Flaubert and Madame Bovary

by Francis Steegmuller

Book by Steegmuller, Francis

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Literary Criticism, France, Literature, History, Books About Books

365 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 1977

About the author

Francis Steegmuller was an American biographer, translator and fiction writer, who was known chiefly as a Gustave Flaubert scholar.

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy]

A book recommended by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://www.listchallenges.com/f-scot...

Unannotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It might be due to a sad desire for vicarious identification with the driven, inventive and deeply creative souls on display, but I've really got a yen for literary biographies. Ellmann, Edel, etc, you want to make me a fly on the wall for a writer I respect and love and I'm glued to the page.

See, more often than not, when I'm reading a book I compulsively turn to the back page or flap and intently examine the author photo. I want to see the author, look the sumbitch in the eye, because after all, before the computers take over, books are still written by human beings- people with livers and headaches and siblings and childhoods and vast, incoherent longings that keep them up all night.

I really do buy into the Bloomian adage that reading a book is like meeting a new person, and that you can never know enough people.

Flaubert's a perfect match for this kind of treatment. He's so literarily biographical that it just begs the question.

This counts double since he is, after all, a pretty much universally respected writer and had such an impact on pretty much everything to come after him. I mean, how many career readers can you get in a room together who will admit to NOT having read Madame Bovary?

And, sort of like the Velvet Underground, everybody who did read it (especially when it came hot off the presses and into the sweaty, hot little hands of the govt censors) started writing a novel of their own. Or, at least, re-thinking the one they had going.

And Flaubert! Definitely the o.g. when it came to being a misanthrope with a heart of gold, or at least a very sentimental, bitter man, a dedicated stylist and also someone who was constantly, willfully at odds with his era, his class, his family, his lovers and friends and, at times, his very existence.

The guy who can't stand boring, provincial, middle-class people from nowhere hunkering down to a lifetime of going very few other places than this leafy hell.

I wanted to know about him- not necessarily to know him, mind- and I wanted to see just how far his famous Madame Bovary, c'est moi really went.

Steegmuller, as the introduction points out, is the ideal curator for the Flaubert tour. He was someone who Flaubert would probably have actually liked, and this was a judgment kept at a distance and with a nigh-Olympian disdain by a guy who lived with his mother and pretty much made it his hobby to sneer at gentleman's taste: "the hatred of the bourgeoisie is the beginning of virtue"...oh, is it, now? Who you been hangin' round with, son?

That's part of what makes this book so great, at least for me. You don't just get a cinematically vivid account of the Bear of Croisset, you get insightful and appreciative portraits of his inner circle, and it's not an entirely large one, at that.

Poor Flaubert! To be young, gifted, and a hot little hater in how-do-you-do, keeping-up-appearances, wobbly Third Republic-era France. Nobody got him. His father, a prominent and obsessive doctor, would operate on patients all day most days within easy sight of the windows overlooking the courtyard where lil' Gustave and his sister would play, stopping to peer into the window at all the viscera and muck....not a bad training for the capital-R realist-to-be...

Though it should also said that papa Flaubert nodded off after ten minutes of his son reading him his prose, sputtered awake, and mumbled something to the effect of 'the important thing is you tried, son' and ambled away...

Seems the only thing an imaginative and sensitive young man has to do is to pass his hours reading the ultra-Romantics- Hugo, Chateaubriand, Byron, Shakespeare- by skulking around the rural countryside like frustrated malcontents of yore with no one for wavelength camaraderie but your self-pitying, grandiose, capital-R romantic school pal and puff your pipe amid some gorgeous, desolate ruins, cursing your bitter luck that you were born in the century where all the schmucks are.

Then there's the crew- GF, of course, then you've got the practical, worldly, charming and sophisticated Maxime Du Camp and the studious, humble, tactful, perennially broke poet Louis Bouliet....all three of whom love the exotic, decadent and super-intense, operatic joys of antiquity and love composing deeply sarcastic parodies of all the hot writers of the day. The parts describing their weekly meetings was a combination Elks Club, faculty lounge, Bloomsbury, and jam session.

Throw in some quasi-epileptic, psycho-somatic and deeply disturbing reactions to the boogey powers that be ("Augh! Dad! Jesus! Don't make me go to law school!") and a neurotic, helpless, grieving mother with a poetic groupie drama queen with an eye for talent who happens to be your first (and only) romantic love interest and whose affected self-regard and fairly delusional intimations of grandeur rival even your own and you've got all the apples to make a pie, you know?

But it takes a while to ease into the whole thing. Gertrude Stein said that in order for an artist to create- and let's not kid ourselves, she's talking Picasso here- then one must empty oneself periodically of all the forms they have come to know, to master, to truly see in all their glory. G.F. has got to see some palm trees, soak in the Mediterranean air, check out some hieroglyphics and get himself laid, for once.

Flaubert and Maxime score some bullshit journo credentials and take off for an 18-moth tour of the East- Egypt, Greece, Lebanon, Tunisia, all that good stuff. They see some real ruins, teeming marketplaces, snake charmers, naked dancing sexy courtesans, bootleggers, camels, ancient elder forests and did I mention sexy courtesans who would be much obliged to sweeten your night, given the proper procedure...

Steegmuller rightly pulls back at this point, taking us out of his witty and perceptive and near-cinematically (have I said that before?) vivid narrative to let Flaubert's letters (always coming, always in constant supply, his circle of intimates is small but tight) do the talking. I'd love to quote from these, but I foolishly returned the book to library before I realized I'd wanted to save some quotes.

Well, trust me, seeing the 'Orient' as through the eyes of an already world-weary, stubborn, laceratingly prose-obsessed chap is instructive in its own right. Reading his casual yet intimate account of spending the night with a Babylonian lady of night was odd, certainly, but at the same time I felt something similar to what good old Boliet must have felt when he anxiously tore open the daily envelope while buttering his bread in nowhere suburbia...

So he comes back and he reads his so-called masterpiece to be to his friends with the strict instructions not to interrupt him for the 25 hours it takes to get through "The Temptation of St Anthony"...with some judicious hems and haws and some exasperated interpolation courtesy of the anxious, denial-drunk M.C.

They say what any good friend would say after being subjected to some of the more tedious experiences of their lives.

They say, in unison, and with great tactfulness, that Flaubert ought to knock that lurid nonsense off and try for something a little closer to home, something he knows a little bit better, something that isn't so far-fetched. Apparently, there's a lady who lived nearby who was married to this klutzy, unsuccessful doctor who was totally cheating on him and racking up huge shopping bills and who'd recently poisoned herself with arsenic...

And then, boom. Months of arduous labor go by. Flaubert didn't write easily at all- he compared it to playing piano with lead weights on your fingers, why should I worry myself over these miserable, deluded pathetic little characters, what is to goddamn special about this miserable ho-bag and why should I give a shit, I got pagan torture scenes to write here...

It's a good lesson for any budding writer, I think: keep it simple, stupid! No need to just leap off the edge into total florid prose land. The movement you need is on your shoulder. The greatest poem is the daily newspaper, after all. You think only art matters? Well, you're gonna have to hold the mirror to nature if you want to get anything done, there, chief. Less introspection and fantasy and more storytelling, please. Less talk, more rock....

But- here's the thing that pushes Flaubert over into the fascinating category, for me- he's feeling it. As in, starting to really get himself involved with the situation and the drama and the tractor beam that is the story of a sensitive, intelligent young woman who has read too many romance novels and is married to a sweet-natured, if hapless, doofus.

One of my favorite quotes of all time from any writer on their work is the moment when Flaubert's writing one of his daily dairy/letters to a friend and he says that when he wrote the word 'tremble' (was it tremble? I think it was tremble...) he immediately felt dizzy, exhausted, all caught up in the whirlpool of what poor Emma was going through that he felt like someone who had fucked too much (italics in the original). Damn. That's some serious stuff. I mean, no tears for the writer no tear for the reader, am I right?

He's really putting himself through some rigorous imaginative sympathy here. That wanton woman is really just a dreamer with an optimistic is naive soul who wants very much to be somewhere she's not and be doing something, anything, else than what she's doing, what her life is going to be; can, in a certain sense, only be.

It's so ironic, because the 19th Century version of the comic book guy is dissolving his spite and hostility and constant defensiveness into the real live consciousness of another, albeit imaginary, being. If you want to get Jungian about it, Emma is his 'anima', his feminine side, his amanuensis and emotional avatar.

Weeks and pages pass. His mother frets about her son's health and goes back to elaborate, muted self-pity. His friends start to branch out and slowly make some kind of a name for themselves in the Parisian literary world, which Flaubert visits infrequently and acts like kind of a douchebag when he does deign to join in the reindeer games...

Finally, the thing is done- serialized, approved by his dedicated and supportive but critical and exacting friends- and the bigwigs decide to ban it. Something about wanton sex fiend caught up in a web of deceit and romance and adultery and spending too much goddamn money and with an author/creator who doesn't even have the common courtesy to punish or upbraid her for her indecency. The nerve!

Flaubert corrected the grammar of the prosecutor during the friggin trial. One witness read the book aloud, causing appropriate chuckles and oohs and aahs of enjoyment to the assembled crowd. The whole thing was a total joke, a mighty pointless exercise in what-will-we-tell-the-children. Flaubert walked. Baudelaire and Victor Hugo sent their regards and distant support.

Our hero is older now- bald, wrinkled, fat, dark circles under his eyes, sloppy mustache, nervous and exhausted. He went on to write some other books, of course, but this is the one that sort of took it out of him, made him a writer for real- meaning one who sits in a room all day (or night, in his case) and puts words on paper, hour after hour, working his fingers to the bone to get them just right. This was the bill he had to pay to get what was within him out- the millstone around his neck, his albatross; in his mind, a dirty book briefly outraging decent, middle-class taste for his legacy.

Tourists would routinely spot him standing in the backyard of his mother's house clad only in a night gown, listening to the wind, staring at nothing in particular.

[M. D. Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The local library has been de-accessioning books by the ton, including lots of biographies, big fat ones from 1900-1950. At five for a dollar, or a quarter apiece, these are hard to resist, but many of them are kind of sad – not that they are out of date, exactly, but you just know they are not exactly current either, and the worst of them marred by the author’s contemporary judgements and moralizing. Which means I have added to the overall mass of my library without always enhancing its utility or ability to please…

O but I do not include this book among the failures! Francis Steegmuller does a wonderful job (despite the rather corny title). The book is basically an account of Flaubert’s life, as described in his letters to friends, friends’ letters to him, and various contemporary accounts and bits of expository connecting tissue provided by Steegmuller. To his eternal credit, Steegmuller is open-minded, has a subtle wit, and adores his subjects. Even Flaubert’s mistress, the poetess and romantic intriguer Louise Colet is treated sympathetically and with respect (although she often doesn’t deserve it). The best part is Flaubert’s own words, not surprisingly. He was, like all of us, flawed, but what a genius he was! And although he suffered all the writer’s agonies, he never really doubted this genius. What this book shows is how Flaubert developed, and how this development was fostered by two solid, honest friends (Louis Hyacinthe Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp) and Flaubert’s strength of character to believe them when they told him he was writing poorly. Du Camp flaked out on him, eventually, but not before publishing Madame Bovary in his influential literary magazine.

Flaubert is a puzzle, of course. Madame Bovary is a masterpiece, but his other work is so different – Sentimental Education is understandable, but Salammbo? The Temptation of St. Anthony? These works are addressed, especially St. Anthony, which Flaubert wanted so much to be his masterpiece. How this peculiar oeuvre came to be emerges from this book, and it is done economically and naturally, without any theory-mongering of the literary or political or psychological sort. How rare this is in any literary biography, especially one from the mid-century.

As a bonus, you get to follow Flaubert and Du Camp on their travels to the fleshpots of North Africa and Asia Minor. Although Steegmuller does not include Flaubert’s graphic descriptions of his own venereal diseases, there is enough debauchery here to keep their journey from feeling neutered.

It brought me much pleasure to see this book has been reissued by New York Review Books. Great! It deserves to be a classic. My copy is a first printing from 1939, stoutly rebound in bright red buckram, I feel compelled to mention this, pitying you in advance for having to make do with a crummy paperback.

[Kathrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An idea comes to mind from George Stewart's Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, that, when naming our nation's natural features, often Elm Creek would be named such because of the lack of elms, rather than their profusion; that's what made the creek distinctive -- that one elm tree that marked the creek crossing. In the same way, Flaubert is the father of Realism -- for that one novel he managed to write that changed the course of the modern novel. But Realism was quite the opposite style of his natural voice, and he struggled to suppress his romantic visions and narrative intercessions in order to let his characters tell the story themselves, through actions and attentions to gesture, landscape and dialogue. In fact, his later novels Sentimental Education and The Temptation of St. Antony were only published after he had exercised this discipline, but were originally drafted, and persuaded by his literary friends not to publish yet, in his earliest years as an author, and were almost entirely re-written with the goal of reigning in his romanticism. Madame Bovary was the "thunderclap" he had dreamed of marking his entrance to the literary world, but how easily it may not have been, had his confidant, Louis Bouilhet, not interceded.
I really enjoyed the way Steegmuller designed this work; his voice is a welcome pairing to Flaubert's, whose voice is very present throughout the biography. Part 2 is entirely a collocation of letters sent from Flaubert to his mother, his mistress and Bouilhet, as well as parts of a travelogue later published by his traveling companion, Maxime Du Camp, as they traveled through the Orient in 1849-1851. His impressions are delightful, and can be traced to his later writings and opinions. His ongoing relationship with poet Louise Colet reads like a soap opera, or maybe operetta. And what a treat to discover a correspondence between himself and Victor Hugo, who used Flaubert's assistance in forwarding mail during his exile from France.
I would recommend this title to any writers out there who struggle with defining their voice, as it will be comforting to befriend this eccentric, opinionated, self-doubting, reclusive mamma's boy and watch him become a pillar of the literary cannon.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caveat: this is not the book 'Madame Bovary.' It is biography of Flaubert focused on explaining how he came to write Madame Bovary.
This book gives you the best of both worlds: Steegmuller did a lot of research, and has interesting things to say about the origins of 'Madame Bovary,' both the book and the woman; on the other hand, it reads like a nicely written novel, except that at the end, instead of 'dear reader, i married him,' you get 'dear reader, he published it.' My only complaint is that it doesn't engage in much discussion of the Madame Bovary the book's actual contents and structure, although he quotes Baudelaire's review, which says something like that you could write about Madame Bovary for ever. I'd love to read Steegmuller's analysis of Bovary, or of the novels that followed it for that matter.

[Myles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steegmuller writes like his subject, a man who reveled in a world he found ceaselessly repellant. Needless to say there's an elegant and dark humor underlying every aspect of Flaubert's life even when his biographer isn't drawing from the thousands of surviving letters and scraps.

A generous survey of a life, Flaubert and Madame Bovary demonstrates Steegmuller's panache for selecting the crucial details and recording them so they speak for themselves. Like Flaubert, instead of offering any explicit analysis, he simply assembles his story and let's the facts reveal his characters. The experience is much like reading Bovary-- rich, comic, shattering.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfectly written and extremely readable double-biography of Gustave Flaubert and his fictional alter ego, Madame Bovary. This was the ideal companion for my re-reading of Lydia Davis' new translation of Madame Bovary, and I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in Flaubert, French literature, or the process of writing a great novel. Well done, Steegmuller.

[Nick (11th Volume) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any avid Flaubertian will know that Gustave considered Emma Bovary as most closely resembling himself. It made little sense for any literary biographer to ignore the complexities of Emma Bovary when writing about Flaubert. Steegmuller is the pre-eminent expert on Flaubert and you get the sense that for having translated reams of Flaubert’s letters, Steegmuller is as good a person as any to assert what Flaubert’s thoughts and feelings were during any given life event. You get the feeling that Steegmuller is muttering, “I’ve read and translated every letter he has ever sent or received, I damn well know what he was thinking.”

I’ve seen some criticism on this platform around Steegmuller’s choice to omit himself from the second part of the biography, that is, when Flaubert travels to the Orient. In my eyes, it worked. Steegmuller chose to exclusively include letters and journal entries from that period. When returning for part three, we are greeted with both Flaubert and his conduit Steegmuller, as if they’d both returned from their travels.

A wonderful biography that I highly recommend whether you're a Flaubertian or not!

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best literary non-fiction book I have read this year and Steegmuller's prose flows well enough to do his subject, masterfully-researched, justice. There are three parts: Flaubert's earlier creative life / notes, journal entries, and letters from his Orient Voyage / background, writing, trial, and aftermath of Madame Bovary. Interwoven are letters and backgrounds to his friends and lovers, including Maxime du Champ and Collette.

I reccomend this book indefinitely useful, particularly the first and third portions detailing Flaubert's prescision and work habits, to anyone seriously interested in the craft of writing or in terms of discipline for any sort of craft or art. If you find the loneliness of it all unbearable or contemplate the subtraction from a more social life in order to draw out and deliver the rich, inner life, this book and its subject are indispensible.

I had called something like fifteen bookstores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, new and used, and none had the book in stock. If you can find the book and are interested at all about buckling down to a project or are blocked and in need of inspiration that is non-fiction concerning fiction, this is a fine book.

The New York Review of Books has a similiar elucidated quality to it akin to Criterion Collection for film in that they seem incapable of issuing or reissuing anything bad. Steegmuller on Flaubert exceeded my expectations.

[Rebecca Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madame Bovary was a landmark book in the ways it blended romanticism and realism. Yet, its author, Gustave Flaubert despised the minutiae of everyday life, as well as the traditions and morals of society. The story of his life and how he, who despised realism, came to write a monumental novel of realism, is particularly interesting.

Francis Steegmuller wrote his classic biography Flaubert and Madame Bovary, which he calls a “double portrait,” in 1939. There were plenty of things I didn’t like, but this mostly was because of Gustave Flaubert himself. In my opinion, M. Flaubert seemed a particularly nasty individual. He despised people of his everyday life and the morals imposed by society.

Mr. Steegmuller’s inclusion of lots of M. Flaubert’s personal correspondence gives the reader a better understanding of the author himself. I found this a great way to give the reader a feel for the author’s personality and his writing style. I’m glad I read Mr. Steegmuller biography before I begin rereading M. Flaubert’s most popular novel.

More on my blog

[Merilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished it after over 2 years. Read the last third, on Mme. Bovary in 2 days. The long chapter on Flaubert's book, The Temptation of St Anthony, dragged for me, but the chapters on his Oriental travels and the writing of Mme B. were worth the slog. Steegmuller is a well-known Flaubert scholar and there is more than enough detailed information on Flaubert's life and his works (much gleaned from GF's letters). I had not been aware that one of Karl Marx's daughters had done the first translation into English and later committed suicide in a similar manner to Emma Bovary.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A page-turning biography of Flaubert in the decade leading up to writing his first published novel, Madame Bovary, including his nearly two-year journey through the Orient, and a portrait of how he wrote the novel, all told through a combination of excerpts from letters and biographical narrative. Basically, it’s the wild adventures of one of literature’s greatest writers, who lived at home with his mom most of his life and could be quite the ass to the people who suffered and supported him. Can’t wait to reread MB (Lydia Davis translation), one of my favorite books.

[Adam S. Rust · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ignore the shockingly lazy Part 2 of this book that just copies and pastes excerpts from letters and journals with no analysis or comment the other two parts provide a wonderful study on the creation of one of the great modern French novels. Definitely worth your time.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique account of a unique masterpiece.

[Milo Sussman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I thought it was. More a lit bio. Still fascinating to revel in the petty problems of a timeless figure.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I can think of nothing in the world I enjoy more than a nice room, well heated, with the right books and plenty of leisure.”

[vr reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

really makes you want to lock yourself away in a study for a few years

[Robert Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enlightening and thorough exploration of Flaubert’s life and his struggle to complete Madame Bovary. The archetypal troubled creative genius.

[T.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely excellent and compulsively readable. Going to look into his other biographies

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not, as the title would suggest, a study of Madame Bovary, but a biography of Flaubert. The author was a Flaubert scholar who translated many of his letters. The book is based on and quotes many of his letters, travel diaries, etc.; in some ways it's close to the nineteenth century genre of "life and letters." The book is divided into three parts; the first is called "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" and deals with his life up until he writes the first version of that novel; the second is a selection of letters, diaries, and a few selections from Maxime Du Camp about their journey in the Orient, with no comment whatsoever by Steegmuller; the third section is called "Madame Bovary" and goes from his return to France through the end of his life. There is also a brief Afterword.

Despite the title and the section titles, the book does not go very much into his writings; it focuses very heavily on his relationship with Louise Colet almost to the exclusion of everything else. The author tries much too hard to write in a novelish style. This is unfortunate because Flaubert's life is not all that interesting, except for his views on literature, which are downplayed. This is probably not the best biography of Flaubert, but it was the one I had (from a library booksale decades ago, I assume) and it was adequate for my purposes.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that needs to be read for many reasons. First the Steegmuller translation is very good, critics have said it as well as my comparing the translations. I enjoyed the story it was one that caused you to have many feelings about the characters. You can see the dreaded problems that will come from dangerous decisions, the main character Emma Bovary is probably a person a million women or men could Identify with which in and of itself is a problem. Her personal life crazy and sometimes infuriating made up bad choice, selfishness, lust, spite and maybe you'd say hatred of those who don't give into her. You will no doubt feel sorry for Emmas husband and may even have a life like theirs. Flaubert got a lot of grief for writng this provacative novel but sometimes I think these writings could also awake someone to the dangerous paths they are going down. It held my interest all the way through and I enjoyed the prose very much as well it was icing on the cake

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, Madame Bovary is the best book every written because it is the best-written novel ever written. Flaubert was above all a stylist, believing (correctly) that style and content were inseperable. I have never read (and doubt I ever will read) a book as beautifully written as Madame Bovary. What I learned is that style is more important than content. Yes, the story is wonderful, but the telling transports this novel into greatness.

[Richard Brand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I don't read French, I can not speak about the literary quality of the story. The translation is graceful and full of appropriate flourishes. All I can say about the story is what a stupid man Charles was. The psychological ups and downs of all the people were outside my experiences. I have not suffered from those kinds of passions, dreams, lust and hopes. I am glad that I have finished another classic novel.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel created one of the most compelling yet unlikeable female characters in literary history. Emma Bovary is a study in the vast contrast between what we think life owes us and what it has actually handed us. Flaubert's attention to detail is the key to the originality of this character.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating account of Flaubert and his creation. A novelistic look into both Flaubert's circumstances and his psychology, with long excerpts from his letters that give a good idea of what the man was thinking. Plus, there's a blurb from F. Scott Fitzgerald on the back!

[Elyse · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is well-written and has a pretty good character description of Madame Bovary. She is just so cynical and always looking for something else to make her happy. I also don't like the fact that she is not loyal to her husband.

[Joe Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great person gave me this book. What a momma's boy. What discipline. A good look at the influence of life on art, what permeates your studio and what stays without...

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most intellectually challenging book I read this year. It was dense reading at times but in the end I am glad I persevered and finished it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent reminder of what is important in life.

[Julia]

FLAUBERT AND MADAME BOVARY by FRANCIS STEEGMULLER (1957)