Nothing too sentimental about Flaubert’s Sentimental Education

I’ve always struggled with the idea of Gustave Flaubert. Sentimental Education feels like it should be a balanced combination of that sardonic satire and exploration of human flaws, but it only comes off as a boring and pretentious work. To be honest, I don’t know what’s so special about Madame Bovary either — I disliked the work when I read it in uni and I thought I might have missed some important themes, which I probably did.

I need to admit that I didn’t do much reflection on my reading during those times. Yet, reading Sentimental Education gives me the same feels as when I read Madame Bovary some fifteen years ago: bored shitless, a feeling like it could be a profound work if I dig a little deeper and a feeling of apathy to all the characters and the events that passed through the book.

What makes Gustave Flaubert so great? I honestly don’t fucking know. He’s known for his meticulous style, painstakingly trying to find “le mot juste” so he achieves a rhythmic style. Perhaps this does not translate well but I honestly doubt that I will pick him up in French. In English, his style comes off as long-winded and commonplace for the most part, but undeniably there are passages of real beauty which comes through in the translation. For all it’s worth, Flaubert, through his words, remains one of the best painters of Parisian life of the epoch.

Navigating through the labyrinths of society for the sake of a woman

Frédéric Moreau, a student of law fell hopelessly in love with the older Madame Arnoux and spends his life creeping up to her. Yet, in his life, getting to her is not an easy task. He needs to handle his relationship with her husband and his inner circles. Moreau’s best mate, Deslauriers would advise him to befriend the Dambreuses, the upper echelon of society.

There are other challenges too, such as money. Even after the death of his uncle and Moreau inherited his entire wealth, money still falls through his hands. Then there are the affairs. Even though he’s very much in love with Mme Arnoux, Moreau is still chasing M. Arnoux’s mistress, Rosanette. Then there are the throngs of the French Revolution just around the corner, the Second Republic is hot on the heels of the nation, and there’s barely any place for the aristocrats.

But it’s all smokes and mirrors. The closer he gets to M. Arnoux, the more obvious the bullshit in his life, as his factory on the outskirts of Paris is heavily mortgaged and he’s criminally in debt. Moreau, a naïve young man, manages to get himself tangled in the web somehow. Moreau will continue his obsession for years and years, despite maintaining a mistress, despite planning to marry Mme Dambreuse who had become a widow much later on.

In search of Flaubert’s greatness, though I didn’t look too hard

Flaubert somehow reminds me of Henry James with his writing of social entanglements with largely the middle and upper classes. And though James was a fan of Madame Bovary, he had this to say about Sentimental Education:

“Here the form and method are the same as in Madame Bovary; the studied skill, the science, the accumulation of material, are even more striking; but the book is in a single word a dead one. Madame Bovary was spontaneous and sincere; but to read its successor is, to the finer sense, like masticating ashes and sawdust. L’Education Sentimentale is elaborately and massively dreary.”

And I largely agree with him, and I can only assume that Henry James read it in the original French. And I reckon Henry James can be a bit of a wanker as well when he writes these types of novels. I fucking hated The Ambassadors. Actually I hated that novel more than I dislike this one.

What Flaubert tried to attain was a mockery of the social structures of the middle class and aristocracies. He would painstakingly write about the details and the conversations of these rich people parties, creating a vivid image of needless extravagance and a forgetting of moral principles. But I begin to suspect that Flaubert had been in these parties himself and though he had made a mockery of it, he might have been nose deep in the degeneracy.

Yet, it is a book I was rooting for. My earliest memory of the book was having a conversation with a pretty French girl that I couldn’t help liking back when I was in uni and she had liked this book, which she had to study in her courses. And it follows that liking her made me want to like this book. But I’m supposing the French could appreciate Flaubert a fair bit more than non-French readers. It is not just the language, but also the history.

I supposed I needed to polish up on my knowledge of French history, especially during the Second Republic and the French Revolution. This is after all, a crucial time in the nation’s history. Many great works had come out from the country at this time. Admittedly, this is part of the strengths of the book, when Flaubert painted such a clear depiction of the events which transpired during this time, and the quagmire of the changes in the social dynamics.

It also serves to build his main character in Moreau, as he simultaneously become involved and detached from these historical events. Early on, under the influence of Dambreuse, who feared his own position as an aristocrat, he schemed to plant Moreau as his mouthpiece, but that also failed spectacularly when Moreau himself was accused of aristocracy. From here on, he would escape outside of the city to spend time with his mistress while the dins and the violence of the revolution was occurring in the background.

There is nothing I like about Frédéric Moreau. I might have also attributed this mild feeling of dislike to the fact that I had read Eugene Onegin and Manon Lescaut right before this, and that feeling of dissatisfaction, that spleen had become a little bit too familiar. So then I will need to read something starkly different instead of the mental problems of the rich.

Unquestionably, the book and thus Flaubert himself, had imprinted his mark on writers to come including some of my favourite writers: Zola, Turgenev. His writing has influenced sociological writings of Foucault, Barthes and Sartre, who all had written about him and his works. His legacy, thus, had a lot to be admired.

Yet, for the life of me, I still can’t figure out why Flaubert is so bloody great. My reading brain couldn’t justify his reputation and since I really don’t want to burn more mental effort in trying to deny my own observations and intuition, I’m going to leave at that.