Cuando terminé el quinto capítulo de la tercera parte tuve que cerrar el libro, pararme de la mesa, y caminar por toda la casa blandiendo en alto el puño, maldiciendo a Flaubert por haber hecho lo que hizo, por la injusticia tan aberrante que no es suya sino del mundo. La situación, si alguien quiere imaginarla con mayor claridad, incluye un apartamento con cuatro gatos en el que yo vocifero en contra del autor francés mientras mis padres duermen en la alcoba principal.

Sólo esa escena (la última del capítulo cinco de la tercera parte) basta para hacer de este libro uno que se gana su puesto entre las mejores cosas que he leído. El resto de elementos vendrán a confirmar esa observación. La pericia narrativa es la de un maestro en el oficio, uno que supo que escribir es un proceso de larga artesanía en el que poco importan las geniales intuiciones si no se domina a la perfección la herramienta del lenguaje y la paciente observación del alma humana. La educación sentimental es una de esas composiciones que parecen pertenecer, en exclusiva, al siglo XIX: novelas que abarcan todo, que no se echan atrás al momento de poner en escena discusiones estéticas o políticas, y que mantienen, por encima de cualquier cosa, una amarga conciencia crítica que hace vitales los cuadros más cotidianos.

Aborrecí al personaje principal a lo largo de toda la novela. Esta confesión no dice nada, pero cuando debo admitir que en las dos páginas finales dejé de odiarle, que en veinte párrafos consiguió Gustave Flaubert que me reconciliara con Frédérik Moreau, bueno, entonces estoy confesando una de dos cosas: la primera mi absurda volubilidad; la segunda, una inmensa capacidad de síntesis en el autor que consigue poner en perspectiva toda una personalidad a la luz de una conclusión encantadora. La sencilla belleza del final de la novela no deja de recordarme el demoledor final de Don Quijote.

¿Para qué irme a más? Quien lea La educación sentimental encontrará una novela lenta para nuestras costumbres actuales, demorada en los detalles, amplia al momento de describir particularidades del vestido y del paisaje. Encontrará situaciones patéticas por su ausencia de tragedia, narradas con un dramatismo esencial a partir de las declaraciones de sus personajes; y situaciones febrilmente dramáticas, narradas con demoledora falta de adornos...

Es el primer libro que leo de Gustave Flaubert. He encontrado pasajes enteros de una candidez repleta de ternura que de golpe se interrumpen para dejar paso a metáforas que jamás se me habrían pasado por la imaginación. ¿Si ese no es el oficio del poeta, dónde hemos de encontrarlo? Insisto, es el primer libro que leo del clásico francés, y lo buscaré de ahora en adelante con entusiasmo.

Encontré en la lectura algo parecido a la esperanza, en nuestra contradictoria condición humana, en nuestra tierna soberbia, en nuestras mejores aventuras. De toda la obra, sé que el personaje de Dussardier me acompañará siempre.

I read this based on Woody Allen's recommendation [http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/movie_sou...] in "Manhattan" when I was 17. Frederic, the protagonist, goes through the tumultuous years of early 19th century France in love with an older woman, Madame Arnoux, but never having more than a close friendship with her, while yearning for much more, and watching her go through one personal and financial disaster after another. Anyway, after years of separation, she visits him at the end of the book, and he goes down on one knee to avoid seeing her white hair and finally expresses his love for her. This passage on page 414 stopped me cold, and brought me to tears:

"Your person, your slightest movements seemed to me to possess a superhuman importance in the world. My heart used to raise like the dust in your footsteps. The effect you had on me was that of a moonlit night in summer, when all is perfume, soft shadows, pale light, and infinite horizons. For me your name contained all the delights of flesh and spirit, and I repeated it again and again, trying to kiss it with my lips."

هر قدر بیشتر شالوده ی ادم ها را امتحان می کنم، بیشتر متوجه می شوم که از بس می خواهند آزاد باشند خود را بنده می کنند و در نتیجه کوشش های بیهوده ای که برای تامین آزادی به خرج می دهند، آن میزان آزادی را هم که به دست آورده اند ضعیف می کنند
برای اینکه بتوانند در مقابل سیل حوادث مقاومت کنند، برای خود هزاران قید درست می کنند. آن وقت به محض اینکه می خواهند یک قدم بردارند نمی توانند و تعجب هم می کنند که چطور با این همه علاقه، باز نمی توانند


متن بالا دو بند مهم از «امیل» روسو بود. کتابی درباره تعلیم و تربیت که 100 سال پیش از «تربیت احساسات» (تربیت احساساتی) فلوبر چاپ شده و از نظر من قطعا تاثیر زیادی بر این رمان داشته است
از نظر روسو، طبیعت بزرگترین مربی کودک و تمدن بزرگترین دشمن این تربیت است. روسو کودک مورد علاقه خود (امیل) را درمعرض دو نوع عقلانیت میداند: تربیت عقلانی و تربیت به دست عقل. دومی درواقع تربیتی است که عقل محاسبه گر یا عقل ابزاری را بر فرد مسلط میکند، به نحوی که برای رسیدن به اهدافش، عقل را وسیله قرار میدهد، درحالیکه اولی نه تنها تشخیص خوب و بد، بلکه خواست خوب و طرد بد را نیز در بر میگیرد

فردریک، ضدقهرمان اصلی فلوبر، یک ضدامیل است. کسی که از شهرستان به پاریس می رود. در ابتدا مملو از دوستی و وفاداری است. دچار عشق در یک نگاه میشود اما به تدریج آنچنان تمدن پاریس او را اغوا میکند که دوستیِ شهری، عشق شهری و آداب دانی شهری از او شخصیتی دوپاره می سازد. هرچه جلوتر می رویم این دوپاگی نه تنها ترمیم نمیشود، بلکه به چندپارگی تبدیل میشود. فردریک هم نجیب و باوجدان است و هم مراودات و رذالت های شهری را «جالب و بامزه» می یابد

این طرح کلی داستان البته چندان با ریزه کاری های هنرمندانه همراه نیست. با اینکه تربیت احساسات 13 سال پس از «مادام بوواری» نوشته شده اما هنوز به سبک رمانهای کلاسیک فرانسه با شرح پر آب و تاب جزئیات مناظر و طراحی صحنه همراه است ولی به راحتی از جزئیات شخصیتها در بزنگاه های خاص اغماض میکند. البته پایان بندی داستان طراز فلوبر را نشان میدهد. اگر پایان بندی به نحو دیگری بود شاید امتیاز کتاب از این کمتر بود (البته منظورم از پایان بندی کلیشه عاقبت همه شخصیتها نیست که این کتاب هم پی گرفته؛ منظورم عاقبت قهرمان و اطرافیان درجه یک اوست) ر

بک نکته درباره مترجم: بنظر من هر رمان فرانسوی با ترجمه مهدی سحابی، هر رمان روس با ترجمه سروش حبیبی و هر رمان انگلیسی با ترجمه مهدی غبرایی ارزش خواندن دارد

Savršenstvo od knjige.

Flaubert was Kafka's favorite author, and A Sentimental Education his favorite novel. After rereading this book, I think I can understand why. Flaubert's "story of a young man" is the story of a rather witless protagonist and his almost indistinguishable set of friends and lovers, each immersed in her or his illusions, each almost equally stupid (in the phenomenological sense). There is indeed a "sentimental" romance at its heart, which is more or less a disappointment stretching from the first page to the last. There's no redemption; no meaning.

I had to fight myself to finish this book. It wasn't until almost the last sentence of Part II that it captured me. By the end I was delighted with this tale in which nothing really happens, in which no one accomplishes anything – all captured in Flaubert's perfect prose. Here we are at the very end (spoiler alert):

They'd both been failures, the one who'd dreamed of Love and the one who'd dreamed of Power. How had it come about?

"Perhaps it was lack of perseverance?" said Frédéric.

"For you maybe. For me it was the other way round, I was too rigid, I didn't take into account a hundred and one smaller things that are more crucial than all the rest. I was too logical and you were too sentimental."

Then they blamed it on their bad luck, the circumstances, the times in which they'd been born.

The future of such hapless characters is not, as I'd imagined, in Proust (for example) but in Kafka and Beckett.

خطر لو رفتن داستان
گوستاو فلوبر نويسنده فرانسوي،تربيت احساسات را پس از هفت سال كار بر روي ان در سال ١٨٦٩منتشر كرد.گوستاو فلوبر را اغازگر و پايه گذار رمان مدرن مي دانند.تربيت احساسات هميشه زير سايه ي مادام بواري به عنوان دومين كتاب بزرگ فلوبر شناخته شده ولي منتقدان بزرگي تربيت را بهترين رمان او ميدانند.
تربيت احساسات داستان زندگي فردريك مورو است كه در ابتداي داستان به صورت اتفاقي در يك كشتي با اقاي ژاك ارنو اشنا ميشود و همان دم دل در گرو همسر او(خانم ارنو) ميبندد.فردريك كه خورده بورژوايي شهرستانيست با بلندپروازي زيادي به پاريس مي ايد.او در ابتدا مصمم و با اراده است ولي هر چه زمان پيش ميرود بيشتر در منجلاب زندگي بورژوازي غرق ميشود.او كه هميشه روياي نويسنده شدن يا پيدا كردن شغلي در دولت يا وزارت دارد نه تنها به روياهايش نميرسد بلكه تمام ميراثي كه از پدر و عمويش هم به او رسيده را در راه احساسات خام دستانه اش فدا ميكند..
فردريك كه در ابتداي داستان جواني با شرم و حيا و خجالتي معرفي ميشود"دور و بري هايش دانشجوياني مثل خودش بردند.از استادان و از معشوقه هايشان براي هم تعريف ميكردند.او از هيچ استادي ككش هم نميگزيد!معشوقه اش كجا بود!براي انكه شاهد خوشي هايشان نباشد هر چه ديرتر به انجا ميرفت".
فردريك در طول زندگي اش وابسته ٤ زن ميشود و دائماً بين انها در حركت و جابجايي ست:١-اولين زن همسر ارنو و اولين معشوقه او است كه به نظر ميرسد تنها زني هم هست كه او واقعا دوستش دارد.٢-دومين رزانت است كه او هم معشوقه ارنوست و انگيزه فردريك از خواستن او زيبايي و شهرت او بين مردان جامعه بورژوا و گاهي انتقام گرفتن از خانم ارنو.٣-سومين لوييز"دختر بچه اي بود كه دچار يكي از ان عشقهاي كودكانه اي شد كه هم به پاكي يك دين و هم به تندي يك نيازند" كه انگيزه فردريك از او بي اعتنايي زنان بورژوا به او و ثروت پدر اوست.٤-چهارمين زن خانم دامبروز همسر بانكدار ثروتمند است و باز هم انگيزه فردريك تحكيم كردن مقامش بين اشراف و ثروت اوست.
فردريك به هر ٤ زن قول ازدواج ميدهد و در اخر به هيچ كدام وفا نميكند و به هيچ يك از هدف هايش نميرسد.او در رابطه با اين زنها چنان اصول اخلاقي را زير پا ميگذارد كه فلوبر در توصيفش ميگويد:ديگر براي هميشه به دنياي برتر زناهاي اشرافي و دسيسه هاي مهم پا گذاشته بود.در حين كش و قوسهاي فردريك بين زنان،فرانسه دستخوش انقلاب ميشود.سلطنت واژگون ميشود و جمهوري برقرار ميگردد،جمهوري شكست ميخورد و متعاقب ان شورش ميشود و كشتار.فردريك كه درابتدا جوانيست مسئول كه سياست و جامعه و حكومت برايش مهم هستند،در حين انقلاب براي اينكه با معشوقه اش تنها باشد از پاريس خارج ميشود و به جاي بي خطري ميرود.
از نظر من مادام بواري كتاب بهتري از تربيت احساسات است.تربيت كتابيست با توصيفات بيشمار اشيا و فضا.ولي كار فلوبر انجا كه سراغ توصيف كاراكترها ميرود و تمام ابعاد شخصيتي انها از جمله ضعف و قدرت،بخل و حسد و نيرنگ،حماقت و ساده زيستي و البته فساد انها را به تصوير ميكشد بينظير است.توصيفات فلوبر از انقلاب ١٨٤٨ فرانسه عاليست.او در حين نشان دادن زندگي پوچ و بي معني فردريك به سادگي انقلاب و درگيريهاي بورژواها و طبقه كارگر را وارد داستان ميكند.
با اينحال تربيت رمان مورد علاقه من نيست.بسياري جاها كتاب كند پيش ميرفت و توضيحات زياده از حد بود.ضمن اينكه كتاب تعليق زيادي ندارد و صرفاً رفت و امدهاي متوالي يك جوان در ميان معشوقه هايش است.
قسمتهايي از كتاب:
در نتيجه حرمت مالكيت تا حد مذهب بالا رفته بود و انگار ان را با خود پروردگار يكي ميدانستند.حمله هايي كه به ان ميشد انگار از كفرگويي و حتي ادم خواري بدتر بود.تسغ گيوتين در تك تك هجاهاي جمهوري طنين مي انداخت،فرانسه ديگر خودش را سرور حس نميكرد،از ترس به داد و فرياد افتاده بود،چون كوري كه عصايش را از او گرفته باشنديا بچه اي كه لله اش را گم كرده باشد.
ص٤٢٧-براي دلبري از زنها بايد يا بيقيدي دلقك وار نشان داد يا خشم يك قهرمان تراژدي را.اگر ساده و بي پيرايه به زن بگويي كه دوستش داري مسخره ات ميكند.
ص٦٩-چيزي كه از زنها شما را فريب ميدهد،دقيقا همان چيزيست كه از نظر فكري مايه تنزل اوست،يعني پستان و گيسوانش
ص١٦٣-دولت دارد ما را مي بلعد،روي همه چيز دست گذاشته:فلسفه،حقوق،هنر،هوا..فرانسه دارد به صدا در مي ايد:زير چكمه ژاندارم و رداي كشيش به تنگ امده.
ص٤٣٦-هدف به چيزها حقانيت ميدهد.ديكتاتوري بعضي وقتها لازم است.زنده باد استبداد،به شرطي كه مستبد كار خوب بكند!
سپس براي انكه با ان چيزِ گنگ غير قابل تعريفِ چون اينه بازتاباننده اي اشنا شود كه محافل ناميده ميشوند.

More than likely the great-grandfather of texts such as The Savage Detectives on the one hand and American Pie on the other, this may be the archetype (though not the prototype) for all 'numbnut college bros chase tail' narratives. Its setting during the 1848 revolution tips it decisively toward Bolano in content--but that severe window dressing doesn't hide its trifling essence, aptly expressed by one pie-fucker as "the most equitable and forcible position is to have no opinion at all."

We see the interpenetration of two subject matters--affairs of state and affairs of marriage--in the novel's recognition that "this Republic of yours has to be kept like a mistress," a recombination of the classical polis and oikos over whose improvident fusion Greek tragedy obsessed. One socialist character is upbraided for "his sense of duty or a desire to exercise despotic authority," a zone of indistinction that applies both to a republic and to a mistress. A devotee of de Maistre, by contrast, a precursor to Trump and his cultists, "had doubts about the most well-established facts, contradicted history, and disputed things whose certainty could not be questioned; so that at the mention of the word 'geometry,' he exclaimed: 'what a joke this geometry is!'" Some things haven't changed, in rightwing politics or in marital affairs

All that said, this one is definitely a tragedy, but not a bloody Senecan exercise, considering the trajectory of the protagonist, who fears the "emptiness of his hopes" and "profound intellectual solitude," both emblematic of the erimo technis, a kenomatic state wherein "public affairs had become utterly unimportant to him, so deeply preoccupied he by his private concerns"--a reduction to the status of bare life for its own sake, collapsed to a singularity of lumpenized antisocial nihilism. Good times.

موقع شروع کتاب، فقط به این نیت شروع کردم که رمان بسیار مهمیه و باید بخونمش، نه که لذت هم ببرم. تجربه‌ای قبلاً از فلوبر داشتم -می‌دونم نظر نامحبوب محسوب می‌شه اما حتی مادام بوواری- این بود که به‌خاطر اهمیتش باید بخونم و قرار نیست لذتی در کار باشه. یکی از دلایلش این بود که توصیفات بیش‌ازحد جزئی برام کسل‌کننده‌ست. اما ۱/۳ پایانی کتاب بهم نشون داد که فلوبر هم می‌تونه حرمت داشته باشه و هم لذت. :)) و بهم نشون داد که واقعاً بسته به موصوف متفاوته. مثلاً موقع توصیف بسیار جزئی حوادث انقلاب به وجد می‌اومدم و اتفاقاً جزییات بیشتری هم می‌خواستم. واقعاً اینجاها ضربان قلبم می‌رفت بالا از شور و هیجان. اما موقع توصیفات بیش‌ازحد کاسه‌بشقاب و دشت‌ودمن حوصله‌م سر می‌رفت و کسالت‌بار می‌شد. اما اون ۲/۳ اول که بسیار هم باید صبر و حوصله به خرج داد براش واقعاً در خدمت بخش پایانی بود، اصلاً اگر اون زمینه‌چینی صبورانه و دقیق نبود، اون ۱۵۰ صفحه آخر انقدر گیرا نمی‌شد. و پایان تک‌تک شخصیت‌ها انقدر تکان‌دهنده نمی‌بود. به‌جرئت می‌گم یکی از بهترین پایان‌بندی‌هایی بود که تابه‌حال در رمان‌های قرن نوزدهم خونده‌م.

+ خاک بر سرت، فردریک.
+ دوساردیه‌ی بیچاره‌م.

چندجا از قسمت‌های مورد علاقه‌م رو هم اینجا می‌نویسم.
«وقتی انقلاب شد خیال کردم که دیگر خوشبخت می‌شویم، یادتان هست چقدر زیبا بود؟ چه نفس راحتی می‌کشیدیم! امّا دوباره همه‌چیز از همیشه بدتر شده.
و با چشمان به زمین دوخته:
- الآن دارند جمهوری‌مان را می‌کشند. همان‌طور که آن یکی، جمهوری رم را کشتند! بیچاره ونیز، بیچاره لهستان، بیچاره مجارستان! چه جنایت‌هایی! اول درخت‌های آزادی را بریدند، بعد حق رأی را محدود کردند، باشگاه‌ها را بسنند، سانسور را برقرار کردند و آموزش را به کشیش‌ها سپردند، تا بعد نوبت به انکیزیسیون هم برسد. چرا که نه؟ مگر محافظه‌کارهایی نیستند که به ما وعده قزاق‌ها را می‌دهند؟ روزنامه‌های را که با مجازات اعدام مخالف باشند محکوم می‌کنند، پاریس در از سرنیزه است، در شانزده استان کشور حکومت نظامی است.»

n  While Crimes of Passion are All the Fashion, A Gentleman's Picturesque Ideations of Adulterous Procreationn

Frederic Moreau comes of age in 1840s Paris. Given to flowery fancies of romance, he falls "in love" with Madame Arnoux, a lady at least a decade his senior, and becomes frustrated with the failed revolution of 1848, a Parisian fiasco. Flaubert said he set out to write a "moral history of the men of [his] generation...the history of their feelings... a book about love, about passion... inactive."

I enjoyed the book not so much for the love on verge of coital, a story line that lost its steam about halfway through the novel, but for its lampooning of a decadent, egocentric French society filled with superficial characters given to whimsy, such as the banker Dambreuse, "a man so habituated to corruption that he would happily pay for the pleasure of selling himself." C. Hitchens, “The Rat That Roared,” Wall Street Journal, 2/06/03.

I found Madame Bovary's abbreviated life much more compelling and revelatory than Monsieur Moreau's romantic adventures in pursuit of Madame Arnoux.

On reviendra sur L'Éducation sentimentale, on en comprendra l'étonnante profondeur, dans la monotonie apparente. Je le dis encore, il n'y a pas dans notre littérature une œuvre qui ait à ce degré le son de la vérité, pas une qui offre un magasin plus vaste de documents humains. Et de là, l'intérêt constant, l'inépuisable émotion, le charme douloureux de cette lecture. Nous ne sommes peut-être encore que quelques-uns qui connaissons cette source, et c'est pourquoi je la signale à toute notre jeunesse. On aime la vérité en lisant un pareil livre, on en comprend la force, on se dit qu'elle seule existe et qu'elle seule fait le génie.
tttttEmile Zola Le Voltaire, 9 décembre 1879


"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."
ttttttHenry James – French Poets and Novelists (1904)

Is it possible to agree with both Henry James and Emile Zola’s evaluations of L'Éducation sentimentale? I quote the conflicting opinions of two great novelists about Flaubert’s work to express my own ambivalence towards a remarkable, but often frustrating novel.
It’s easy enough to rate and review books that one either likes or dislikes. But how does one deal with a work that is beautifully written, meticulously structured, intriguing and sometimes enchanting, while at the same time off-putting and infuriating? At the heart of the matter is the novel’s protagonist, Frédéric Moreau.
L'Éducation sentimentale is often referred to as a bildungsroman. Typically, such novels are coming of age stories focused on the psychological and moral development of the protagonist. Protagonists in this genre are almost always dynamic. However, Frédéric Moreau’s character is flat, static or negative; he doesn’t improve with age, he just gets older. The novel begins in 1840, when he is eighteen, and ends almost thirty years later. From beginning to end, Frédéric remains obsessed with Mme Arnoux, an older married woman he meets by chance encounter on a steamboat.
Frédéric is egotistical in the extreme. The most irritating example of Frédéric’s personality is his fixation on Mme Arnoux. His years-long obsession is infuriating, but consistent with his Narcissistic personality. For much of the novel, she's an idée fixe buzzing around like a fly in Frédéric's brain. However, Flaubert shows great skill in slowly revealing the real woman behind Frédéric mental construct.
Frédéric is a young man of good family (his maternal grandfather was a count). The family fortune is reduced following his father’s death in a duel. A fortuitous inheritance from an uncle allows Frédéric to pursue a life of idleness and pleasure in Paris. He becomes the quintessential flaneur of the period, a type from Flaubert’s generation that the author mocks throughout the novel. Having failed his law school examination, Frédéric dabbles in art and politics, talks about entering the diplomatic service, and so forth. He parrots the opinions of others without having any firm convictions or principles of his own. His main occupations in life involve the furnishing and decoration of a lavish Paris apartment, wearing the most fashionable clothes, eating, drinking, attending the theater, the racecourse, parties and balls and of course chasing women. He also enters into M. Arnoux’s circle of friends for the main purpose of gaining access to Mme Arnoux.
M. Arnoux is a philandering dilletante, a painter turned art dealer and publisher of a magazine devoted to the arts. When that business fails, he switches to pottery manufacturing, and in the end, following lawsuits and bankruptcy, he peddles religious objects. His coterie is a mixed bag of mediocrities, sycophants and poseurs. Frédéric retains his own small clique from his Latin Quarter student days including Hussonnet, a shifty Bohemian journalist; de Cisy, an empty-headed, foppish aristocrat, and Dussadier, an honest, Republican working man who seems out of place in this group.
Charles Deslauriers is Frédéric’s BFF and important enough to the storyline to be considered a second protagonist. But as with all the relationships in the novel, there is something warped and twisted in the friendship. Charles is the son of an abusive ex-Captain in Napoleon’s army. An ambitious social-climber, Charles attaches himself to Frédéric like a limpet, calculating that the friendship will provide openings to a higher social sphere. Unlike Frédéric, Charles succeeds in law school, but he grows frustrated when his legal career doesn’t take off as he expected. As France moves towards revolution, Charles associates with radicals while envying the upper-class, including his best friend. Among other things, Charles desires Frédéric’s women, including the illusive Mme Arnoux, whom he wrongly assumes is Frédéric’s mistress. As a consequence of his envy, Charles is not above stabbing his pal in the back on more than one occasion.
The novel contains much period detail, including compelling scenes from the 1848 Revolution based on Flaubert’s first-hand experience. There is plenty of sharp social and political satire although much of the dark humor will be lost on readers unfamiliar with the history. There is also a beautifully written romantic interlude in which Frédéric and his mistress, the popular courtesan Rosannete, journey to Fontainebleau to temporarily escape the turmoil in Paris.
Most of the novel’s action ends in 1852 with the fall of the Second Republic and the rise of the Second Empire under Napoleon III. The last two brief chapters reveal the fate of the characters over a period of fifteen years.
The final chapter contains a dialogue between Frédéric and Charles that sums up the novel; it’s a story of failure.
“They had both failed in their objects the one who dreamed only of love, and the other of power. What was the reason of this?
“’Tis perhaps on account of not having taken up the proper line,” said Frederick. “In your case that may be so. I, on the contrary, have sinned through excess of rectitude, without giving due weight to a thousand secondary things more important than any. I had too much logic, and you too much sentiment.” Then they blamed luck, circumstances, the epoch at which they were born.”
This summation I believe provides the reasoning behind Henry James’s critique when he called the novel “dead” and stated “there is no more charm in this laborious monument to a treacherous ideal than there is interest in a heap of gravel.”
Is the novel without a “certain charm” as James said? Zola, who approved of the novel provided an answer. He referred to the novel’s “charme douloureux”, a painful charm. I believe Zola gave Flaubert credit for his commitment to truth and a realistic portrayal of wasted lives. I agree with Zola on that account. But I also agree with James; the “painful charm” of this novel can be “elaborately and massively dreary.”

Bu realistlerin eserlerindeki dürüstlükleri yok mu, cidden beni benden alıyor bu dürüstlük, şu yalan Dünya'da.

Gustave Flaubert neye deyinmiyorki bu yarı otobiyografik kitapta, politikadan aşka okadar detaylı bir kitap ki bu, beni cidden derinden etkiledi. Duygusal ama aşk konusunda yazarın büyük ihtimalle kitabı 25 yıl boyunca yazması esnasında kendinin de fark edip dürüstçe belirttiği üzere soğuk bir gerçekle bitiyor. Çokta şok olmadım ama, nede olsa duygu yönünden biraz kıtımdır... Hep bildiğim bir şeyin farkına varmak gibi oldu. Bir nokta var ki, Flaubert ile hayallerimizin kızı uyuşmuyor (heh) o esmer seviyor, ben ise kızıl saçlılara taparım, kitaptaki kızıl saçlı kızı reddedip, birde kılığı kıyafetini tarif ederek rezil edince, beni derinden yaraladı. Hayallerimin kızını düşürdüğü duruma bak... cık cık cık. Kitapta anladığım kadar, kaçırdığım bir şeyler de olabilir tabi, her realist roman gibi psikolojik olarak çok derin bir kitap bu ve ben psikolojiyi çok iyi bilmiyorum, keza tarihte aynı şekilde. Fransız İhtilali zamanlarında geçen bir kitap bu ve ihtilali anlatıyor, özellikle de tarihi tutarlılık açısından çok başarılı bir şekilde anlatıyormuş, bunu ön sözde görmesem anlamam mümkün değil. Psikolojik kısmına geri dönersek, Freud'un Karamazov Kardeşler'in ön sözünde Dostoyevski'nin psikolojisini masaya yatırması ile orada öğrendiğim bastırılmış gay kavramına bu kitapta tanık oldum. Orada Freud Dostoyevki için bastırılmış bir gaydir diyordu... Burada Duygusal Eğitim'de ise bastırılmış gay olan karakter bronz venüsümüzün sahibinin ta kendisi, yani kocası, Frederic ile aynı odada yalnız kalıpta yatağa oturduklarında, adeta kendini Frederic'e sunuyor... Bunun nedeni ise Frederic'in, karısını metresi olarak aldığını düşünmesi. Freud'un dediğine göre, bastırılmış gayler karılarını cinsel rakiplerine altın tepside sunarlar ve onlara çok iyi, arkadaşça davranırlar, ardında da ilk fırsatta kendilerini sunarlar, yani bak karımla yatıyorsun ve sana dostluğumu sundum, gönlünü hoş tutum, karşılığında benimle de yatmanı istiyorum, bedel olarak şeklinde. Bunun farkına kendim vardım, ne ön sözde ne son sözde var, gururluyum. (heh) Artık sırtım yere gelemez, Freud beni iyi yetiştirdi... (heh) Daha başka psikolojik vakalarda olabilir kitapta, benim henüz bilmediğim. Pelerin karakteri bariz gay ve berbat bir ressam (heh) Flaubert onu ve aktörleri hiç sevmiyor sanırım... Kitap kominizim ve Kapitalizm gibi iki önemli konuyu ele alıyor ve iki tarafı da tutmuyor, ikisini de kötülüyor. Özellikle Kapitalizm ve Kapitalist konusunda gözümü açtı bu kitap diyebilirim. Bu saatten sonra biri bana kapitalist dese, küfür olarak anlarım yani... O derece. Ha yazar ne peki, yazar bir sanatçı ve insanların kurduğu bu iki yanlış, berbat sistemi tüm çıplaklığı ile sergiliyor. Bu arada, belli bir ücret karşılığında sizi kitabına koyup, çok mert bir insan olarak sizden bahsetme olasılığı da var tabi. Doğruya doğru. (heh) dürüstlük, objektif olarak kendini ve başkalarını eleştiri, herkese ayna tutmak realistlerin işi. Şu Dünya'da hiç mi dürüst adam kalmadı diye içiniz sıkılıyorsa, açın bir realist roman okuyun. Realistler sanatlarını icra ederlerken, dürüsttürler.

Yalnız, bu kitaptan sonra Flaubert biraz gözümün önünde ucuz aşk romanlarını zaman zaman okumayı seven biri olarak canlandı açıkçası... Şu romantik kızların okuduğu türden özellikle erkeklere hiç hitap etmeyen aşk romanlarından bahsediyorum... (heh) Onları yalayıp yuttuğunu görür gibiyim. (heh) Nasıl zat-ı aliniz süper kahraman çizgiromanları okumayı seviyorsa, onunda öyle bir huyu var. Kendimi Flaubert ile kıyasladım, egom yüksektir. Yaparım böyle şeyler... (heh)

Bu kitabı yaşamak isteyen herkes okumalı, yazarının da dediği gibi. Çünkü yaşamak, düşünmektir.

*this book deserves anywhere between 4.2 and 4.7 stars


“Funny, how the things you have the hardest time parting with are the things you need the least.” (Bob Dylan)


With every work I read or reread by Flaubert, I am all the more convinced that he was the master craftsman, that he was master of attention to the tiny stuff, the small details that are layered brick by brick (word by word), the master of attention to even the mortar between the bricks, and master of raising the whole damn superstructure. The buildings he makes out of words hold the world, and I want to call him King of the Paragraph, because his seem so measured, so precise, so carefully wrought. I’ve heard complaints that his detailing of minutiae can become tedious, but to me that is evidence of the eye fully open, the mind ticking at a heightened rate, the physicality of the world irresistibly impressing itself on his realism. His emotional sketches are just as profound and rich as his inventories of space; his sketches of those characters void of human emotion are equally as profound. Flaubert is almost that Joycean image of the author pairing his nails, detached, his handiwork submerged in refinement. Almost. Because above all Flaubert is a satirist. So his presence is felt, as a ripple on the surface of the water is evidence of a rampart crumbling on the ocean floor. I stole that from Frank O’Hara. But kind of like the experience of reading Nabokov, Flaubert the artist is what is on full display here, and in Sentimental Education, as I said when I was writing about Bouvard and Pecuchet, he is perched behind his curtain like Oz or comfortably atop Mount Olympus like the prankster gods of old. He animates his characters to illustrate human folly above all else- who are we to sympathize with in Madame Bovary? who do we not find ridiculous in B & P? who deserves our alliance in Sentimental Education? - but the almost indefinable thing about Flaubert is that amid his mockery he comes off as touching. Because you get the impression that this cranky god really loves his little pets, and wishes them the best- although he knows with all his prescience what the grim best is for us hopeless little mortals playing our dangerous games.

It’s a pretty grim book. Those two eternal opiates- sex and power- are pretty much the sole motivation behind everyone in Frédéric and Deslauriers’ circle. Allegiances and philosophies are as mutable as clothing or the shifting light in Paris- everything is exhausted in the pursuit of one of those two endless ends. Flaubert claimed his intent was to write “the moral history of the men of my generation” and if so it’s a bleak assessment. The great upheavals that define 19th century France take place as the background of this narrative (the Revolution of 1848 acting as a center point) but Frédéric is too busy trying to get a piece of ass to really notice. The offstage massacres and thunder of guns in far off arrondisements are purposefully distanced- the “moral history” Flaubert is trying to paint is apparently mass solipsism. The revolutionaries become oppressors when it suits them, the super-rich elite are suddenly populists and social advocates when the unrest in the streets threatens the order of things, the artists sell out, brave men are proven cowards, and all seem to worship some vague form of authority, whether it be social, political, or psychological. Frédéric’s obsessive, life-long pursuit of the phantom-like image of Madame Arnoux can be extrapolated into a rather ripe comment on all of those masses surging about in the streets of mid-19th century Paris- they too were chasing ghosts- the ghosts of the Revolution, Royalism, Socialism, Democracy- all those specters that never seem content to lie in their graves; all those straw men people are constantly trying to revive in the name of some sort of never-achieved utopia. See the Dylan quote above.

But the potential bad taste in the mouth that this kind of judgement on humanity could leave, the awfulness, duplicity, shallowness, stupidity, manipulation, and gold-digging of the people in Sentimental Education, is offset by Flaubert’s lovely, lovely prose, his impressionistic drawing of scenes, his adoration of Paris as an entity of indifferent light and beauty; his Paris, the place where history unfolds under the stoicism of stone arcades, where passions are conceived and destroyed, where markets are set up in the mornings and dismantled in the evenings and alluring smells emanate from restaurants, where gossip flows through the gutters like sewage, and alleys are sunk in aqueous light and the sky is always pale or a vaulted blue or gray and about to rain and the amber evening is refracted through clouds, making all of our selfish human endeavors all the more charming, all the more timeless and endearing; and the Seine is reflecting the gaslights in wavering strands as a tortured lover pines on the Pont Neuf at midnight, and hooves percuss and echo from the cobblestones, and Montmarte is filthy and eternal, and the cafes are greasy and alive with chatter and opaque with purple smoke and the men are in their cravats and top-hats and the women are rouged and bosomy and flush and comely. Flaubert cannot help but adore Paris, despite himself. That mythical stage, that constant setting for so much of the great art that the Western world has produced. Sentimental Education succeeds in coming off like an epic of place, of space and lifetimes, a panoptic portrait of interesting times told in often banal scenes and acts; and the technique, skill, or what have you, of the sardonic, darkly hilarious master Flaubert elevates the book beyond some severe excoriation of the human condition- it makes it a vital work of art, resonant now and probably for all time.