Gustave Flaubert
3 books
- Emma wants the life her novels promised and Yonville keeps handing her Charles instead, and you watch her chase that feeling straight over a cliff. Flaubert never flinches or pities.
- Flaubert rebuilding ancient Carthage stone by jeweled stone: Mâtho stealing the sacred veil, mercenaries starving in a gorge, everything gorgeous and cruel at once. If you can enjoy prose that lingers over temples and carnage equally, this is strange, heady stuff.
- Félicité, the servant in A Simple Heart, will quietly break you, a whole life of devotion poured into people who barely notice, and then a stuffed parrot. Flaubert writes slowly and precisely, so read these when you're patient, not when you want plot.