Sentimental Education (Penguin Classics)
by Gustave Flaubert
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Read in January, 1986
I read this based on Woody Allen's recommendation 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 on...more
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recommends it for:
the well-read and those who claim to be
Flaubert's protagonist Frédéric Moreau is not a likable character. Connected in various ways to characters variously connected to the French Revolution of 1848, Frédéric, like most of the novel's other characters, is a distant, dispassionate observer of the political upheaval around him. Frédéric, like most of the novel's other characters, does however pay scrupulous attention to his own fleeting needs, whether love, sex, money, status, or otherwise.
At the core of the novel is Frédér...more
At the core of the novel is Frédér...more
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Read in July, 2008
A portrait of a young man so self-obsessed that he misses the monumental changes going on around him, Sentimental Education seems to be Flaubert's case against humanity. Frederic Moreau, initially idealistic, discards friends, obsesses over mistresses, spends money flagrantly, and fixates on his public perception. I never had the slightest sympathy for Frederic, but Flaubert likely intended it that way--his novel seems to be an important antecedent to naturalism, and I can imagine Hardy, ...more
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Read in December, 2007
Flaubert, Flaubert, Flaubert. (I actually have no real issue with Flaubert, I just enjoy beginning my ranting reviews pedantically.)
This is a decent younger sibling to his classic, Madame Bovary. It features one of the two nineteenth century protaganists I'd most like to box on the ears and tell them to get a clue, Frederic Moreau. The other being Prince Myshkin of The Idiot which, incidentally, was published the year before Sentimental Education. Weird.
Whenever I read Flaubert, I'm ...more
This is a decent younger sibling to his classic, Madame Bovary. It features one of the two nineteenth century protaganists I'd most like to box on the ears and tell them to get a clue, Frederic Moreau. The other being Prince Myshkin of The Idiot which, incidentally, was published the year before Sentimental Education. Weird.
Whenever I read Flaubert, I'm ...more
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Read in July, 2007
i had been looking for books that will unflinchingly, unevaluatingly look at how human beings feel and play through their desires. this fit that bill. flaubert has a way of being totally direct and without ornament while making the world his characters exist in seem sublime. frederic is (of course) entirely unsentimentalized, which makes his education truly worth following the whole way through. the way it begins with a childish crush on an older woman and follows all of frederic's journeys up t...more
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Read in January, 2006
Cynicism, ennui, and failure have never been so beautifully nor coureageously rendered.
Well, alright, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things, I guess, that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me...oh, I would say...what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing...um...and Willie Mays, and um, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and um...Louie Armstrong's recording of 'Potatohead Blues'...um, Swedish movies, naturally...'Sentimental Education' by Flaubert.... ...more
Well, alright, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things, I guess, that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me...oh, I would say...what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing...um...and Willie Mays, and um, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and um...Louie Armstrong's recording of 'Potatohead Blues'...um, Swedish movies, naturally...'Sentimental Education' by Flaubert.... ...more
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Read in April, 2008
no, didn't finish. three quarters through, and i just got weary of 'and then he sent to his lawyer for 1,500 francs. did he still love her? not at all! oh, wait, did he? he wasn't sure. yes! he would die for her! but no, he would never think of her again! and then he got engaged to the girl next door.' i sympathized most with his roommate, who, after months of hearing madame arnoux this and madame arnoux that, began just inserting the word 'arnoux' arbitrarily in every other sentence. ...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommended to Bryan by:
James Wood
This is the first I've read of Flaubert. I picked it up because James Wood makes a few references to this particular work in his new book, "How Fiction Works," and he described it with such ardor that I could not help satisfying my curiousity. Turns out Wood is right: reading Flaubert feels, often, like reading modern fiction. Throughout Sentimental Education I was reminding myself that this was an old book, that this was a time gone by. Alongside the works of Joyce, this is by ...more
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Read in February, 2008
I admittedly had low expectations for this book, but it's actually an amazing achievement. It reads like a frivolous 19th Century episodic novel, but right in the middle the revolutions of 1848 happen, so while the tone remains gossipy and Parisian, the content becomes serious and historical. This makes for a great balance, similar to Gore Vidal's political novels, which I love. Flaubert is also hysterical, and there's much great slapstick and parlor comedy in here. I may never get around to...more
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I didn't think I was into this book, but it has really stayed with me. In this novel, the protagonist Frederic is caught in a seemingly endless cycle of disappointment, due in no small part to his own vacillation. I read this book in a class; while the other novels featured dramatic events like suicide and executions, Frederic's predicament was just as devastating, and perhaps more realistic.
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Such a talented writer, but I can't help but wonder if he wouldn't have been better off agonizing a little less over word choice and placement; there's something constipated about him at times. Doubtless because I can only read him in translation, and I feel very guilty about it. One owes it to Flaubert to learn French. But I surely can't be blamed for wishing he had been more prolific?
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Read in August, 2004
Completely immersion for the time period. I imagine that's why it's great. It completely encapsulates the culture, the shifting trends and norms as well as everything that leads up to the French Revolution. All from the eyes of one young man. At first, I thought that nothing happened. That's because I'm used to the standard Joyce-proclaimed "epiphany" that we often have these days.
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recommends it for:
people who want to hate-then-love something
I read this book for a class, and hated it at first for two reasons: 1 was the class, and 2 was that F's writing can be stuffy and dense if you're not in the mood. The energy that goes into the prose slowly started to turn me on, and this ended up being a great reading experience. Historical context is pretty accurate, too.
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'Madame Bovary' es una de mis novelas favoritas, así que empecé 'La educación sentimental' con toda la ilusión del mundo, pero no pude con ella. Tanta descripción impresionista me hacía venir dolor de cabeza. Es un libro que me agotaba. No sé si me atreveré nunca a volverlo a intentar.
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Read in April, 2008
Please do not read this book unless you have someone knowledgeable to talk to about it. On the surface it may seem incredibly dull, but it is a great lens into the french revolution and the lives of the people that lived in that time as well as a great look into the small things that make us human.
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don't remember it very well - but on second glance, wish i had read it more closely. choice quotes include:
"The political verbiage and good food began to dull his sense of morality" (359) "Let the common people be moral and they will be less poor." (238) and "Heroes don't smell very nice" (288)
"The political verbiage and good food began to dull his sense of morality" (359) "Let the common people be moral and they will be less poor." (238) and "Heroes don't smell very nice" (288)
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Read in January, 2002
He always ends the books too far into the future when things are sadder than they were even at the lowest point of the novels! But I'm glad I finally read them, seeing as I mostly really like the 19th century French novels and it's good to know about the famous books from first hand experience.
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All around this is a decent read. Nothing over the top... It's sort of like watching seinfeld. ya ain't learning much, but when you gotta go to the bathroom, ya still wait til the next commercial. except instead of a commercial it's the end of the chapter.
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Flaubert is a master of style. His main character does not see the point of the book. He has missed out on life's most important moments because he is a coward yet he is too blind to see his own faults and the shallowness of the life he has led.
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Okay, not Flaubert at his best, but it is a marvelous send up of the artist as a young dilettante. What was our young hero doing in the middle of a revolution? Lusting after women. Looking for the perfect beauty. How we waste our youth!
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