Gustave Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary outraged France's right-thinking bourgeoisie when it was first published in 1857, is brought to life in Frederick Brown's new biography in all his singularity and brilliance. Frederick Brown's portrayal is of an artist fraught with contradictions - his wit and bravado coexisting with great vulnerability.
A sedentary man by nature, Flaubert undertook epic voyages through Egypt and the Middle East. He could be flamboyantly uncouth, but was fanatically devoted to a beautifully cadenced prose. While energized by his camaraderie with male friends, such as Turgenev, the Goncourt brothers, Zola and Maupassant, he depended for emotional nurturing upon maternal women, most notably George Sand.
Nineteenth-century France literally put Flaubert on trial for portraying 'lewd behaviour' in Madame Bovary. But it also made him a celebrity and, indirectly, brought about his financial ruin, probably hastening his sudden death at the age of fifty-nine. Although writing was something like torture for him, it preoccupied his mind and dominated his life. He privately dreamed of popular success, which he achieved with Madame Bovary, but adamantly refused to sacrifice to it his ideal of artistic integrity.
Of Flaubert's life, his inner world, his times and his legacy, Frederick Brown's magisterial biography is a revelation. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize for biography and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Imprint: Vintage Digital
Published: 30/06/2013
ISBN: 9781448189618
Length: 640 Pages
RRP: £14.99
Magnificent... Brown's biography will clearly be the Life for this generation
Frederick Brown, as might be expected of the biographer of Zola, is at his strongest when dealing with the social and political background to Flaubert's life...This is the biography which will best help us to understand Flaubert's reactions to the ceaseless political turmoil of his life
Very rewarding... few men have been more truly extraordinary than Flaubert, to whom Brown takes us as close as it is possible to be other than in the flesh... The best biographies are fine books, and this is one of the very best. It leaves the reader with a whole world to think about and an enlivened mind with which to do the thinking
Wonderfully rich and enjoyable
Brown's book will win Flaubert many new or returning readers... Funny, racy, gossipy and erudite by turns.