A Sentimental Education

This one is often described as “the novel to end all novels” and I understand why – when you are reading it you say to yourself very frequently “if this is what novels are like I am never going to read another one in my entire life”.

From about page 50 until when I stopped, I was having these strong bibliocidal fantasies. I thought – maybe I will leave this accidentally on the bus to work. But I forgot to forget it, like that country song. Then I thought – maybe a column of army ants will chomp it up so that not a shred remains. But army ants are never seen in Nottingham, only the friendly variety who bid you good day as they pass by. I tried to donate my copy to Oxfam but the shop assistant, having turned very pale when she saw the title, summoned up a courage I had not thought her to possess and said they could not accept that particular title. When I asked why she referred me to the Oxfam standard operating procedures, something about health and safety, which includes of course mental health. They had accepted copies of Sentimental Education in previous years but there had been some incidents and now all shops had been explicitly warned not to.

I see that many of my most respected GR friends hand out the big four and five stars to this novel and describe it as brilliantly comic. I was trembling in my boots until I found that none other than Henry James was on my side. Here is his considered opinion:

Here the form and method are the same as in "Madame Bovary"; the studied skill, the science, the accumulation of material, are even more striking; but the book is in a single word a dead one. "Madame Bovary" was spontaneous and sincere; but to read its successor is, to the finer sense, like masticating ashes and sawdust. L'Education Sentimentale is elaborately and massively dreary. That a novel should have a certain charm seems to us the most rudimentary of principles, and there is no more charm in this laborious monument to a treacherous ideal than there is interest in a heap of gravel.

However I did notice something what Henry James did not notice, and felt quite smug about that. It is this – that the main part of the plot of Sentimental Education is almost the same as the plot of Shampoo, the Warren Beattie movie from 1975, which I saw only last week so it was fresh in my memory. In Shampoo, hairdresser George’s former girlfriend Jackie now has a rich sugar daddy boyfriend Lester, whose wife Felicia is one of George’s best customers. Naturally George is shagging Felicia as it would seem unkind not to, and, because he keeps bumping into Jackie as they move in the same social circles, he realises he never wanted to break up with her so he starts shagging Jackie as well. Then comes the really shocking scene – Lester’s daughter who I guess is supposed to be around 16 or so comes on to George when he’s visiting Felicia. And she is played by none other than 19 year old Carrie Fisher, two years before Princess Leia. What a shock that was. So in Sentimental Education Frederic, the world’s most dreary young bachelor, wants to shag the wife of Monsieur Arnoux, a publisher. And eventually this guy introduces Frederic to his mistress Roseanne who he’s got fed up with, the idea being that Frederic will take her over, I suppose they used to do this in those days as they did not have Tinder. So Frederic is nearly shagging the guy’s wife and nearly shagging the guy’s mistress at the same time. Just like in Shampoo, except that George the hairdresser was a lot less dreary. Also in Shampoo and Sentimental Education there are these long long long boring party scenes where I think the effect is supposed to be scintillatingly socially satirical.

I did not notice any specific Star Wars connections in Sentimental Education, but neither did Henry James.

If I am ever taken hostage and this is the only reading material available in my rat infested dungeon then I will definitely finish this.

L'Education Sentimentale is well known to be one of Woody Allen's favourite books, and it explores one of Allen's favourite themes. Whether life is a tragedy or a comedy depends on hair-fine nuances. Melinda and Melinda is probably the clearest example: the perspective constantly, and rather confusingly, shifts back and forward between comedy and tragedy. A bit later, he redid the idea in a more convincing way, as the linked pair Match Point (the tragedy) and Scoop (the comedy).

In the same spirit, here's a linked pair of reviews. I wrote the tragic one first, but then felt that I really needed to balance it with a comic version.

________________________

Tragic review

O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

I'm afraid it's not exactly a fun beach read. If L'Education Sentimentale doesn't make you feel uneasy, you're either a remarkably secure person or you decided to quit before reaching the end. And Flaubert does a good job of sneaking up on you: for the first hundred pages or so, I felt it was one of those books where nothing was going to happen, and it wasn't until I was about halfway through that I really began to feel disquieted. He's good.

On the surface, it's unremarkable, except for the lovely prose. Frédéric is a stupid and shallow young man in 1840s France. After a chance meeting on a boat, he conceives a passion for Mme. Arnoux, a beautiful married woman. He manages to insinuate himself into her husband's social circle, and becomes friendly with him. After a while, M. Arnoux trusts young Frédéric enough that he introduces him to his mistress, the charming and scatterbrained Roseanette. Frédéric falls for her too, and then his romantic life becomes even more complicated. I'll try to avoid dropping any more spoilers, but I thought I should convince you that it's definitely not a book where nothing happens: as in Madame Bovary and Salammbô, there's ample sex and violence.

So, why's it so disquieting? One way to explain is to compare with two other novels, which were written not long after and certainly, at least in part, were inspired by it. In Proust's Le Côté de Guermantes, Marcel becomes as obsessed with the Duchesse de Guermantes as Frédéric does with Mme. Arnoux, but by the end of the novel he's got over her; we get a detailed account of how her charm gradually fades away, so that he can finally see her objectively. It's disappointing, but extremely rational. And in Maupassant's Bel-Ami, Georges Duroy cleverly exploits his series of mistresses to become rich and successful; this time, you're shocked at how cold-blooded he is, but it's also rational.

I thought at several points that Frédéric was going to take one of these paths; he doesn't. The novel's extraordinary strength is to get inside his mind as he dithers between the various women he's involved with, and demonstrate how he simply isn't capable of any kind of rational thought whatsoever. He's with X, and Flaubert shows with his usual exactitude how blissfully in love he is with her. Then, a few pages later, he's with Y, and his protestations of eternal devotion don't come across as hypocritical: much worse, they're sincere! And, in the next chapter, with Z... well, you get the picture. It's horrifyingly well done.

In the middle of all this, the Revolution of 1848 breaks out. (By the way: if you're as ignorant about French history as I am, I strongly recommend getting an annotated edition. Flaubert assumes you know the story already, and keeps referring to people and events I'd never heard of - I was flipping to the endnotes like I was reading Infinite Jest). I did wonder for a moment what the politics had to do with the main story; alas, that rapidly becomes clear too. Like the eponymous hero of the Rabbit series, Frédéric is constitutionally incapable of seeing past the end of his own dick. The fact that France has been given a once-in-a-century chance to establish a fairer and more democratic government completely escapes him. There is a magnificent sequence where a major event has occurred, and people are shooting at each other in the streets; all Frédéric can think about is the fact that he's missed an important date with one of his loved ones. I was strongly reminded of the scene near the beginning of Shaun of the Dead, where Shaun, who's just been dumped by his girlfriend, stumbles home in a daze while somehow managing not to notice that London is being invaded by flesh-eating zombies.

You will gather that L'Education Sentimentale does not present a positive and uplifting view of human nature. If only it were ugly or hastily written, one could dismiss it. But no: as always with Flaubert, it's meticulously crafted and a delight to read. A lot of the time, it's even funny. You may occasionally want to fling it across the room; more often, you're going to react with a wry smile. He's witty and entertaining.

I started with a quote from Hamlet, arguably one of the book's ancestors, and I'll conclude with one from Cat's Cradle, probably a great-grandson, and also a very funny book. Here's Kurt Vonnegut on the same subject.

And I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book is entitled 'What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experiences of the Past Million Years?'

It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.

This is it:

'Nothing.'

________________________

Comic review

["Sex and the City" theme tune. CARRIE is lying across her bed typing industriously on her laptop]

CARRIE: [voiceover] I read that over 60% of all American men cheat on their partners. That's a lot of cheating. It's happened to me. It's happened to my best friends. It may have happened to you. And, the other day, I started wondering [the title comes up as she speaks the words] When Men Cheat On Their Partners, What Are They Really Thinking?

[Dissolve to a trendy Manhattan restaurant. CARRIE is sitting alone at a table set for four people, reading a paperback novel. Camera zooms in to show the title, "Sentimental Education"]

CARRIE: [turns a page, and shakes her head reflectively] Jeez!

[CARRIE is so engrossed that she doesn't notice that CHARLOTTE, SAMANTHA and MIRANDA have arrived, and are looking at her curiously.]

CHARLOTTE: Good, isn't it?

CARRIE: [starts violently] Uh... yes! So you've read it too? Don't tell me how it ends...

SAMANTHA: [checking to see how far CARRIE has got] Oh, you're nearly finished. You know, this reminds me of something that happened to Charlotte and me a few years ago. [She gives CHARLOTTE a teasing look] You don't mind?

CHARLOTTE: Um...

CARRIE: [voiceover] Charlotte did mind, but Samantha steamrollered her.

SAMANTHA: [steamrollering her] Come on, babe, all ancient history now! But we need some cocktails first. [To waiter] Four Cosmopolitans!

CARRIE: [voiceover] This was during Charlotte's first marriage, a period she doesn't like to talk about. Her husband Jack was a lot older than her.

[Montage. CHARLOTTE'S FIRST HUSBAND evidently doesn't take her seriously.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Samantha hadn't yet discovered she had a talent for PR. She was wondering if she would make it as an actress.

[Montage. SAMANTHA's movie roles don't require her to wear much.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Samantha was also a close friend of Jack.

[Montage. JACK and SAMANTHA are having noisy sex. Dissolve back to restaurant.]

SAMANTHA: [smiles and pats CHARLOTTE on the arm] Of course, Charlotte and I didn't know each other yet.

CARRIE: [voiceover] Now Jack ran this publishing company. He had a cute intern called Fred. One day, Fred met Charlotte.

[Dissolve back to the past. Montage. FRED, very young and innocent, meets CHARLOTTE. He's obviously smitten.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Fred had never seen anyone so beautiful in his life. He immediately knew he could never love another woman. But how could he meet her again?

[FRED looks sad and pensive, then suddenly brightens up.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Fred needed to get friendly with Jack.

[Montage. JACK is talking, FRED is hanging on his every word.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Jack liked the attention. He started inviting Fred to his dinner parties.

[Montage. Dinner party at JACK and CHARLOTTE's. FRED gazes raptly at CHARLOTTE, while she ignores him.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Jack had really got to trust Fred. He started taking him to parties at Samantha's place too.

[Montage. A much wilder party. FRED looks embarrassed, but is clearly eyeing up SAMANTHA]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Pretty soon, Fred had fallen for Samantha as well. Oh, and somewhere around here he went back to Wisconsin for a couple of months and managed to get engaged to the girl next door.

[Montage. FRED is with the adoring GIRL-NEXT-DOOR, who's even younger and more innocent-looking than he is. Dissolve back to restaurant. MIRANDA is struggling to keep up with the story.]

MIRANDA: So, uh, let me see, he can only love Charlotte but he's got the hots for Samantha and he's engaged to the girl next door?

[CHARLOTTE looks like she wants to sink through the floor. She takes a large sip of her cocktail. SAMANTHA is having fun.]

SAMANTHA: [to MIRANDA] Don't worry, babe, it hasn't got complicated yet.

CARRIE: [voiceover] Fred made progress with Charlotte. She let him hold her hand while she told him about her problems. But that's all that happened.

[Montage. FRED and CHARLOTTE gaze soulfully into each other's eyes, go for walks hand-in-hand, pick flowers, etc]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Obviously, Fred wanted more. He made a date with Charlotte at the New York apartment he'd just started renting. This was going to be it.

[Montage. FRED, in an agony of suspense, is waiting outside the apartment block. He keeps looking at his watch.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Unfortunately, the date was September 11, 2001.

[Montage. The Twin Towers erupt in flames. People screaming in the streets. FRED is still looking at his watch as they stream past.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] Fred was so angry with Charlotte for not turning up. He went to see Samantha.

[Montage. FRED and SAMANTHA are having sex. Dissolve back to restaurant.]

SAMANTHA: [elaborate shrug] Well, I needed a fuck pretty bad.

CARRIE: [voiceover] Fred liked being with Samantha. But deep down, he never forgave her for making him betray his true love. He started seeing someone else, the wife of a rich banker.

[Montage. FRED is having sex with RICH BANKER WIFE. Back to restaurant.]

MIRANDA: [completely lost] So, he's sleeping with you and the banker's wife because he can't be with his true love? And what's with the fiancée?

SAMANTHA: [large sip of cocktail] That's it, babe. He thought it was my fault, and the banker's wife's fault. And maybe the fiancée's fault too, but I was never quite sure about that. Of course, it all ended in tears.

[Montage. SEVERAL WOMEN are yelling at FRED, throwing things, etc]

SAMANTHA: [back in restaurant] Your friend Stanford told Charlotte and me we should read Sentimental Education. He was right. It's just uncanny. Flaubert is a bit of an asshole, but he sure spills the beans on how men think when they cheat. It helped. [putting an arm around CHARLOTTE] And somehow, Charlotte and I ended up friends. Sorry babe. [She drains her glass. CHARLOTTE drains hers and hugs her back. There are tears in her eyes.]

CARRIE: [voiceover] I swear, I'd become a lesbian if I didn't like cock so much. And I wish I'd read Flaubert earlier.

[Theme music, credits]

Notes:

1. A beautiful book. Highly readable and gratifying. Too much description, but that was a convention of Flaubert’s day. The book is full of history, the abortive Revolution of 1848, the rise and fall of the French Second Republic and so on. The story of Frederic Moreau himself is the faux-biographical thread that ties it all together.

2. The Alhambra sequence here is reminiscent in the phantasmagoric “Nighttown” chapter in Ulysses. James Joyce knew Sentimental Education well. A later costume ball echoes the Alhambra scene, and it’s just as wild, just as frenetic. In other ways, in how it deals with the tribulations of Frederic’s desire, the book reminds me of Knut Hamsun’s Pan. At one point he’s running between three women — not unlike the protagonist of Isaac Bashevis Singer‘s Enemies: A Love Story. Love is mad.

3. Frederic Moreau has been pining away for years for Madame Arnoux, the wife of a wealthy gallerist. He earns his law license but after five years gives up. He admits that Madame Arnoux is unattainable. Much disappointment arises from his low income. He cannot remain on the same playing field as the Arnouxs if he is poor. He moves back to his mother’s house in the provinces. He takes walks with a four-year-old girl. His hygiene starts to go. He loses touch with his Paris friends, especially Deslauriers, with whom he had shared boyhood dreams. But then, when all hope is lost, he receives an enormous inheritance from his sourpuss uncle. Everything changes, so he feels.

Yet Madame Arnoux is out of his reach. She’s a good woman. He’ll never have her. He presses on making strange plans to further ingratiate himself and make him look even more pathetic. M. Arnoux starts borrowing money from Frederic. Strangely, our hero traipses about with the husband, the man he’s trying to cuckold, and is a witness to some of his extramarital affairs. Meanwhile Frederic remains a virgin. They’re being nothing to indicate he’s ever had a woman. Interestingly other characters can claim relationships with available women.

4. This novel uses Paris in the same way Woody Allen uses New York in his films. Here’s one colorful passage. It occurs when Frederic, flush with his legacy, is returning to Paris impatient to see Madame Arnoux.

“They stopped a good while at the city gate, for it was blocked by poultry-farmers, carriers, and a flock of sheep. The sentry, his hood thrown back, walked up and down in front of his box to keep warm. The toll-clerk clambered on to the top of the coach, and a fanfare on a coronet rang out. They went down the boulevard at a brisk trot with swingle-bars rattling and traces flying. The thong of the long whip crackled in the damp air. The guard gave his ringing shout: ‘Look sharp there! Hullo!’ And crossing-sweepers stood aside, passersby jumped out of the way, and mud splashed against the windows. They passed wagons, carriages, and omnibuses, and finally reached the iron gate of the Jardin des Plantes.” (p. 115)

When Frederic returns to Paris he finds the Arnouxs in reduced circumstances. All the luxury and grandeur have gone. The husband‘s gallery has failed and he now lives with his family above his pottery shop; this as opposed to his former gallery “just beyond the rue Monmartre,” the family home in rue de Choiseul, and the country place in Saint-Cloud. Madame Arnoux is dressed with a simplicity Frederic has never seen before.

5. At times Flaubert’s description becomes cloying in its excess; a writer today could suffice with ten percent of it, if that. These descriptive flights are the only bits where one feels oneself slogging through.

6. This novel was published in 1869 and one thing is clear, capitalism has not changed, except perhaps in the variety of its cons. Frederic’s position in uneasy; he is at heart not social, and yet he is condemned to negotiate so-called high society. He’s such a timid little man. Everyone’s robbing him blind. When failed bomber Sénécal is released from Sainte-Pélagie for lack of evidence, Dusardiers gives a party in his flat to celebrate; it’s here that Flaubert eviscerates the socialist, ostensibly pro-Republic, mindset. The monarchists don’t come out much better; everyone gets it in the neck.

So eventually, at a restaurant, Madame Armoux’s honor is besmirched; Frederick throws a plate at Viscount Cisy, the besmircher, and a particularly hilarious duel ensues in the Bois de Boulogne. The duel is called with off when Cisy faints under pressure and accidentally cuts himself with the knife with which he was to have fought Frederic. Too funny. When Madame Arnoux learns about the duel she realizes she loves Frederic. They then enter upon a difficult platonic friendship; difficult because of their physical lust for each other. And who hasn’t at some time in life been in such a fix, forswearing sex for friendship? It’s utter torture.

7. It’s impressive how adroitly Flaubert incorporates the 1848 Revolution — also known as the February Revolution it ended the July Monarchy and led to the brief French Second Republic — into the narrative. It corroborates for the most part what I had recently read in Pages from the Goncourt Journals. The revolution begins, however, on the very day Frederic was to have taken Madame Arnoux to a love nest he had designed presumptuously without her consent. She never shows. Frederic is humiliated and angry. In something like retaliation he picks up the Marshall, a prostitute, and takes her to the love nest prepared for Madam Arnoux. This is Frederic’s first sexual experience; he is 28 or 29.

8. We watch Frederic enter the Imperial palace as it’s vandalized by the “common people.” Frederic is encouraged to stand for office by M. Dambreuse, an arch monarchist who hopes to control him in that role. Frederic prepares a speech and goes to deliver it at a ribald meeting. He steps up to speak and is called an aristocrat by his erstwhile friend, Sénécal, a sociopathic “revolutionary” who has him booed into the street. It’s hard to know what the gathering’s true purpose is since it’s such a zoo. For example, before Frederic is sent away, “A man in a cassock, with crinkly hair and a peevish expression, had already put up his hand. He mumbled that his name was Ducretot, and that he was a priest and an agronomist, the author of a work entitled Manure. He was advised to join a horticultural society.” (p. 329)

9. The street names and place names and palace names of Flaubert‘s day have for the most part not changed and can be easily looked up, but then many nineteeth century books are “illustrated” for us in this way.

10. The coda is lovely.

Фредерик Моро прожил пустую жизнь. У него было много шансов и стать богатым, и быть счастливым в любви, но все не складывалось. Он с одной стороны, был достаточно одарен, но всем его занятиям мешала лень, непоследовательность, неспособность завершить начатое, пассивность. Даже учиться он сам не мог, потребовался репетитор. В описываемый период он встречался с тремя женщинами сразу, плюс морочил голову богатой невесте Луизе Рокк из Ножана. Но любил только одну - Мари Арну, любил платонически, не надеясь на взаимность, всегда финансово выручая ее мужа, склонного к мошенническим сделкам.
В дни революции, он оставался равнодушным к судьбам родины, хотя предпринимал слабые попытки "заняться политикой", оставаясь для рабочих аристократом. Это, в общем-то, понятно. Кто же пойдет за человеком, который не озабочен проблемами протестующих, а на волне народного гнева думает о личных карьерных планах? В целом, Фредерик не вызывает больших симпатий, несмотря на верность и Мари Арну, и своему другу Делорье. Его любовь была полигамна, раз госпожа Арну не пришла, то со злости он зовёт Розанетту. Женщины для него - размен��ая монета. Дружба с Делорье тоже омрачена предпочтением отдать деньги Арну с очевидным невозвратом, чем на помощь другу. Понятно, что у него на это есть полное право. Самым лучшим воспоминанием в своей жизни Моро и Делорье с грустью констатируют тот день, когда они, еще юные, наивные провинциалы, нарвали цветов и пошли с букетами в бордель, где их осмеяли.
Я начала рецензию с резюмирования о пустой жизни Фредерика. Но чем же обусловилась пустота? Ничтожностью целей - материальное благополучие, карьера, мимолетные сексуальные утехи, любовь, которая была самообманом - ему не хватило решимости бороться за нее. Эти ценности не выдерживают испытания временем и остается ощущение разрушенных надежд. А скажите, пожалуйста, сколько людей живут в погоне за подобными целями? Этот роман ставит вопрос - для чего жить? Жить, чтобы не прожить ее впустую.
В романе есть интересные второстепенные персонажи, например, мадемуазель Ватназ, которая олицетворяет предшественницу феминизма, во всяком случае, ее высказывания имеют отчетливый феминистский вектор.
В целом, Флобер нарисовал читателю картину французского общества накануне и в период буржуазной революции 1848 года, настроения, дух эпохи, общественной психологии и нравов.

An exhausting thrill-ride through the zany world of womanising socialite Frédéric, or—for the first 300 pages, at least—wannabe womanising socialite Frédéric. Because Frédéric can’t make it happen with his mate Arnoux’s missus, nor his mate Arnoux’s mistress, this frustration is the bane of his existence as he falls in and out of money, society and love. Against the backdrop of the 1848 Paris uprising this novel heaves with ornate descriptive grandeur, political commentary and violence, a frenetic comic energy, and more love triangles than the HMS Hefner in Bermuda. A classic that delights, frustrates, amuses and teases in equal measure—what more could you ask for? Sex? Well, there’s no sex. You have sex on the brain, you do. Take a cold shower.

(Book 858 from 1001 books) - L'Éducation sentimentale = Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert

Sentimental Education is a novel by Gustave Flaubert.

Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Emile Zola, but criticized by Henry James.

The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man at the time of the French Revolution of 1848.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آوریل سال 2009میلادی

عنوان: تربیت احساسات؛ نویسنده: گوستاو فلوبر؛ مترجم: مهدی سحابی؛ تهران، نشر مرکز، 1380؛ در632ص؛ شابک9643056465؛ چاپ دوم سال1385؛ سوم و چهارم 1388؛ شابک9789643056469؛ پنجم 1389؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده 19م

عنوان: تربیت احساسات (مکتب عشق، یا سرگذشت یک جوان)؛ نویسنده: گوستاو فلوبر؛ مترجم: فروغ شهاب؛ تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر، 1349؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، علمی فرهنگی، 1395، در بیست و241ص؛ شابک9786004360555؛

بر خلاف «مادام بوواری» که در زمان انتشار، بسیار دل انگیز و نامدار بود، بسیاری از هم‌دوره های «فلوبر»، «تربیت احساسات» را، شکستی ادبی دانستند، و اثر را از «دیدگاه اخلاقی» زننده؛ و از «دیدگاه سیاسی» کژاندیشانه، دانستند؛ این اثر سال‌ها در سایه ی درخشندگی «مادام بوواری» چشم به راه میماند، تا اینکه ناقدان آثار این دوران، ارزش ادبی «تربیت احساسات» را، دوباره پیدا میکنند؛ اثری احساسی و شخصی است، که در آن احساسات با شرح رویدادهای تاریخی، در هم می‌آمیزند، بازگشایی دلسردی‌هایی فردی، و نیز در واگویی یاس، و پژمردگی اجتماعی، در پی زوال توهم‌هایی که انگیزه ی تکانه های انقلاب بودند، نوشتارهای خیال بسیار درخشان هستند

شخصیت اصلی داستان، جوانی به نام «فردریک مورو» است، که در سفر خویش، با بانویی شوهردار به نام «ماری آنجل» آشنا، و دلباخته ی او میگردد؛ «فردریک» که ساکن شهری کوچک است؛ عمویی ثروتمند در «پاریس» دارد، و امیدوار هست تا از عمو به او ارث برسد؛ «فردریک» وارث ثروت عموی خویش شده، به «پاریس» میرود، و با خانواده ی «ماری آنجل» رفت و آمد میکند، و وارد زندگی «آنجل» میشود، اما از آنجایی که «ماری آنجل» زنی نجیب است؛ «فردریک» برای رسیدن به ایشان، شانسی ندارد، پس سرخورده از آن پیشامد، به سوی زنی بی بند و بار به نام «رزانت» کشیده میشود؛ «رزانت» زیباست و «فردریک» را دوست میدارد، و خواهان زندگی با اوست، اما «فردریک» نمیتواند «ماری آنجل» را فراموش کند، همچنین او کوشش دارد برای بدست آوردن ثروت، با بیوه ای «انگلیسی» پیمان ببندد، اما به یکباره، زمانی که متوجه میشود «ماری» پنهانی از آن شهر فرار کرده، و برای همیشه رفته است، او نیز هم «رزانت» و هم بیوه ی ثروتمند «انگلیسی» را رها میکند؛ سرانجام زمانی که «فردریک» به میانسالی میرسد؛ «ماری» به دیدن او میآید، و بگذشته ها را با هم مرور میکنند، و از او خداحافظی میکند؛ نویسنده در این کتاب در کنار عاشقانه ها، به رویدادهای تاریخی کشور فرانسه ی آن دوران و پژمردگیهای اجتماعی نیز میپردازند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 17/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Ho letto l’ultima riga, ho chiuso il libro e sono stata colta da un’improvvisa tristezza, profonda come poche altre volte. Al contempo, però, sono soddisfatta perché ho letto un libro che non può non essere letto, imperdibile. E da ora in poi ne consiglierò a tutti la lettura. E’ “IL ” romanzo, per me. Perfetto, stupendo in ogni sua pagina, in ogni riga. Un mondo racchiuso in poco più di 500 pagine.
C’è il mondo di Frédéric Moreau, uno studente diciottenne che, intorno al 1840, lascia Parigi per tornare nel suo paese nativo, Nogent sur Seine, e nel battello lungo la Senna incontra colei che diverrà in un attimo il "grande amore" della sua vita, Madame Arnoux, la donna che dalla prima pagina del romanzo fino all’ultima, occupa i pensieri del protagonista, il quale, alla fine del romanzo, divenuto adulto
“Viaggiò.
Conobbe la malinconia dei piroscafi, i freddi risvegli sotto la tenda, la vertigine dei paesaggi e delle rovine, l’amarezza delle simpatie troncate.
Ritornò.
Frequentò la società, ed ebbe altri amori ancora. Ma il ricordo incessante del primo glieli rendeva insulsi: e poi la veemenza del desiderio, la freschezza stessa delle sensazioni era perduta. Anche le sue ambizioni intellettuali erano appassite. Passarono anni; e lui sopportava l’inoperosità dell’intelligenza e l’inerzia del cuore.”
Con queste parole Flaubert sintetizza una vita: un’esistenza fatta di desideri, di speranze, che riempiono la giovinezza e che si perdono per strada, nel corso delle variegate esperienze che la vita sottopone, appassiscono e muoiono rivelandosi illusioni e alla fine il ricordo tutto sopisce e spegne. Così è Frédéric: un irresoluto, volubile ed inetto, con tante belle idee per la testa e tante belle parole che rimangono tali, senza tradursi in azioni nè in sentimenti.Così come i suoi amici, giovani della sua generazione, idealisti e irresoluti, che insieme con il protagonista attraversano gli anni dei moti rivoluzionari adeguandosi al vento che tira; così come i ricchi borghesi parigini, che si sono arricchiti con la monarchia ma che, al primo anelito di idee rivoluzionarie, si buttano a capofitto nella nuova repubblica da fondare, cambiando le loro idee e i loro pensieri come bandiere al vento; così come le giovani mantenute che vivono in eleganti case pagate dagli amanti, che ogni giorno dichiarano il loro “amore”a un uomo diverso, a seconda dell’ampiezza o meno del portafogli.
C’è il genere umano nel suo aspetto più meschino, mediocre e codardo destinato a fallire, esaminato da Flaubert con occhio critico mai esente da ironia, che non solo si alterna a momenti di grandi liricità ma addirittura si inserisce nei toni romantici, con effetti ridicolizzanti, per evidenziare ancora di più come il sentimento amoroso, cui tutti aneliamo, non sia altro che una mera illusione. E dunque, l’educazione sentimentale del protagonista non può che avere termine laddove è iniziata, in un bordello frequentato goliardicamente in età adolescenziale dal protagonista e dal suo amico Deslauriers: “è la cosa migliore che abbiamo avuto!”.

Flaubert said of "L'Education Sentimentale": "I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation; "sentimental" would be more accurate. It is a book of love, of passion; but of desire such as 'it can exist, i.e. inactive ". I find that this paragraph perfectly illustrates the book's idea, namely that Flaubert offers us a book of Passions through this story, and who says Passions also says Suffering.
Indeed, the author sets up a wide range of characters, each more passionate than the other, and this by their actions or their ambitions: whether it is the fiery and sublime Passion between Frédéric Moreau and Mme Arnoux - but also carnal love with Rosanette, or interested with Mme Dambreuse, which nonetheless both remain passionate loves -, or that of Deslauriers for his career and glory, that of Arnoux for Money and Beauty, that of Pilgrim for Art.
But, like the silent and impossible love between the hero and Madame Arnoux, we see that each individual's search for the ideal and happiness is in vain. Moreover, in the novel's last pages, Frédéric and Deslauriers dwell on their past and note their failure: "And they summed up their life. They both missed it, the one who had dreamed of love [ Frédéric], the one who dreamed of power [Deslauriers]."
Not having heard, a priori, that novel's praise by Flaubert, I opened this book with many apprehensions and the fear of being bored during this reading. But it does not. There is nothing in the end! Of course, there are many lengths, but I enjoyed this read despite that. Fans of Flaubert's style will certainly not be disappointed by "L 'Éducation Sentimentale."