All Posts(If you’ve already looked at my last post on Little Nemo and the images were missing, please check it out again. Some of the image paths were messed up, so they didn’t appear.)
When it rains it pours, I just put up that long post on Nemo and now I find my review of Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pecuchet, in a new translation by Mark Polizzotti (Dalkey Archive, 2005), has gone up at The Quarterly Conversation. It’s one of my favorite novels, so I highly recommend it.
Many authors leave behind unfinished works when they die. Far fewer leave behind unfinished works that can be considered masterpieces. Gustave Flaubert’s last unfinished novel Bouvard and Pecuchet is without question his masterpiece, even in its unfinished state, towering above the more famous, but less enjoyable, Madame Bovary.
Derek! good to see this review. I’m a big fan of Bouvard & Pecuchet, though I haven’t seen the new translation, but when you’re talking about Flaubert’s masterpieces, is it wise to leave out the Sentimental Education? To my mind (and in the minds of many others), it’s the best of all of them . . .
Personally, I prefer B&P. That said, I do hold Sentimental Education higher than Madame Bovary, but Bovary is the one most people are familiar with.
Do give the new translation a try, Dan.
Perhaps I should reread Sentimental Education one of these days.