"Neither Wilder nor Dos Passos are "good writers." Wilder is a very minor writer who knows his limitations and was over inflated in value and as quickly de-flated. Dos Passos is often an excellent writer and has been improving in every way with each book he writes. Both Dos and Wilder come from the same class and neither represents that class-- Wilder represents the Library-- Zola and Hugo were both lousy writers-- but Hugo was a grand old man... Flaubert is a great writer but he only wrote one great book-- Bovary-- one 1/2 great book L'Education, one damned lousy book Bouvard et Pecuchet. Stendhal was a great writer with one good book-- Le Rouge et le Noir-- some fine parts of La Chartreuse de Parme (wonderful) but much of it tripe and the rest junk."
Letter to Paul Romaine, 1932
Selected Letters, pg. 366

http://occamsrazorlibrary.blogspot.co... ( )

Flaubert's last great work was such a massive undertaking that the strain killed him, as Guy De Maupassant so eloquently wrote:

'Finally, one day he fell, stricken, against the foot of his work-table, killed by HER, by LITERATURE; killed as are all great passionate souls by the passion that fires them.'

Well that combined with a poor diet and lack of exercise, boozing, smoking, high blood pressure, money worries, syphilis, incompetent doctors etc etc. It was also James Joyce's favourite book and one that I keep coming back to and rereading with greater pleasure each time. Even though it is unfinished Flaubert does map out the end ['America will have conquered the earth...Universal vulgarity'] - and like Finnegans Wake our characters complete the circle and return to their beginning. ( )