Customer Reviews

Salammbo

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Flaubert's _Salammbo_ is an often stirring mixture and intertwining of the history of the Punic Wars and of the myths held by the people of ancient Carthage. The novel begins and ends with a banquet held in the gardens of Hamilcar, the Carthaginian leader. The mercenaries are feasting in these gardens at the beginning and a wedding feast is being held at the end, with an important leader of the Barbarians as "the special guest of honor."

The book describes in great, often gory detail the horrors and the carnage of war. The gods must be appeased if there is no food or if the soldiers are dying of thirst. These rituals include children being sacrificed with, perhaps, Hamilcar's son being one of the victims. Cannibilism is an alternative
to mass starvation. Torture is the sport of kings and the masses alike.

In the middle of all these goings on is Hamilcar's daughter, the lovely and exotically beautiful Salammbo. Her conniving to recapture the Zaimph from Matho, the Libyan leader of the Barbarians, includes some of the most erotic passage in 19th century literature. Her pet serpent figures very prominently in these scenes. A priest advises Salammbo that without reobtaining the Zaimph, an important holy relic in their possession, Carthage is doomed to defeat.

Having previously read Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_ and _Sentimental Education_, I believed them to be totally different from _Salammbo_, the former two being romantic melodramas and the latter a historic war novel. This is incorrect. All three novels focus on a major female character, who for better or for worse, forms key relationships, romantic or otherwise, with the novels' lead male characters, and which ultimately determine the shape and the final outcome of each of these books. "All is fair in love and war" may be a cliche, but in _Salammbo_ it becomes the ultimate truth.

"Delenda est Carthago! Delenda est Carthago!"("Carthage must be destroyed!") were some of the best-remembered words of Marcus Porcius Cato, a senator of Rome during the second century BC. He got his wish at the end of the Third Punic War, when Carthage effectively ceased to exist. I used to feel a certain sympathy for the Carthaginians. Then I read Salammbo.

I first encountered this novel at the impressionable age of 13, and had no idea what to make of it. I had to gain a lot more knowledge (and cynicism) before I could approach it with anything but nausea. It is not a pretty book, nor do the actions of the protagonists make much sense, until one takes them in the context of Flaubert. He did do a good deal of historical research, but he was, as A.J. Krailsheimer points out in the introduction, also an enthusiastic student of de Sade. This novel is not simply about violence (although the reader will need hip-waders to get through the gore); it is about the torture of futility. It brims with sensual enticements, only to see every effort come to disaster. Even Salammbo herself is doomed by the very thing she wants most: she only wishes to become an initiate of Tanit, but her wish leads to her downfall.

All that said, I had some fairly significant troubles with the plot, and that started in the very first chapter. The soldiers are rioting through the garden, and Salammbo comes out of her room to scold them (in tongues) for destroying her pet fish. Why, I said to myself, does a father who wants to marry his daughter off well leave her without guards in a place where a bunch of drunken mercenaries can get at her? Once I started reading critically, things went downhill from there. The characters seem to have no control over what happens to them, so they struggle on through an atmosphere of dreamy, cynical futility until the bloody finale. I kept wanting to give someone, preferably Flaubert, a swift kick in the pants.

Even though I agree with the reviewers who stated that this novel is nothing like Madame Bovary, I tend to see this as a strength of a talented world writer. In this novel Carthage is in its death throes as an imperial nation---eternally at war and unable to meet the daily needs of its citizens. They are forced to believe in an ecstatic religious cult that demands the sacrifice of humans. Flaubert's language in this novel even mirrors the internal frenzy of the citizens who always have to be prepared for yet another war. (I finished this novel in one day, I could not put it down.)
Salammbo needs to be read as a novel; not as a work of history in order to truly understand what Flaubert intentions were.

I had read "Madame Bovary", and was looking for another novel by Flaubert. "Salammbo" sounded interesting and exotic,and I thought I'd give it a try. I was quite surprised by how utterly different it was from the other novel! As the commentor from Argentina notes, it chiefly concerns the uprising of barbarian mercenaries against their former employer, Carthage. Given the era in which it was written, I was rather shocked by the quite graphic sadism and brutality depicted - Flaubert does not hold back at all! Not a book that will be to everyone's taste, and not as satisfying as "Madame Bovary" (there's a lot of esoterica bandied about that only those exceptionally knowledgable about ancient Carthage will have a strong grip on) this is still an interesting tale, brief enough (and sensationalistic enough!) for most modern readers to get through with no trouble.

A violent, opulent, decadent novel. It was hard to penetrate at first--I couldn't get past page 10. A few years later, I picked it up and couldn't put it down. It's about the grim, gruesome Carthaginian/Punic culture (which actually sacrificed children). Although such a culture deserved to end, you can't help feeling sorry for the innocent victims caught in the culture's death throes. At every step, you know the end is coming. You know the politicians have made the fatal error of preferring to hold on to their wealth rather than pay the mercenaries who defend them. At the same time, people at all levels of society--ordinary people, soldiers, priests, and the princess Salammbo--go through meaningless, futile rituals in hopes of postponing the end. From lions crucified in the opening chapters (to "warn" other lions from venturing into populated areas), to the ephemeral pursuit of a veil invested with divine powers, to the meaningless sacrifice of the eunuch priest, futility is a recurrent theme. A reader wonders how much Flaubert embellished--I'm not sure modern archaeologists would agree with some of his descriptions. But I think he did capture how it feels to live in a savage place that is about to be wiped off the map--"Carthago delenda est."

Perhaps if Anthony Burgess wrote a screenplay directed by Werner Herzog that remade a sword-and-sandals Victor Mature epic by Cecil B. DeMille from storyboards abandoned by D.W. Griffith during "Intolerance," this might match this 1862 historical novel. Based on Polybius' accounts of the First Punic War of 241-238 B.C., this elaborates the war between Carthage against anarchic mercenaries and vengeful barbarians. It's the clash of corrupt civilization with its spiteful negation. Futility dominates both camps. The conflict's rousing but dispiriting.

Alternating battle scenes with municipal intrigue, Flaubert drew upon his journeys to the Levantine and North Africa in the 1850s. Readers of his previous novel, "Madame Bovary," may be disoriented by the sheer mass of archeology, military data, obscure erudition, and formidable description of exotic flora and unfamiliar fauna within these pages that contrast vividly Flaubert's earlier exploration of extra-marital lassitude amidst the petit-bourgeoisie.

A better comparison? Flaubert's aborted "Temptation of St. Antony" with its lavish visions, and his letters edited (also in Penguin Classics, also reviewed by me on Amazon last year) as "Flaubert in Egypt." These prepare you for the voluptuous and violent contrasts revelled in by the author here. Salammbo's temple priestess serves the moon-goddess Tanit amidst overwhelming luxury atop festering decay; inside its walls and outside its gates, the wealth of Carthage constantly arouses the greed and revenge of those dominated by its power. These contending forces undermine its status and provoke its proles and slaves to seek its destruction, even though the capital will fall along with the capitol, so to speak, as the city faces assaults by mobs of mercenaries and barbarians.

Whether or not this short but stuffed narrative is suited for you depends on your ability to stomach lots of blood and guts, mixed with a frippery of allure and a heap of data. Flaubert wishes to tell you all he learned, and this may deter the casual reader. Like a lavish miniseries, the dialogue may not live up to the staging, and the costume drama may bemuse or stupify you as often as it entices. Still, as these samples of his style at its most splendid will reveal, the entry into this overlooked and little-read novel today may prove as rewarding as six hours spent watching a made-for-TV "star-studded event" today.

Carthage's predicament: "Usually the city kept its promises. This time, however, its burning greed had led it into disgrace and danger. The Numidians, Libyans, all Africa were poised to hurl themselves on Carthage. Only the sea was free. There she met the Romans; and like a man set upon by murderers, she felt death all around." (65)

After dark in the temple grounds: "Here and there a stone phallus rose up, and big stags wandered about peacefully, kicking fallen pine cones with their cloven hoofs." (77)

Carthage's relevance to our own political economy? "First of all, power depended on all without any being strong enough to seize it. Private debts were considered as public debts, men of Canaanite race had the monopoly of trade; by multiplying the profits of piracy with those of usury, by crude exploitation of the land, the slaves and the poor, some people achieved wealth. Wealth alone opened up the magistracy; and although power and money were perpetuated in the same families, the oligarchy was tolerated because one could always hope to attain it." (91)

After one battle: "Night fell. The Carthaginians and the Barbarians had disappeared. The elephants, who had run away, were roaring on the horizon with their towers on fire. They burned in the dark, here and there, like beacons half-hidden in the mist; and nothing was to be seen moving on the plain but the rippling of the river, swollen with corpses which it was carrying to the sea." (149)

After another battle: "The Greeks dug pits with their sword points. The Spartans took off their red cloaks and wrapped them round the dead; the Athenians laid them out facing the rising sun; the Cantabrians buried them beneath a heap of stones; the Nasamones bent them in two with oxhide straps, and the Garamantes went to inter them on the beach so that they should be for ever watered by the waves. But the Latins were grieved not to be able to collect the ashes in urns; the Nomads missed the hot sands in which bodies become mummified, and the Celts missed the three rough stones, beneath a rainy sky, deep in a bay full of islands." (197)

I enjoyed this novel enough to recommend it, but I'm sure it's not for everyone. In a way the things I like about it are integrally interwoven with its flaws. For example, I love the luxurious detail that Flaubert gives. You'd think he was actually there, the way he describes every morsel of food, each tribe's jewelry, customs, idiosyncracies. He has details that he lays out like a lush banquet, way too much to actually eat, but beautiful to gaze at. The flaw in this for me is that Flaubert in the notes makes such a big case for how everything is historically accurate. That's silly. He can't possibly believe that he can reach back two thousand years and render everything with complete precision. I mean reporters writing things that happened this afternoon only ever get it partially right, so how could he manage it? The answer is that he couldn't and that he doesn't have to. This is a novel and as such all the detail works; I just wish Flaubert hadn't taken himself so seriously. Sort of spoils the viceral enjoyment of the whole thing.

He also lets fly completely on a negative image of all things Carthaginian, which would have been true to his times. Some modern scholars are starting to doubt many of the nasty things we've assumed about Carthage all these years. Some are starting to ask just how much of that stuff is Roman propaganda. I don't have any answers or opinions myself, and this didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book one way or the other. I did also enjoy a recent novel, Pride of Carthage, which doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture of Carthage, but might give a slightly more full bodied consideration of both sides. I recommend it highly.

And I recommend this. Not exactly cause it's great though. Like I said, it's a banquet, a feast, a debauched evening that gets decidely nasty and that you wake up from feeling rather ill... That doesn't sound that pleasant, does it? And yet we all remember such nights with clouded awe. That's how I'll remember this book.

The fame of Madame Bovary has for so long overshadowed Salammbo that it needs to be said that it is in Salammbo that one finds the real Flaubert, the orientalist and decadent sadist, the romantic. This is one of the truly great historical novels. It is, in a way, the sort of novel that Nietzsche or Robert Ervin Howard might have written. It is not -- I repeat, not -- a condemnation of what it depicts. The barbarians and Carthaginians are what Flaubert wants them to be. Flaubert was not a lover of middle-class or Christian virtues. He did not have "your" values. He gives you blood and guts because he wanted blood and guts. He was not nauseated by what he wrote, or else he would not have written it. The world is too tame by half. This book needs to be preceded by a reading of Ragnar Redbeard's Might Is Right. Flaubert's values were "fascistic" in the wider sense of the word. It is too bad that he didn't follow this up by writing a novel about the Aztecs or the Mongols or Tamerlane. The meek shall not inherit the Earth!

One must admire the research that went into the book, and for that the novel has some value. Beyond the historical research, there are few positive things to recommend the novel.

There are no literary hooks and overall it is not a well balanced novel. There are many characters and lots of killings and confusion. One wonders if Flaunbert was the author. Is this the same Flaubert that created the masterpiece "Madame Bovary"? Yes it is, but what a change. The writing is good, but the subject is bad and the novel lacks warmth and charm. Perhaps fatal for the novel, it lacks realistic and interesting characters and good dialogue.

I bought and read "Madame Bovary" in a day and loved every moment of that reading experience. It was a compelling novel, balanced, charming, concise, great characters, great prose, etc. It was impossible to put down that 500 page masterpiece. Since then I have read other works by Flaubert such as "Sentimental Education" and was not disappointed.

This book has lots of historical detail, many characters, and lots of blood and gore but little else. The characters are wooden. The plot is hard to follow. The ending is a bit unrealistic. The rest of the novel has too many twists and turns, and too many characters. The protagonist Salambo is an enigma. The character Matho is too far from reality as is Hamilcar, the Suffete of Carthage.

The greatest disappoint is the read itself. I could read only 10 or 20 pages at a time before losing interest. This is a great novel if you are having trouble sleeping.

By the time I got to the end of the 300 pages, I was happy to be done with the book. Yes, I am finished this crazy book!

Mark this one down as Flaubert's folly or one of his mistakes.

Better reads from Flabert:

- Madame Bovary
- Sentimental Education
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony
- Three Tales

I was not expecting anything from this book, though I loved Madam Bovary. The problem with the character, Salambo, a temple girl, is that she was missing in action. Instead, the author uses the title as a pretense to explore and describe ancient Carthage, and gives us little opportunity to know the main characters. Salambo says a few vague lines and then she's off, usually in a huff over her father, then Flaubert starts his travelogue on Carthage again, panning the lens around. If you love sheer exotic scenery then you might like this story--but if you also want memorable characters, this is not the book.