegmuller writes in the introduction to this selection of Flaubert’s letters, “it is that the function of great art is not to provide ‘answers.’” The Letters of Gustave Flaubert is above all a record of the intransigent questions—personal, political, artistic—with which Flaubert struggled throughout his life.
Here we have Flaubert’s youthful, sensual outpourings to his mistress, the poet Louise Colet, and, as he advances, still unknown, into his thirties, the wrestle to write Madame Bovary. We hear, too, of his life-changing trip to Egypt, as described to family and friends, and then there are lively exchanges with Baudelaire, with the influential critic Sainte-Beuve, and with Guy de Maupassant, his young protégé. Flaubert’s letters to George Sand reveal her as the great confidante of his later years.
Steegmuller’s book, a classic in its own right, is both a splendid life of Flaubert in his own words and the ars poetica of the master who laid the foundations for modern writers from James Joyce to Lydia Davis. Originally issued in two volumes, the book appears here for the first time under a single cover.-- From The New York Review of Books
I wish that this book was widely available here. It would be perfect to read with my read of Madame Bovary in French.
ReplyDeleteDeb Nance. I borrowed a copy from the New York City Public Library via Libby.
ReplyDeleteI’m so interested to learn of this volume, especially as I recently just reread Madame Bovary! Interesting, too, that he had a mistress as he was struggling to write the novel. I wonder how much his life affected that work. Surely, he wasn’t such a rogue as Rodolphe?
ReplyDeleteHmm, I love this author, but never thought of reading his letters!
ReplyDeleteWait, you say you borrowed it from NY through Libby? Usually you cannot borrow ebooks (special strict rights for ebooks, which drive me crazy by the way) from another city where you are not a resident, let alone country. How did you do that? I didn't think you lived in NY, but I may be wrong
Emma at Words and Peace. With help of blog followers I was able to obtain an NYC library card.
ReplyDeleteBellezza - Flaubert pretty much all his adult life had a mistress. He was also a patron of brothels- based on information in the biographical sections of this book
ReplyDeleteI knew that New York Review Books had reissued it & I've definitely been interested in this book. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI never read people's letters although I always think I should. I guess his letters would be of some interest.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is some chunky collection of letters, I thought, but then I remembered that I have a collection of about 300 pages with letters just between him and George Sand, so I guess he wrote a lot of letters to a Lot of people.
ReplyDelete