Salammbo (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Gustave Flaubert (Author), A. J. Krailsheimer (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1977

Translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant.
Introduction and Notes by Harold Tarrant.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

About the Author

Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821. After illness interrupted a career in law, he retired to live with his widowed mother and devote himself to writing. He achieved limited success in his own lifetime, but his fame and reputation grew steadily after his death in 1880.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (August 25, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140443282
• ISBN-13: 978-0140443288
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > French

More About the Author

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the younger son of a provincial doctor, briefly studied law before devoting himself to writing, with limited success during his lifetime. After the publication of Madame Bovary in 1857, he was prosecuted for offending public morals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A stirring mixture of war and myth, June 5, 2002

By 

IRA Ross (LYNDHURST, NJ United States 07071) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Salammbo (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

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.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars La Vie Ennuyeuse, February 20, 2002

By 

Cinda M. "fromtheback40" (the back 40) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salammbo (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

"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.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy of a wider audience, August 7, 2004

By 

R. Rockwell (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Salammbo (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

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.