Does irony preclude sympathy? There is no entry for
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Spent ten years writing
KUCHUK HANEM
A litmus test. Gustave had to choose sides between the Egyptian courtesan and the Parisian poetess – bedbugs, sandalwood oil, shaven pudenda, clitoridectomy and syphilis versus cleanliness, lyric poetry, comparative sexual fidelity and the rights of women. He found the issue finely balanced.
LETTERS
Follow Gide, and call the Letters Flaubert’s masterpiece. Follow Sartre, and call them a perfect example of free-association from a pre-Freudian couch. Then follow your nose.
MME FLAUBERT
Gustave’s gaoler, confidante, nurse, patient, banker and critic. She said: ‘Your mania for sentences has dried up your heart.’ He found the remark ‘sublime’. Cf. George Sand.
NORMANDY
Always wet. Inhabited by a sly, proud, taciturn people. Put your head on one side and remark, ‘Of course, we must never forget that Flaubert came from Normandy.’
ORIENT
The crucible in which
PRUSSIANS
Vandals in white gloves, clock-thieves who know Sanskrit. More horrifying than cannibals or Communards. When the Prussians withdrew from Croisset, the house had to be fumigated.
QUIXOTE, DON
Was Gustave an Old Romantic? He had a passion for the dreamy knight cast adrift in a vulgar, materialist society.
REALISM
Was Gustave a New Realist? He always publicly denied the label: ‘It was because I hated realism that I wrote
SAND, GEORGE
Optimist, socialist, humanitarian. Despised until met, loved thereafter. Gustave’s second mother. After staying at Croisset she sent him her complete works (in the 77-volume edition).
TRANSVESTISM
Gustave in young manhood: ‘There are days when one longs to be a woman.’ Gustave in maturity: ‘
USA
Flaubert’s references to the Land of Liberty are sparing. Of the future he wrote: ‘It will be utilitarian, militaristic, American and Catholic – very Catholic.’ He probably preferred the Capitol to the Vatican.
VOLTAIRE
What did the great nineteenth-century sceptic think of the great eighteenth-century sceptic? Was Flaubert the Voltaire of his age? Was Voltaire the Flaubert of his age? ‘
WHORES
Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. Wearers of the red badge of courage include Flaubert, Daudet, Maupassant, Jules de Goncourt, Baudelaire, etc. Were there any writers unafflicted by it? If so, they were probably homosexual.
XYLOPHONE
There is no record of Flaubert ever having heard the xylophone. Saint-Saens used the instrument in his
YVETOT
‘See Yvetot and die.’ If asked the source of this little-known epigram, smile mysteriously and remain silent.
ZOLA, EMILE
Is the great writer responsible for his disciples? Who chooses whom? If they call you Master, can you afford to despise their work? On the other hand, are they sincere in their praise? Who needs whom more: the disciple the master, or the master the disciple? Discuss without concluding.
13
This is a pure story, whatever you may think.
When she dies, you are not at first surprised. Part of love is preparing for death. You feel confirmed in your love when she dies. You got it right. This is part of it all.
Afterwards comes the madness. And then the loneliness: not the spectacular solitude you had anticipated, not the interesting martyrdom of widowhood, but just loneliness. You expect something almost geological – vertigo in a shelving canyon – but it’s not like that; it’s just misery as regular as a job. What do we doctors say? I’m deeply sorry, Mrs Blank; there will of course be a period of mourning but rest assured you will come out of it; two of these each evening, I would suggest; perhaps a new interest, Mrs Blank; car maintenance, formation dancing?; don’t worry, six months will see you back on the roundabout; come and see me again any time; oh nurse, when she calls, just give her this repeat will you, no I don’t need to see her, well it’s not her that’s dead is it, look on the bright side. What did she say her name was?
And then it happens to you. There’s no glory in it. Mourning is full of time; nothing but time. Bouvard and Pecuchet record in their ‘