Book Review
Title: Sentimental Education
Author: Gustave Flaubert
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date: October 26, 2004
ISBN: 978-0140447972
With our busy schedules a lot of us have to keep an eye out not to miss those fleeting chances to get in some good reading. Fortunately, the holidays bring many of us a respite from our workaday routines. We might even come in from some of the cold nights and curl up in a cozy corner with one of those great books we’ve been meaning to sink our teeth into. But many may have a hard time selecting one to pull off the shelf. Here then is a suggestion.
I cannot help but be reminded of the great French novelist with his birthday just around the corner, December 12. Gustave Flaubert was one of the most colorful characters in literary history. His most difficult battle in life was governing his flamboyant imagination. This he accomplished with enormous discipline which allowed him to refine his art to a degree that is yet unrivaled in French literature. His idealism, tempestuous love affairs, and the Revolution of 1848 gave him the experience that crystalized in perhaps the greatest French novel ever; a historical novel, subtly blending fact and fiction, entitled Sentimental Education.
Sentimental Education is a sort of “intellectual history” showing how Flaubert and his peers, the young academicians of France, proceeded from idealism to realism from the years before the revolution to the years after. All the characters and the action corresponded to the real-life personalities and activities in Flaubert’s milieu. It’s full of great events and delightful conversation against the romantic background of nineteenth-century Paris.
The fine artistic writing style alone makes it exquisite reading. But Sentimental Education is a lively and spontaneous journey that also serves as an excellent window to an intriguing past society. It may lead you to want to read more of Flaubert, or other books about nineteenth-century Paris. In any case you will almost surely have an affinity for Sentimental Education years after you finish it.
Also see: Lottman’s Flaubert: A Biography.