tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post7025128538036090656..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: The meaning of Flaubert's meaninglessness - he condemned the ideas but admired the styleAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-36680171205195731832012-07-03T10:06:07.019-05:002012-07-03T10:06:07.019-05:00Flaubert is ultra-Romantic, yes, in some ways a lo...Flaubert is ultra-Romantic, yes, in some ways a lot like Emma. Much of his technique is just a method to tame his Romanticism. Do you know the "Irma" reference? It must be a reference to something. Chateaubriand? <br /><br />The characters and so on <i>can</i> be dismissed as subsidiary - later writers have done it. I have seen it done. Flaubert did it himself, although as I said above, I do not want to push that point too far.<br /><br />I am unconvinced by the point about Monet, but the flimsiest evidence would convince me. He presumably wrote letters, too.<br /><br />I have seen hundreds of paintings that I would happily call "entirely abstract" - you are a lot stricter than I am!Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72611374939966490292012-07-03T06:10:28.495-05:002012-07-03T06:10:28.495-05:00I had missed the very subtle joke relating to the ...I had missed the very subtle joke relating to the names of Homais' children. It really is exquisite, isn't it? As well as Athalie, I love the naming of one of his children Irma, "perhaps as a concession to Romanticism": I would interpret this as Flaubert taking a pot shot at himself. He wasn't, I think, entirely joking when he famously said "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" I can't help seeing Flaubert as a writer who couldn't let go the ideals of Romanticism, even as he realised how hopelessly unrealistic they are. The tragedy of "Madame Bovary" is certainly, in part, the tragedy of the specific characer Emma Bovary: it is also, I think, a tragedy of the failure of those Romantic ideals that Flaubert appeared unable to relinquish. And Flaubert, being intelligent and self-aware, so no reason to exclude himself from his own satire.<br /><br />While I do take your point that the characters & incidents are present because the form of the novel demands their presence, they cannot be dismissed, I think, as merely subsidary: I agree that Monet painted Rouen Cathedral not because he was specifically interested in religion or in architecture, but I do think that he painted it because he was interested in the way the changing light affects the way we see Rouen Cathedral - the way we see *Rouen* *Cathedral*, and not something else.<br /><br />Possibly, music is the only art that can be ebtirely abstract, and even there I have doubts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-74128804161110011882012-06-30T18:13:09.149-05:002012-06-30T18:13:09.149-05:00That's right, the Bishop was confessing his pa...That's right, the Bishop was confessing his parishioners and hearing the most interesting things.<br /><br />New Novelist Nathalie Sarraute, a <i>Bovary</i> devotee, <a href="http://www3.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/sarraute.htm" rel="nofollow">argues that</a> if anything Flaubert did not go far enough. "What is the use of showing the character. That distorts things." And so on. Flaubert himself wrote a bit about the perfect novel being about nothing. But he wrote plenty of other things, too, so I will not push that too far.<br /><br />It was really <i>Salammbô</i> that pointed me in this direction. Easier to see that one as a novel of pure art or display than <i>Bovary</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8185976249685851182012-06-30T00:15:03.221-05:002012-06-30T00:15:03.221-05:00If by "confesse" the Bishop means "...If by "confesse" the Bishop means "taken confession" then it's a funny joke and I get it. My French is almost nonexistent so I'm guessing.<br /><br />I'll have to think more about the "form over content" idea. There are certain novelists for whom the premise is almost irrelevant, who could write a highly-individualistic and formally complex work around any old idea. The idea is to these novelists just the bare planks of the stage upon which they'll dance and leap and do amazing things. Some of these novelists write tremendous, great books.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-86856880110088490022012-06-29T22:31:15.248-05:002012-06-29T22:31:15.248-05:00All right, this is good stuff. First, your joke a...All right, this is good stuff. First, your joke about the movie made me laugh, and then the quote from the Bishop, once I figured it out, made me laugh again.<br /><br />The Bishop is, from his own experience, attesting to the accuracy of <i>Madame Bovary</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-87827039291728703772012-06-29T19:02:35.824-05:002012-06-29T19:02:35.824-05:00In the Goncourt journals there is a reference to a...In the Goncourt journals there is a reference to a speech at Flaubert's funeral that was full of "Homaiseries" (and I thought that the movie of MB that we saw might have been directed by the pharmacist).<br /><br />The selections from the Goncourt journals that NYRB keeps in print includes a conversation between Dumas and Bishop Dupanloup, recorded on March 16, 1875. NYRB's selections are in English, but in gutenberg.org's French, the conversation runs<br /><br />Un mot de Dupanloup à Dumas:<br /><br />«--Comment trouvez-vous MADAME BOVARY.<br /><br />--Un joli livre.<br /><br />--Un chef-d'œuvre, monsieur... oui, un chef-d'œuvre, pour ceux qui ont<br />confessé en province.»Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.com