Customer Reviews

Sentimental Education

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There is a special value in "Sentimental Education" that puts it among the highest class of novels. Better than Thackery, better than Stendhal, better than Austen, better than Balzac, better than Eliot, it offers something that Dickens or Melville, for all their virtues, do not provide. Here is a portrayal of a society, where the author looks deeply and thoroughly--and does not flinch. The contrast with Thackeray, whose sarcasms and coldness cannot hide a fundamentally conventional mind, is obvious. But there is also not the self-satisfied amusement with its own proprieties that we see in Austen, or the something for everyone that we see in Trollope, or the sentimentality so obvious in Dickens, or the way the captain goes on and on in "Billy Budd" saying he has no choice but to execute the fundamentally innocent Billy, or the fundamentally abstract obsession with unity that we see in Eliot. Here we see a story of a venial, petty monarchy, the hopes and illusions of the second republic, and its suppression and replacement by a new Napoleonic regime. If many of the friends of Frederic Moreau are shallow and complacent in their "democratic" phase, that does not alter their fact that their opportunism and moral corruption is a gruesome business. It does not remove the shock on reading the death of the one truly decent person in the book, murdered by a dead ringer for David Horowitz.

This is not a popular book in the English speaking world. Frederic Moreau does not have the dignity and moral weight that a moralistic criticism demands. Much of his time is spent wondering how to seduce Madame Arnoux or how he should snag "The General." Of course, French 19th century fiction is distinguished from its Victorian counterpart by a greater degree of sexual realism. But the point of the book is not to discuss Moreau's apparently aimless life. Instead the point is how there are alternatives that would give his life meaning, whether it be love, artistic creation, professional achievement, politics and a genuine interest in civil society. Moreau fails to achieve some of these because he does not have the energy to get them, he fails to achieve others because he runs out of time, he fails others because he is betrayed by people he trusts, and he fails others because otherwhelming forces remove options from the tables. Moreau does not fail simply because he is weak, he fails for reasons that most people fail. And in that sense Flaubert shows an exemplary realism.

And of course, Flaubert is the master stylist. Who can forget his description of the wealthy opportunist Dambeuse "worshipping Authority so fevrently he would have paid for the privilege of selling himself." There is the perfectly controlled realism: we do not have the cheap tricks and garish effects of middlebrow writers. But we still have the poetic and the imaginiative: "the smoke of a railway engine stretched out in a horizontal line, like a gigantic ostrich feather who tip kept blowing away," "The women wore brightly coloured dresses with long waists, and, sitting on the tiered seats in the stands, they looked like great banks of flowers, flecked with black here and there by the dark clothes of the men." "the warm breeze from the plains brought whiffs of lavender together with the smell of tar from a boat behind the lock." Moreau's passion for Madame Arnoux may be weak, but it is more real and more convincing than all but a handful of romances in 19th century fiction. The political scenes present a picture that has almost no equals: a left chattering fashionable platitudes, but with a leaven of genuine indignation, a right who covers itself in hypocrisy and lies until it can find the moment to strike. And of course there is the ending, a discussion of nostalgia and lost hopes that many English critics find sordid, but is one of the most heartbreaking in all fiction.

There is a complaint among people who should know better, like Peter Gay and James Wood, that Flaubert shows a certain unnecessary bitterness. This shows a certain ignorance of history. After all Flaubert wrote one of the great novels in world literature and instead of being praised by his own government he was put on trial for obscenity. His contempt did not come lightly. One could contrast it with Naipaul's, whose solution to the mediocrities of Trinidad was to move to a very different country and to be generously praised, by some for his art, and by others for appeasing conservative consciences. Certainly Naipaul's path is not an alternative available to most of his countrymen. Nor was Flaubert's distaste for contemporary life simply the result of the particular nastiness only confined to French politics. There were things equally vile or worse in Trollope's Ireland or in the end of Reconstruction of Henry James. That they did not perceive the same kind of foulness surely is a mark on the limits of their imagination, and a point in Flaubert's favor. Sentimentality is often described as unearned emotion. But in Sentimental Education, every emotion is well deserved.

"The Sentimental Education" is an absolutely brilliant novel. That Flaubert's most famous and most highly regarded novel is "Madame Bovary" is astounding to me. That novel has many failings, whereas "Education" has none. The writing is the best you'll ever read, the story is touching and deep and rich, the charcters wonderfully drawn. And the last paragraph in the novel is both hilarious and endearing, and makes it a novel that is brilliant to the very last word. I can not recommend this novel highly enough. It is somewhat of an overlooked masterpiece (overshadowed by the lesser "Bovary"). One critic said that the reason "Forrest Gump" (the movie version) did so well was that "it dealt wonderfully with unrequited love, something we can all relate to." Well, "Education" is about unrequited love, and it deals with it with 100 times the power that "Forrest Gump" did. The novel also includes a revolution and the Parisian social world. "THE SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION" HAS EVERYTHING!!! When Woody Allen listed the "things that make me happy to live," one of the things he listed was "`The Sentimental Education' by Gustave Flaubert."

I agree with a reviewer before me that this masterpiece is overshadowed by Bovary and, for the life of me, I can't understand why. The main character is better, Emma Bovary's complaints do little to outshine Frederic Moreau's idle lifestyle. It's wonderful--the language, the descriptions and, most of all, the way in which Flaubert can make the reader see how utterly wretched the "upper class" lifestyle is. Excellent, from beginning to end.

This is a truly abominable translation (i.e. the OXFORD edition tr. by Parmee). It is awkward, inaccurate and full of inappropriate Briticisms. It includes such phrases as "pop off for a toddy" and Ay, guv!" The new Wall revision of the Baldick translation (Penguin) is not much better, also full of Briticisms and anachronistic colloquialisms. Why do they do this? It borders on racist jingoism. I once read a British review of a translation of MADAME BOVARY which complained that it still retained "a whiff of French" about it. What could possibly be more repugnant when reading Flaubert?

I recommend the Signet edition translated by Perdita Burlingame. It is unfortunately out of print. This masterpiece is in desperate need of a respectful and readable translation. Signet should at the very least reprint their edition.

Nothing in Madame Bovary would have prepared me for this: A Sentimental Education is the most aimless, undramatic (intentionally so, mind) novel I've ever read. A mediocre young man comes to the Big City and has several on-and-off affairs with a number of mediocre women. And that's about it, really. While there are in fact hints of drama here and there, it's all incidental; there's no buildup to anything greater. Even the 1848 revolution seems distant and somehow irrelevant to the novel's lazy meanderings. All of this is intentional, of course; Flaubert was clearly striving for as close an imitation of life, devoid of any of the artifice that most authors employ, as possible. It is, I suppose, the ultimate example of the French naturalism movement: Zola and Maupassant, great writers that they were, really had too strong dramatic instincts to ever write as dispassionately as this.

If this makes the novel sound terribly dull, it's really not: admittedly, it's not the most gripping book I've ever read, but Frederic, feckless though he is, does manage to be somewhat sympathetic, and the secondary characters are, by and large, well-realized--the working class hero type Dussardier stands out in particular. And the ending is oddly poignant. One problem I did have was Flaubert's infuriating habit of mentioning characters by name without having previously introduced them, making for some highly disorienting passages. However, even this is navigable after you've gotten used to it.

I do recommend A Sentimental Education to you. I really can't decide whether or not I like it more than Madame Bovary, but it's certainly an intriguing work. Flaubert may ultimately not be one of nineteenth century France's greatest writers (let's face it: he's no Balzac or Zola), but that doesn't mean he deserves to be lost in the crowd.

To real Flaubertians, this novel ranks slightly above Madame Bovary. It's the true apogee of French and arguably, World Lit, at least so far as the novel is concerned. It's Flaubert's microcosmic/macrocosmic masterpiece.

In some ways, it's Flaubert's answer to Stendhal, given the fact it's a roman à clef, similar in scope and theme to Le Rouge et Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme. It's also a Bildungsroman, in the same Stendhalian, Goethian tradition. The young Frederic experiences love and warfare in much the same way as the young Julien Sorel does in Le Rouge. Readers will also be reminded of Marius in Hugo's Les Miserables (both authors use Paris revolts as central incidents). Both authors also witnessed the 1848 February uprising personally. Hugo, as a rather passionate defender of the Republic, incorporates his experience in describing an earlier, similar revolt in 1832. Flaubert as a dispassionate, even slightly amused, observer, describes the 1848 downfall of the monarchy from the point of view of his young protagonist. The manner in which the two authors incorporate the incidents of the revolution reflects on their personal styles and sensibilities (Hugo adhering to his romantic idealism, ready to mount the barricades - Flaubert, the detached, acerbic, silent witness, standing aside making mental notes). Lovers of literature can appreciate the masterful manner in which both geniuses weave historical incidents within the threads of their narratives. Lovers of irony will most likely prefer Flaubert's treatment.

Flaubert was constantly striving for objectivity, and Sentimental Education is his most completely realized creation in that regard. It's one of the least heavy handed exercises in creative writing that any author has ever produced. The master's prose is faultless, brilliant, refined to its essence in every turn of phrase. All superfluity of expression has been discarded. The reader is left with a highly faceted, exquisite sapphire of a work. Lovers of literature from James to Gide to the present day have been overawed by its brilliance.

BEK

Smoke billows from a Seine river steamship, flags flap in a spring breeze, a young man catches a glimpse of the woman that will serve as a life long romantic love. These images float across the opening pages of "Sentimental Education," Gustave Flaubert's portrait of mid-19th century Paris society.

I'd read this book in college and when I recently slogged through the horrific "Da Vinci Code" I decided to reward myself by re-reading "Sentimental Education," a novel that evokes the spirit of an age, etches a portrait of a culture and delves into the heart of human fraility and grandeur.

Twenty years ago I was intoxicated by this book, believing it to be the perfect novel, populated with distinct and realistic characters but now I feel that the characters are the weakest aspect of the book. There is something sour, cheap and small about all of them that makes them seem more alike than different. Flaubert was adept at catching the nuances of character flaws but failed to recognize that people can also have great heart, courage and self-awareness

But the set pieces are stunning, unmatched by anything else I've ever read.
Standouts are the all-night costume party of at Rosanette's with the glorious descriptions of the interiors, costumes and the personalities, Flaubert's take on the historic June 1848 with every sordid, petty, chaotic detail preserved and Monsieur Dambreuse's funeral complete with detailed descriptions of purchasing tombstones and the look and feel of a mid-19th century cemetery.

Flaubert published "Sentimental Education" in 1869 after tinkering with the novel for more than twenty years. Like the impressionist art movement that arose at about the same time, the book remains fresh and alive because Flaubert focuses on capturing the details of the world around him that make it come to life in a richness of sight, sound, smell and feel that I don't think will ever be equalled.

This is a tremendous book. This book combines all the best features of 19th century fiction into one package. Insightful social observation and commentary, psychological insight, brilliant descriptive writing, and a tremendous canvas. As with Madame Bovary, Flaubert is concerned with tracing the effects of Romantic ideals in ordinary life. As with Madame Bovary, this phenomenon is examined by pursuing the life story of a single individual. In a sense, this book is a complement to Madame Bovary. Where the latter dealt with provinical life, The Sentimental Education deals with the glittering and corrupt center of France, the great metropolis of Paris. Flaubert combined his basic aim with the goal of providing a comprehensive overview of the Second Empire. The result is bursting with artful plotting, powerful and acute writing, and Flaubert's unique brand of irony. A tremendous achievement.

Before I write anything else, let me say that this book is probably the most perfectly written piece of literature ever set down to page. Flaubert's obsessively meticulous writing style reaches its peak in this novel, and never is his insight more piercing.

But that is exactly the problem.

I have always found it odd that Woody Allen lists list this particular book (along with Groucho Marx, of all things) as something that makes life worth living. One critic (whose name escapes me now) described the Sentimental Education as "an assault on human nature", a phrase that summarises my own opinion. In this work, Flaubert spits out his venom at the entire world, striving not only to tear apart Parisian life as mercilessly and as thoroughly as he had provincial life in Madame Bovary, but also tearing apart human experience itself.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)!

A professor of mine described this as a text where nothing happens. Far from tritely dismissing the work, he was in fact pointing out one of the many deeply pessimistic themes that informs the text. Throughout Frederic's adventures (or rather, lack thereof), we see that his actions never have the consequences he intends-whatever their results are, they are beyond his comprehension. For example, he pines agonisingly outside what he believes is Madame Arnoux's window; he later discovers that she abides elsewhere, and his passion was for naught. When he inherits his fortune, he believes that all of his problems are over, when in fact little if anything changes at all. His revolutionary "zeal" results in absolutely nothing (much like the entire revolution itself); and the death of his only child has no effect on his callow self.

My professor was right to describe this as a "text" and not a "novel": there is no character development, at least in the traditional sense. Much like Madame Bovary, Frederic keeps existing, but never changes; his psychological stasis and his inability to adapt is in conflict with the rapid passage of time, creating a deep sense of tension in the very marrow of the text.

(END OF SPOILERS)

The Sentimental Education paints a picture of a world where we can understand nothing (least of all each other), where our thoughts are entirely divorced from our experience, where time passes independently of our psychology, where the consequences of our actions are beyond our comprehension; a world in which the events of 1848 fade away to nothingness, and we realise that Frederic, seemingly removed from us by both time and the narrative, is what we see in the mirror each morning.

At the end of this book, I certainly did not feel that my experience reading it was "my best time".

This translation (Parmee)is terrible. Here is Flaubert, working tirelessly over every line to find le mot juste, and I can't read a single page without flinching from some awkwardly translated phrase.