Volume 8, Number 7 · April 20, 1967
Troubadour
By V.S. Pritchett
The Novels of Flaubert: A Study of Themes and Techniques
by Victor Brombert
Princeton, 301 pp., $7.50
Intimate Notebook 1840-1841
by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Francis Steegmuller
Doubleday, 50 pp., $4.00
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas
by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Jacques Barzun
New Directions, 86 pp., $1.45 (paper)
November
by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Frank Jellinek, edited by Francis Steegmuller
Serendipity Press, 192 pp., $3.95
Although marred by tiresome affectations of style, Professor Brombert's book is a full and very suggestive scrutiny of Flaubert's love-hate of realism, as it is woven into the texture of his narratives. Flaubert's own ambiguities on the subject are clear. 'I abhor what has been called realism, although they make me out to be one of its high priests,' he wrote to George Sand. He hated reality. (Or rather it disgusted him; that is also an attraction.) Art held priority over life. If so much of his work is minutely drawn from everyday life, he forced himself to depict it (in Professor Brombert's words):
Review, 2173 words
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