Flaubert

Michel Winock's biography situates Gustave Flaubert's life and work in France's century of great democratic transition. Flaubert did not welcome the egalitarian society predicted by Tocqueville. Wary of the masses, he rejected the universal male suffrage hard won by the Revolution of 1848, and he was exasperated by the nascent socialism that promoted the collective to the detriment of the individual. But above all, he hated the bourgeoisie. Vulgar, ignorant, obsessed with material comforts, impervious to beauty, the French middle class embodied for Flaubert every vice of the democratic age. His loathing became a fixation-and a source of literary inspiration. Flaubert depicts a man whose personality, habits, and thought are a stew of paradoxes. The author of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education spent his life inseparably bound to solitude and melancholy, yet he enjoyed periodic escapes from his "hole" in Croisset to pursue a variety of pleasures: fervent friendships, society soirées, and a whirlwind of literary and romantic encounters. He prided himself on the impersonality of his writing, but he did not hesitate to use material from his own life in his fiction. Nowhere are Flaubert's contradictions more evident than in his politics. An enemy of power who held no nostalgia for the monarchy or the church, he was nonetheless hostile to collectivist utopias. Despite declarations of the timelessness and sacredness of Art, Flaubert could not transcend the era he abominated. Rejecting the modern world, he paradoxically became its celebrated chronicler and the most modern writer of his time.

About the Author :
Michel Winock is Professor Emeritus at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).

Review :
Michel Winock has written a great biography, bringing Flaubert down from his stylistic Olympus, to paint a portrait of a character grounded in history, pulsating with blood and life. Winock is a first rate historian, with a fine literary sensibility. This is an intelligent book, rich in references to contemporary opinions, containing lively evocations of literary figures, friends, and political events. Well-researched, elegantly written, and particularly good in discussing Flaubert's work as well as his life. Noted French historian Winock’s biography succeeds in presenting a fresh portrait of a man plagued by paradoxes…Winock provides absorbing background related to the country’s social and political scenes that occurred during his subject’s lifetime. It is stately and plump, like its subject, as well as thought-provoking. To be sure, [others] have in recent decades produced English-language biographies of Flaubert, but Winock has the depth of knowledge and familiarity with Flaubert’s times to add something new. This generous study ingeniously builds a narrative around Flaubert’s own words—from not only the novels but also voluminous correspondence and unpublished work. Adding light background and analysis, Winock allows the mind of the Master to shine. Winock’s many quotations from Flaubert’s early writings—his Memoirs of a Madman, written at school, his letters, Intimate Notebook, and [November]—will be a revelation to those, like me, who knew only the masterpieces…Winock, a historian by profession, is excellent at building up the political context of Flaubert’s life, particularly the back and forth between liberal revolution and reactionary repression. The present volume offers a remarkable portrait of ‘the life of a man in his century.’ …[Winock] provide[s] a brilliant, sweeping view of the 19th century that allows for a far better understanding of both the major developments of the period (triumph of the bourgeoisie, industrialization, shift from constitutional monarchy to democratic republic) and the tangled life of the ‘Janus-faced,’ ‘conservative anarchist’ who was Flaubert. Winock’s achievement is to treat [Flaubert’s] works themselves with clarity and insight…This is a compelling account of a writer who, Winock reminds us, has become ‘an unavoidable reference’ in literary history. What [Winock’s] biography really affirms is that practically all of the life in Flaubert is to be found in his work. This he documents with care, industry and insight. His discussions of the novels and letters are especially valuable and informative, and offer a suggestive sense of the ways in which his subject’s character relates to and informs his work. Flaubert would often ask himself why man’s heart felt so big when life felt so small. This book comes close to supplying an answer. Others, like myself, will be grateful that it places Flaubert within the fevered history of his time. It is precisely the historical background of Flaubert’s times, both its conscious and its invisible impingements on the writer’s sensibility, on which Winock is especially revelatory…Michel Winock has written a compelling and stylish biography, and Nicholas Elliott has brought it into English with flair and skill. Winock distinguishes himself as a biographer in his clear-­eyed analysis of the fiction within its politically convulsive historical context…Winock [has a] readable style and talent for the great historical overview. In this way his biography can be welcomed by dedicated Flaubertians and twittering dilettantes alike. [An] excellent new biography.