Flaubert: A Biography
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From the highly acclaimed author of Zola: A Life comes the definitive biography of Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary.Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), whose Madame Bovary outraged the right-thinking bourgeoisie, is now brought to life as the singular person and artist he was. As Frederick Brown reveals, Flaubert was fraught with contradiction—a sedentary man who took epic voyages through Egypt and the Middle East; a man of genius who could be flamboyantly uncouth, but was fanatically devoted to beautifully cadenced prose. While making much of his camaraderie with male friends, Flaubert depended upon the emotional nurture of maternal women, notably George Sand, with whom he engaged in a justly celebrated correspondence. His assorted mistresses—French, Egyptian, and English—fed both his richly erotic imagination and his fictional characters, and his letters provide a record of them.Flaubert's time and place literally put him on trial for portraying lewd behavior in Madame Bovary. His milieu also made him a celebrity and, indirectly, brought about his financial ruin. Flaubert died suddenly at the age of fifty-nine, and soon afterward, his beloved retreat near Rouen was torn down and converted into a distillery to cover his niece's debts. He privately dreamed of popular success, which he in fact achieved with Madame Bovary, but never sacrificed to it his ideal of artistic integrity. Frederick Brown's magisterial biography honors his subject's life, times, and legacy. The New York Times - William Grimes Mr. Brown makes the most of his few narrative opportunities. He gives a spirited account of Flaubert's tour of the Near East with his friend Maxime du Camp, a riot of exotic color and nonstop sex. He also mines gold in Flaubert's tempestuous relationship with Colet, a writer and the paramour of several famous writers, whose sense of personal drama and colossal self-absorption made her a worthy match for the man she would later call "that insidious Norman."
Prologue: Rouen 3The Surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu 9The Cynosure of All Eyes 23School Days 42Stories and Histories 54First Love 73The Grand Tour 97A Fortunate Fall 116Deaths in the Family 143Louis, Louise, and Max 1731848 204Voyage en Orient: Egypt 231Voyage en Orient: After Egypt 257The Perfect Hostages 272Madame Bovary 286On Trial 315An Island of His Own 334Entering Middle Age 372Imperial Society 392L'Education sentimentale 420War Years 443Orphanhood 465"We are all of us emigres, left over from another age." 483A Fruitful Intermission 513The Unraveling 537Epilogue 560Acknowledgments 571Notes 573Selected Bibliography 599Index 609
