/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20080191]

Wow this is boring. The writing is extremely dry. I am very disappointed considering some of my literary idols like Henry James liked him. Did I just pick the wrong work? Should I try something else by him?

[Anonymous No.20080215]

can any francophones comment? i've heard that in french the writing is incredibly beautiful but reading it in english I felt similar to anon. just seemed like a standard tale about der ewige femoid

[Anonymous No.20080223]

>The writing is extremely dry
Probably shit translation.

[Anonymous No.20080239]

>>20080191
Fuck that bitch is juicy, God I love women. Still not going to read this lame novel however

[Anonymous No.20080253]

op read nobokov's analysis of this. he brings out the stuff worth appreciating

[Anonymous No.20080273]

>>20080223
I am reading the Eleanor Marx one. What is the best translation?

[Anonymous No.20080296]

>>20080191
the most filtered anon in the history of /lit/

[Anonymous No.20080297]

>>20080191
This was ok but my biggest complaint about it is that Flaubert literally outlines was the novel is about through it, repeatedly.
>SHE REALLY LOVED READING ROMANCE AND FANCY HERSELF AS THE PROTAGONIST OF AN EXULTING LOVE STORY DESPITE BEING A MEDIOCRE PERSON. MANY SUCH CASES.
like ok Flaubert we get it bro, how about being more subtle

[Anonymous No.20080300]

How many luckless innocents have teased and fretted their minds into a forced appreciation of that artistic ogre Flaubert, and his laborious pursuit of his precious "exact word," when they might have been pleasantly sailing down Rabelais' rich stream of immortal nectar, or sweetly hugging themselves over the lovely mischievousness of Tristram Shandy!

[Anonymous No.20080306]

>>20080300
Based Aussie

[Anonymous No.20080325]

>>20080223
what's the best translation?

[Anonymous No.20080335]

>>20080215
The fun story is that to make sure his writing was perfect, Flaubert went into the wood every time he wrote a page to shout it out as loud as he could. He he had trouble shouting, he would rewrite it because it meant the writing wasn't good enough.
But yeah, it's definitely the most precise writing I have ever read, the syntax is perfect and convey exactly what Mme Bovary feels. Auerbach wrote about Flaubert's writing in Mimesis, it is very enlightening.
>Mais c’était surtout aux heures des repas qu’elle n’en pouvait plus, dans cette petite salle au rez-de-chaussée, avec le poêle qui fumait, la porte qui criait, les murs qui suintaient, les pavés humides ; toute l’amertume de l’existence lui semblait servie sur son assiette, et, à la fumée du bouilli, il montait du fond de son âme comme d’autres bouffées d’affadissement. Charles était long à manger ; elle grignotait quelques noisettes, ou bien, appuyée du coude, s’amusait, avec la pointe de son couteau, à faire des raies sur la toile cirée.
This extract is very representative of Flaubert's precise writing, if you can read a bit of French.

[Anonymous No.20080351]

I'm >>20080335 and I do agree with >>20080300 though, Flaubert can become tedious at times, especially when you read him consecutively for numerous hours.

[Anonymous No.20080380]

>>20080335
>Auerbach
a fucking jew?? fucking give me a break already you shills need to get out to the mossad hole you crawled from collect your shekels and leave my board in peace you fucking kikes stop pushing your agenda already jesus

[Anonymous No.20080757]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20080765]

>>20080191
>Should I try something else by him?
Yes. The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Bouvard and Pécuchet, Salammbô.

[Anonymous No.20080778]

>>20080300
jesters keep winning.

[Anonymous No.20080835]

>>20080300
Or withing in agony from Charles Brockden Brown's nightmarish frontier outpost?

[Anonymous No.20081022]

>>20080253
anybody got a link to nabokovs lectures? I remember not finding them and the book being not very cheap

[Anonymous No.20081066]

>>20080191
Same but for balzac. Fuck balzac

[Anonymous No.20081099]

>>20080253
https://b-ok.cc/

[Anonymous No.20081110]

>>20081022
see >>20081099

[Anonymous No.20081331]

>>20081066
Noted.

[Anonymous No.20081431]

>>20081066
What, you don't like a page long sentence that includes 40 comma, 5 different Nebenkriegsschauplätze and the internal procrastination of a single individual that could instead fit into one whole novella? Pleb.

[Anonymous No.20081548]

>>20080191
Do you have the necessary context to read Flaubert? Madame Bovary and L'Éducation Sentimentale are examples of Naturalism/Realism being forced on Flaubert by his peers (Emma, c'est moi) in the wake of the failures of 1848 and the Second Republic. His reaction to the Bourgeoisie can be contrasted with Balzac's earlier works (compare Rastignac to Emma, for example). He abandons this dedicated Realism in his later works.
>>20080215
It's actually pretty sloppy. Still great comparatively, but it's not Beaumarchais.

[Anonymous No.20081683]

>>20081548
>It's actually pretty sloppy.
could you elaborate on that? everyone is always on gustave's dick about his perfect prose, so it'd be interesting to hear a differing opinion

[Anonymous No.20081760]

>>20080191
This book is a great pleb-detector. If you think it's boring then you cannot read.

[Anonymous No.20081823]

>>20081683
I just think it's sloppy overall, but that's definitely not the academic consensus. Flaubert hated the period style (realism) that was foisted on him, and it really comes through in the text. Translators go on and on about the inability to express MB in English, that's just nonsensical trawling to justify their careers. Maybe I'll post specifics later if this thread is still up.
https://unherd.com/2021/12/we-are-all-madame-bovary/
https://pages.jh.edu/jhumag/0205web/classic.html

[Anonymous No.20081856]

>>20081548
>>20081823
lol wtf

MB is a masterpiece of style

[Anonymous No.20081966]

>>20081548
>it's not Beaumarchais
What kind of retarded comparison is that? We're talking about prose, something Beaumarchais never did.
Also you are wrong saying naturalism and realisme were forced on Flaubert by his peers: he never wrote Emma c'est moi, on the contrary he wrote "Bovary aura été un tour de force inouï : sujet, personnage, effets, etc. tout est hors de moi." (Bovary etc... Everything is outside of me) , and if you read his letters you can clearly see he couldn't help being a realist. Being the son of a surgeon, he cannot see the beauty in a woman's body, he merely sees a skeleton. Madame Bovary is made entirely this way, with a surgical precision.

[Anonymous No.20082224]

>>20081966
>he never wrote Emma c'est moi, on the contrary
I know what he wrote, that's why it's not "quoted" - further, I think you're overstating your case. La Tentation de Saint Antoine/Bouvard et Pécuchet are fundamentally unlike Bovary/L'Éducation; in Le Dictionnaire des Idées Reçues Flaubert derogates the clichés of the period - namely realism. You might say this is an inevitable dissatisfaction contra post-romanticism.
>Beaumarchais
He's a playwright I like, of comparable influence. I wasn't making a "prose" point, simmer down.

[Anonymous No.20082280]

I felt the same and dropped it. Normally I love French writers.

[Anonymous No.20082622]

>>20080297
Is that really all you got from it?

[Anonymous No.20082626]

>>20080297
It’s biggest critique is of bourgeoisie society

[Anonymous No.20082670]

>>20080300
What about bouvard and pecuchet? Haven’t read it but from the summary it seems to go along the lines of those novels

[Anonymous No.20083792]

bump

[Anonymous No.20083812]

>>20080215
French here

The prose of Flaubert is really great in French to be honest
For the little story, he used to scream his prose on a room called "Gueuloir" (which mean screaming room basically) to make sure his prose would still feels great when it was screamed

[Anonymous No.20084036]

>>20080297
women need to read it explicitly, and even with this any woman who reads it thinks the book doesn't talk about her lol

[Anonymous No.20084700]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20084882]

henry james' writing is way more dry than flaubert and he at least is much more melodramatic in bovary than james.

[Anonymous No.20084943]

>>20081823

"Flaubert was 34 years old and, although he'd thought of himself as a writer and artist since he was a child, he had never published anything. Most of his friends were in Paris with promising careers in the arts or business. Flaubert still lived with his mother in the family home in Croisset, near Rouen (though he'd recently taken rooms in Paris). The family's comfortable bourgeois lifestyle, as well as his nervous nature and epilepsy, had eliminated the prospect of a legal career or other work. "

based

[Anonymous No.20084995]

>>20080273
>Eleonor Marx
I see two issues here.

[Anonymous No.20085004]

>>20084882
>Henry James
>dry
Moron

[Anonymous No.20085039]

>>20085004
i like james overall (tho still overrated) but the cadences of his prose with their overly long and indirect sentences and the emphasis on social manners and mores of his characters as they fret over action make his writing dry by most standards.

[Anonymous No.20085247]

>>20081099
zlibrary is back?

[Anonymous No.20085644]

If I understand correctly this book was a critique of women who expected their marriage life to be like a romantic novel? Due to romantic novels being very popular at the time?

[Anonymous No.20086008]

>>20085644
>If I understand correctly
you don’t

[Anonymous No.20087953]

yes

[Anonymous No.20087956]

>>20085644
yes, women want the life of ''soap operas'', even before the TV was created.

[Anonymous No.20087968]

>>20084995
top kek.

[Anonymous No.20088039]

>>20081548
What are novels Flaubert wrote than were not made because of literary movements being forced on him? The ones who were what he wanted them to be.

[Anonymous No.20088099]

men will orbit those whores and try to give them free shit and solve their problems for free
this means those women will have an easy life and all they will do in their life is actually believing they are smart and righteous (precisely because men keep telling them they are perfect and smart) which is the fall of any society

[Anonymous No.20088188]

>>20088039
Temptation of Saint Anthony

[Anonymous No.20088243]

>>20088188
Mmm, something like the second part of Goethe's Faust is what Flaubert liked to write?

[Anonymous No.20088299]

>>20088099