[.ca] A Sentimental Education (ISBN 0192836226)

Wanting it all:
Frederic Moureau is a young man who wants it all... he wants the great romantic life, the social commitment, the financial success, the respect from everyone. This is the perfect example of what a novel is, if we are to accept Lukacs definition of it as the epic of the ages with no gods. There is nothing in this young man's life that gives a sense of totality to his world... there are many ways to be followed, but none to actually enclose in itself the sense of the eternal horizon of time. As he meets Mme. Arnoux, one could think, by the way he thinks about her, that she is going to be his entire world, but she is not... a few moments later we find him completely devoted to the cause of his friends, and later, to his physical involvement with a woman of doubtfull reputation... etc, etc. Along with his discovery of the world and its mechanics, he submerges in his own feelings, without really finding a north to any of his purposes in the external world (be it the world of social dynamics, ambitions, of affections and of responsabilities). His journey begins when he leaves his birthplace in the country and goes to Paris. In this travel, he knows Mme. Arnoux, and then, her husband, with whom he relates very well. Once established in Paris, he keeps this relationship, in hope allways to see the wife. From that point on, he will get involved in projects of papers, bussiness trades, purchases and social awareness. As the revolution falls upon the city, he tries to get a role in it, but he is soon rejected because of his previous (and allways ambiguous) relations with the burgouise spheres of Paris. The end of the novel will have him remembering his awakening as a man: he goes to a house, where he can pick from a group of women... but the horizon of possibilities offered by all of them frighten him and he ends up running away... being followed by his best friend; who will allways have to run following Frederic... the one with the money.

The masterpiece everyone hated:
When Flaubert published "Madame Bovary," it was a runaway success -- the Parisian sophisticates enjoyed Flaubert's devastating portrait of French provincial life -- cramped, stupid, poor and miserable. But when Flaubert turned his satirical eye on Paris itself, in "Sentimental Education," the good times abruptly stopped rolling. Nobody liked this book when it first appeared; the few reviews it got were deadly. Which may tell you something about human nature, always enjoying the laugh when it's on someone else! It is said that Ford Madox Ford claimed that he had to read "Sentimental Education" a dozen times before he finally understood every detail of this marvellous work of art. Every detail is considered, every word is weighed. The plot is wonderful and extremely complex. There are about seventeen major characters (!) brought successfully to life. The young may misunderstand this book. I did. When I was younger, it seemed to be just a tale of two loyal friends trying to make their way in the hostile world of Paris, and suffering a great number of misfortunes. Going back, and re-reading this great novel when I was older, I blushed again and again over the stupidity of the main character, Frederic Moreau. It is delineated in a brilliant miniature, right in Chapter One. Frederic is on a boat home to the provinces, and he meets and falls in love with Madame Arnoux. A harpist appears to play music, and Frederic enjoys the music hugely because he's in love. When the harpist passes the hat, Frederic drops in a gold louis because his mood is so happy. A few moments later, he "realizes" that this was all the money he had; he's hungry for lunch and doesn't have a sou to his name. Now, while we may want to pardon the sentimental excesses of youth, it is also brilliantly clear that Frederic had better outgrow this habit of giving away his last franc for no reason at all, especially when he needs it to eat! Well, he doesn't outgrow the habit, to put it briefly. There is an entire subplot involving Frederic's idiotic mishandling of money. But that's not all: Frederic graduated at the head of his class in high school, and apparently has a brilliant legal career ahead of him. So -- does he study hard? Does he persevere? A better question would be: why does Frederic just stop going to his university law classes, and sink into idleness? But there is more -- much, much more -- in this wonderful book. I'll give you one small example which I finally noticed myself. In Chapter One, Frederic meets Madame Arnoux, and hears that her first name is "Marie." (He shouts it out loud, later on, walking down a lonely country road.) Many chapters later, someone apparently insults the reputation of his "true love," saying that all Paris knows about "Sophie Arnoux." But that's not her right name! Frederic could easily (and devastatingly reply), "You can't know much about that lady if you don't even know her name," but he misses this chance, goes on to become furious, and winds up forced to fight a duel! This may be the best book Flaubert ever wrote, and it is certainly one of the best novels ever written. Highest possible recommendation!!

Surprisingly modern:
The American author, Thomas Wolfe, wrote that one of the keys to life was to "get reason and emotions pulling together in double harness". This novel by Flaubert could be said to examine the consequences of letting emotions take over completely. We are presented with a world in which hedonism, materialism and narcissism take precedence over truth, and care and respect for others - the only value system is self-gratification. Other people have no intrinsic worth. Given its take on life, I found this a novel to have a curiously modern feel - it reminded me in parts (in approach if not style)of Bret Easton Ellis. The initial surprise was that it was written so long ago. However, when one considers the socio-economic changes prevailing at that time, I questioned my surprise. Is it strange that a critique of the "unacceptable face of capitalism" (and one may add politics) should come at such a time? The real value of "A Sentimental Education" is that it's a reminder that at various periods of history, some people do pause and reflect on human progress and the price we pay for it - does "progress" have any worth unless our values develop too?

A superb translation of a perfect novel:
This is simply one of the most satisfying novels I have ever read. And the Parmee translation is excellent - there is not an awkward word or phrase anywhere in the text. Flaubert loved to write fiction which captured the pettiness, baseness, and stupidity of human relations. Misanthrope might be too harsh a word for Flaubert, but he certainly didn't have much patience for the sort of crass greed and shallow, unquestioning conformity he witnessed as a young man in Paris in the Revolution of 1848. I understand that Flaubert started working on this novel very early in his career, but abandoned it several times before finally bringing it to pres in 1869. The care and time Flaubert took in writing this novel shows, especially when you compare it to Madame Bovary, Flaubert's famous book. Bovary is an easier book to "understand". Flaubert may have felt misunderstood. Bovary can be read as an attack on the bourgeoisie, their dull, conformist lives, and the stupid and ultimately self-defeating passions they indulge in an effort to escape from the suffocating monotony of their existence. Or it can be read, as most readers tend to read, as a morality tale about the tragic consequences of adultery. The Sentimental Education sets the record straight, however. Flaubert was not a moralist preaching on the sins of adultery in Bovary. This novel makes that obvious. Here Flaubert again takes up an attack on the bourgeoisie, this time leaving no room for misunderstanding. I once met someone (a literature student specializing in 19th century fiction, no less!) who complained to me how boring she thought the Sentimental Education was. So boring that she never bothered to finish it. To this day I believe she approached the book in the wrong frame of mind. She may have been expecting some Balzac-ish bildungsroman, about the provincial who comes to Paris and grows into a society man. Instead, she discovered a novel about a dull provincial who comes to Paris thinking he is going to grow into a society man, but is such a poor judge of human character and relations that he meets defeat at every corner. But it is one thing to say the book is dull. It is another to point out that Frederic Moreau is a very dull human being. But then, we remember... we know people like Moreau. At some point or another, we all may have even behaved like Moreau. And we know and live in a society composed of people like the rest of the characters. Moreau's world is the world of bourgeoisie. 150 years later, in another language on another continent, I am surprised to see how little some things have changed. Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, has analyzed this novel extensively (see "The Rules of Art" and "The Field of Cultural Production") because he finds the document perfect for sociological analysis of the bourgeoisie and the intellectual communities that developed in Paris in 1848. Flaubert had a brutally frank eye and pen, quick to capture the most subtle social implications in a single gesture. After reading Flaubert and Bourdieu, I am haunted by how persistent and relevent Flaubert's vision of society and human relations continues to be.

A refreshing cold bath of realism:
This is one of those books that every college Freshmen should read. No novel protrays intellectuals more accurately than this one. Flaubert documents their vanity, their dishonesty, their pettiness and their depravity. He shows us what really awful human beings they are. Young people well advised to read the novel before entering the college scene. It will help them enter the academic world with at least some inkling of what the majority (admittedly, not all) intellectuals are really like. There is an additional reason for reading "The Sentimental Education." It may very well be the most perfect novel ever produced. Not a single word, description, phrase is wasted. It belongs on any short list of the greatest books of all time.