Flaubert: A Biography
by Frederick Brown
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"Gustave Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary outraged the right-thinking bourgeoisie when it was first published in 1856, is brought to life here in all his singularity and brilliance. Frederick Brown's portrayal is of an artist fraught with contradictions, his wit and bravado merging into vulnerability. A sedentary man by nature, Flaubert undertook epic voyages through Egypt and the Middle East. He could be flamboyantly uncouth but was fanatically devoted to beautifully cadenced prose. While show more energized by his camaraderie with male friends, who included Turgenev, the Goncourt brothers, Zola, and Maupassant, he depended for emotional nurture upon maternal women, notably George Sand. His assorted mistresses - French, Egyptian, and English - fed his richly erotic imagination and found their way into his fictional characters." "Flaubert's time and place caused him to be literally put on trial for portraying lewd behavior in Madame Bovary. His milieu also made him a celebrity and, indirectly, brought about his financial ruin, probably hastening his sudden death at the age of fifty-nine. Although writing was something like torture for him, it preoccupied his mind and dominated his life. He privately dreamed of popular success, which he in fact achieved with Madame Bovary, but adamantly refused to sacrifice to it his ideal of artistic integrity."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This was an interesting biography of a important writer, I think Flaubert may be the start of the modern writers. He is pradoxal, he hated the bourgeouis but he was very bourgeouis. He was a very hard worker at his writing a writer that researched his topics, attempted to make each sentense perfect. He lived in an age that was ungoing huge changes and at the end he no longer felt part of his country or culture but again he was very much part of it. He had huge medical issues but lived as he didn't. Never married, was never close but he had many close and loving women friends. I liked this book a lot
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Author Information
7+ Works 713 Members
Frederick Brown is Professor Emeritus at the Department of European Languages and Literatures, the State University of New York at Stonybrook
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Gustave Flaubert
- Important places
- Normandy, France; Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Normandy, France
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 843.8 — Literature & rhetoric French & related literatures French fiction Later 19th century 1848–1900
- LCC
- PQ2247 .B685 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 19th century
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 201
- Popularity
- 161,922
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.15)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
