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Bouvard and Pécuchet
Gustave Flaubert's classic novel
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1881
298 people are currently reading
7,787 people want to read
About the author
Gustave Flaubert
2,258books3,743followersGustave Flaubert was a French novelist. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.
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January 15, 2023
CARENZA DI SENSO
Ci sono libri che lasciano respirare aria di “genio�: belli e sfaccettati, coinvolgenti e brillanti, divertono e soddisfano.
Questo, per me, è uno di quelli.
O, forse, è proprio “quello�.
Qui, tra queste pagine, respiro, annuso, tocco genialità. E trovo Bellezza. Sento la grande letteratura.
Jean-Pierre Marielle/Bouvard e Jean Carmet/Pecuchet nell’omonimo film TV del 1989 diretto da Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe.
Oh, certo, si può dire che è così perché è incompleto.
Ma credo che la verità sia che non sarebbe mai stato possibile ultimarlo: Bouvard e Pecuchet è quanto più si avvicina alla Torre di Babele.
E qualcuno fece in modo (impedì) che quella torre fosse ultimata.
Così, qualcuno, qualcosa, si portò via Flaubert prima che potesse scrivere la parola fine a questo progetto mastodontico.
Non per mole: mastodontico per mira, per obiettivo. Peraltro, raggiunto già così.
Nel 1880, l�8 maggio, Flaubert se ne andò lasciando otto volumi ciascuno di circa trecento pagine, ritagli di stampa, schede di lettura e note di diverse, tutte di sua mano. Si dice che per documentarsi avesse letto già più di millecinquecento libri � oltre giornali e riviste.
Cercava di raccogliere il ‘bestiario� umano (umano!) della sua epoca. Enciclopedia della stupidità: pregiudizi (sociali, religiosi, politici), fanatismi, contraddizioni, banalità, luoghi comuni, superficialità spacciata per profondità, idiozia contrabbandata per intelligenza�
Sono passati centoquaranta anni e la misura della bêtise umana è cresciuta a dismisura, richiede server capienti.
La storia è presto detta.
Bouvard e Pecuchet sono due impiegati copisti che si incontrano e scoprono di condividere comuni interessi (per esempio, per l’agricoltura).
Un’eredità improvvisa consente loro di lasciare l’impiego e trasferirsi in campagna (vicino a Caen, nel Calvados).
Ma si rivelano presto pessimi agricoltori.
Si circondano di manuali ed enciclopedie per cambiare raggio d’azione: passano a occuparsi prima di medicina, poi di chimica, geologia, politica, letteratura, psicologia, si cimentano nella scrittura, nel romanzo storico � seguono ginnastica, spiritismo, magia, filosofia, pedagogia.
Alla fine decidono che è meglio tornare a fare gli impiegati copisti.
Trovo particolarmente pregnanti pensieri e parole che Roland Barthes ha dedicato a quest’opera e a quest’autore: Flaubert puntava più che all’enciclopedia, al dizionario. E non solo quello dei luoghi comuni. Ma proprio quello del linguaggio.
Bouvard e Pecuchet è un libro folle, è la crisi della verità, è carenza di senso (Levi-Strauss).
E qui passo a citarlo senza corsivo, e senza pudore:
Flaubert, accettando l'eredità classica, s'è messo nella prospettiva di un lavoro di stile, che era la regola di uno scrittore dopo Orazio e Quintiliano: lo scrittore è uno che lavora il suo linguaggio, che lavora la sua forma. Flaubert ha spinto questo lavoro in misura demenziale. Ne abbiamo mille esempi. Quando raccontava che impiegava otto ore per correggere cinque pagine, che per Madame Bovary ha impiegato anche una settimana per quattro pagine, che trascorse un lunedì e un martedì interi a limare due righe, etc.
Questo lavoro della forma sfocia nella categoria dell' atroce. L'atroce rappresenta un sacrificio totale e ostinato di colui che scrive. Flaubert s'è incarcerato a Croisset all'età di venticinque anni. Quest'imprigionamento è rappresentato, emblematizzato, da quel mobile indispensabile del suo studio, il letto, dove si andava a gettare quand'era a corto d’idee: ciò che lui considerava come l'atto del "marinare".
In questo tormento di stile Flaubert portava due croci particolarmente pesanti: la caccia maniacale alle ripetizioni e le transizioni, ossia i punti di snodo del testo.
E l'alibi di questo lavoro accanito era quello di sostituire alla poesia come valore la prosa come valore. È Flaubert il primo a sostenere che la prosa è altrettanto complicata che la poesia da fare.
Tutto questo lavorio si organizza attorno a un oggetto che per Flaubert diventa molto particolare: la frase. La frase di Flaubert è un oggetto molto completo: è allo stesso tempo un'unità di stile, ed è un'unità di lavoro poiché egli misura le sue giornate di lavoro dal numero delle frasi, ed è un'unità di vita: la sua vita si riassume in delle frasi.
Flaubert ha saputo elaborare, nella teoria e nella pratica, un concetto che Proust ha molto bene scorto e che chiama la sostanza speciale, sostanza che, lo stesso Proust nota, Balzac non ha. La frase di Balzac non è questo oggetto incredibilmente riconoscibile che è la frase di Flaubert. Prova ne è che fra i pastiche di Proust, che sono grandissime analisi teoriche sullo stile, il pastiche che eclissa tutti gli altri è quello di Flaubert.
Si potrebbe giocare sull'ambiguità dell'espressione e affermare che Flaubert ha trascorso tutta la sua vita a fare delle frasi. La frase di Flaubert è un oggetto perfettamente identificabile. Capita a Flaubert di dire: Riprendo dunque la mia povera vita, così piatta e tranquilla, dove le frasi sono un'avventura. Perché questa frase di Flaubert ha avuto una funzione di destino nella sua vita e per la storia della nostra letteratura? Perché essa esibisce, come su un piedistallo, la contraddizione stessa di ogni linguaggio.
Cioè a dire che la frase è strutturabile, e poiché essa ha una struttura, essa pone un problema di valore: c'è una buona e una cattiva struttura, fatto che spiega perché Flaubert abbia cercato la buona struttura in maniera ossessiva: e d'altra parte essa è infinita. Niente obbliga a finire una frase: essa è infinitamente catalizzabile, vi si può sempre aggiungere qualcosa.
E questo fino alla fine della nostra vita. Tutta la vertigine di Flaubert scaturisce da queste due parole d'ordine: Lavoriamo a finire la frase e d'altra parte La frase non finisce mai.
Flaubert per questo lavorio di stile è l'ultimo scrittore classico. Ed è attraverso tutto questo che Flaubert diviene il primo scrittore della modernità: perché accede a una follia. Una follia che non è della rappresentazione, dell'imitazione, del realismo, ma una follia della scrittura, una follia del linguaggio.
Il y a quelqu'un de plus bête qu'un idiot, c'est tout le monde.
G. Flaubert
Il libro che contiene tutti i libri possibili.
LETTERA A LOUISE COLET DEL 17 DICEMBRE 1852
Mi eccita specialmente la prefazione, e così come la penso (sarebbe tutto un libro) nessuna legge potrebbe colpirmi perché aggredirei tutto. Sarebbe la glorificazione storica di tutto ciò che si approva. Vi dimostrerei che le maggioranze hanno sempre avuto ragione, e le minoranze sempre torto. Immolerei i grandi uomini a tutti gli imbecilli, i martiri a tutti i carnefici, e questo in uno stile spinto a ogni eccesso, come un'esplosione di fuochi d'artificio. Così per la letteratura stabilirei, e sarebbe facile, che il mediocre, essendo alla portata di tutti, è la sola cosa legittima e che dunque bisogna esecrare ogni specie di originalità come pericolosa e cretina. Quale apologia della sciagurataggine, piena di citazioni, di prove (che proverebbero il contrario) e di testi spaventevoli (facilissimi da trovare) ha come fine - affermerei io - di farla finita una buona volta con tutte le eccentricità, qualunque esse siano...
Ci sono libri che lasciano respirare aria di “genio�: belli e sfaccettati, coinvolgenti e brillanti, divertono e soddisfano.
Questo, per me, è uno di quelli.
O, forse, è proprio “quello�.
Qui, tra queste pagine, respiro, annuso, tocco genialità. E trovo Bellezza. Sento la grande letteratura.
Jean-Pierre Marielle/Bouvard e Jean Carmet/Pecuchet nell’omonimo film TV del 1989 diretto da Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe.
Oh, certo, si può dire che è così perché è incompleto.
Ma credo che la verità sia che non sarebbe mai stato possibile ultimarlo: Bouvard e Pecuchet è quanto più si avvicina alla Torre di Babele.
E qualcuno fece in modo (impedì) che quella torre fosse ultimata.
Così, qualcuno, qualcosa, si portò via Flaubert prima che potesse scrivere la parola fine a questo progetto mastodontico.
Non per mole: mastodontico per mira, per obiettivo. Peraltro, raggiunto già così.
Nel 1880, l�8 maggio, Flaubert se ne andò lasciando otto volumi ciascuno di circa trecento pagine, ritagli di stampa, schede di lettura e note di diverse, tutte di sua mano. Si dice che per documentarsi avesse letto già più di millecinquecento libri � oltre giornali e riviste.
Cercava di raccogliere il ‘bestiario� umano (umano!) della sua epoca. Enciclopedia della stupidità: pregiudizi (sociali, religiosi, politici), fanatismi, contraddizioni, banalità, luoghi comuni, superficialità spacciata per profondità, idiozia contrabbandata per intelligenza�
Sono passati centoquaranta anni e la misura della bêtise umana è cresciuta a dismisura, richiede server capienti.
La storia è presto detta.
Bouvard e Pecuchet sono due impiegati copisti che si incontrano e scoprono di condividere comuni interessi (per esempio, per l’agricoltura).
Un’eredità improvvisa consente loro di lasciare l’impiego e trasferirsi in campagna (vicino a Caen, nel Calvados).
Ma si rivelano presto pessimi agricoltori.
Si circondano di manuali ed enciclopedie per cambiare raggio d’azione: passano a occuparsi prima di medicina, poi di chimica, geologia, politica, letteratura, psicologia, si cimentano nella scrittura, nel romanzo storico � seguono ginnastica, spiritismo, magia, filosofia, pedagogia.
Alla fine decidono che è meglio tornare a fare gli impiegati copisti.
Trovo particolarmente pregnanti pensieri e parole che Roland Barthes ha dedicato a quest’opera e a quest’autore: Flaubert puntava più che all’enciclopedia, al dizionario. E non solo quello dei luoghi comuni. Ma proprio quello del linguaggio.
Bouvard e Pecuchet è un libro folle, è la crisi della verità, è carenza di senso (Levi-Strauss).
E qui passo a citarlo senza corsivo, e senza pudore:
Flaubert, accettando l'eredità classica, s'è messo nella prospettiva di un lavoro di stile, che era la regola di uno scrittore dopo Orazio e Quintiliano: lo scrittore è uno che lavora il suo linguaggio, che lavora la sua forma. Flaubert ha spinto questo lavoro in misura demenziale. Ne abbiamo mille esempi. Quando raccontava che impiegava otto ore per correggere cinque pagine, che per Madame Bovary ha impiegato anche una settimana per quattro pagine, che trascorse un lunedì e un martedì interi a limare due righe, etc.
Questo lavoro della forma sfocia nella categoria dell' atroce. L'atroce rappresenta un sacrificio totale e ostinato di colui che scrive. Flaubert s'è incarcerato a Croisset all'età di venticinque anni. Quest'imprigionamento è rappresentato, emblematizzato, da quel mobile indispensabile del suo studio, il letto, dove si andava a gettare quand'era a corto d’idee: ciò che lui considerava come l'atto del "marinare".
In questo tormento di stile Flaubert portava due croci particolarmente pesanti: la caccia maniacale alle ripetizioni e le transizioni, ossia i punti di snodo del testo.
E l'alibi di questo lavoro accanito era quello di sostituire alla poesia come valore la prosa come valore. È Flaubert il primo a sostenere che la prosa è altrettanto complicata che la poesia da fare.
Tutto questo lavorio si organizza attorno a un oggetto che per Flaubert diventa molto particolare: la frase. La frase di Flaubert è un oggetto molto completo: è allo stesso tempo un'unità di stile, ed è un'unità di lavoro poiché egli misura le sue giornate di lavoro dal numero delle frasi, ed è un'unità di vita: la sua vita si riassume in delle frasi.
Flaubert ha saputo elaborare, nella teoria e nella pratica, un concetto che Proust ha molto bene scorto e che chiama la sostanza speciale, sostanza che, lo stesso Proust nota, Balzac non ha. La frase di Balzac non è questo oggetto incredibilmente riconoscibile che è la frase di Flaubert. Prova ne è che fra i pastiche di Proust, che sono grandissime analisi teoriche sullo stile, il pastiche che eclissa tutti gli altri è quello di Flaubert.
Si potrebbe giocare sull'ambiguità dell'espressione e affermare che Flaubert ha trascorso tutta la sua vita a fare delle frasi. La frase di Flaubert è un oggetto perfettamente identificabile. Capita a Flaubert di dire: Riprendo dunque la mia povera vita, così piatta e tranquilla, dove le frasi sono un'avventura. Perché questa frase di Flaubert ha avuto una funzione di destino nella sua vita e per la storia della nostra letteratura? Perché essa esibisce, come su un piedistallo, la contraddizione stessa di ogni linguaggio.
Cioè a dire che la frase è strutturabile, e poiché essa ha una struttura, essa pone un problema di valore: c'è una buona e una cattiva struttura, fatto che spiega perché Flaubert abbia cercato la buona struttura in maniera ossessiva: e d'altra parte essa è infinita. Niente obbliga a finire una frase: essa è infinitamente catalizzabile, vi si può sempre aggiungere qualcosa.
E questo fino alla fine della nostra vita. Tutta la vertigine di Flaubert scaturisce da queste due parole d'ordine: Lavoriamo a finire la frase e d'altra parte La frase non finisce mai.
Flaubert per questo lavorio di stile è l'ultimo scrittore classico. Ed è attraverso tutto questo che Flaubert diviene il primo scrittore della modernità: perché accede a una follia. Una follia che non è della rappresentazione, dell'imitazione, del realismo, ma una follia della scrittura, una follia del linguaggio.
Il y a quelqu'un de plus bête qu'un idiot, c'est tout le monde.
G. Flaubert
Il libro che contiene tutti i libri possibili.
LETTERA A LOUISE COLET DEL 17 DICEMBRE 1852
Mi eccita specialmente la prefazione, e così come la penso (sarebbe tutto un libro) nessuna legge potrebbe colpirmi perché aggredirei tutto. Sarebbe la glorificazione storica di tutto ciò che si approva. Vi dimostrerei che le maggioranze hanno sempre avuto ragione, e le minoranze sempre torto. Immolerei i grandi uomini a tutti gli imbecilli, i martiri a tutti i carnefici, e questo in uno stile spinto a ogni eccesso, come un'esplosione di fuochi d'artificio. Così per la letteratura stabilirei, e sarebbe facile, che il mediocre, essendo alla portata di tutti, è la sola cosa legittima e che dunque bisogna esecrare ogni specie di originalità come pericolosa e cretina. Quale apologia della sciagurataggine, piena di citazioni, di prove (che proverebbero il contrario) e di testi spaventevoli (facilissimi da trovare) ha come fine - affermerei io - di farla finita una buona volta con tutte le eccentricità, qualunque esse siano...
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July 24, 2018
Review in diary form.
My favourite books are those that cause me to think so much while I’m reading that I start having animated conversations with myself and need to begin the review even before I’m a third of the way through as a means of continuing the dialogue in my head about the book, wishing I had an alter-ego, someone who is as enthusiastic as I am about the matter in hand, a double, as it were, like Bouvard and Pécuchet who bounce their thoughts off one another continuously and are often of the same mind, so that, at least early on, they can almost be seen as a single individual which is how I think Flaubert saw them, as a single type, but he needed them to dialogue with each other so he split them into two and gave them individual characteristics both in their physical and their mental make-up, although, where knowledge is concerned, and this is the core of the book, they are of exactly one mind: madly enthusiastic and obsessively determined to access all levels of scholarship in all domains, and to that end, they set about reading a veritable mountain of books, passing with feverish haste from one branch of the sciences to the next as new passions are triggered by what they've only just begun to investigate, each new idea adopted leading them to make crazier and crazier alterations to their already unbalanced mode of living...
..........................................................................
The more I become acquainted with the addicted pair, the more I am reminded of someone I know, someone who is as familiar to me as Bouvard is to Pécuchet, someone with whom I have the most animated conversations, so I took a look at this person’s ‘mountain of books�, because this person has also accumulated quite a few tomes by a variety of authors, and like ܲ’s two heroes, this person's preoccupations can be traced in the history of their reading, a history which reveals periods of intense concentration on one author, several of whose books will have been read in a row, and when that author is shelved, another takes his place, and on and on, one book leading to another, one area of interest quickly giving way to the next, and during the time that a particular author or subject is being focused on, the person in question becomes an instant ‘expert�, commenting left, right and centre on the preoccupation of the moment, quite the way Bouvard and Pécuchet do, who manage to alienate everyone in the immediate vicinity with their ‘superior� grasp of the subject in question so that friends and acquaintances begin to avoid them, but, however, in spite of such negative outcomes, it must be emphasized that the more Bouvard and Pécuchet read, the more sensible they become and the less their creator seems to want to ridicule them, which only goes to show that even the person I mentioned who reads through her ‘mountains of books� with such random passion but unquestionable fervour, may not be as crazy as she seems....
......................................................................................
One of the advantages of writing a review while still reading a book should be that when we reach the last page and are probably quite tired, we don't have to worry about tackling the review. I've just this minute moved from ‘currently-reading� to 'read', and although I am tired and glad I don't have to begin a review from scratch, I'm left with an empty feeling, I kind of wish I was still reading it and still able to add quotes to the updates...
I know! I could include a few quotes here in the review space, copy out a few paragraphs of the text to make myself feel better...especially from the last section of the book which is not included in the English edition. I checked online and the English version seems to end at chapter VIII, skipping chapters IX and X, as well as Flaubert's notes for the conclusion. So there is something for me to do after all, something which doesn't demand any strenuous thinking or any advancing of Flaubertian scholarship:
Ainsi tout leur a craqué dans les mains.
Ils n'ont plus aucun intérêt dans la vie.
Bonne idée nourrie en secret par chacun d'eux. Ils se la dissimulent. De temps à autre, ils sourient, quand elle leur vient; puis se la communiquent simultanément: copier.
Confection du bureau à double pupitre. Achat de registres--et d'ustensiles, sandaraque, grattoirs, etc.
Ils s'y mettent.
Un jour, ils trouvent le brouillon d'une lettre de Vaucorbeil à M. le Préfet. Le Préfet lui avait demandé si Bouvard et Pécuchet n'étaient pas des fous dangereux. La lettre du docteur est un rapport confidentiel expliquant que ce sont deux imbéciles inoffensifs.
"Qu'allons-nous en faire?"
"Pas de réflexion! copions!"
I’ve paraphrased that passage:
Bouvard's and Pécuchet's latest scheme for the pursuit of knowledge has come to nothing and they feel that their lives are empty. But then they both conceive a new idea which each nurses secretly for a while. They smile to themselves from time to time when they think about it, and then they share it with each other at the same moment: they will go back to being copyists. [That is what they were at the beginning of the book when they both worked in offices where they sat day after day at their desks copying documents.] So they get a desk big enough for two and they buy all the necessary equipment. And they set to work, copying texts out of all the books they’ve gathered in their frenetic pursuit of knowledge.
One day they find a draft of a letter from their doctor to the Chief of Police of the town. The Police Chief had asked the doctor if he thought Bouvard and Pécuchet could be considered dangerous madmen. The letter from the doctor explains that they are indeed crazy but completely harmless.
"What will we do with it?" one asks the other.
"Don't think about it. Let's just copy it!"
Since, like the two heroes, I've also adopted the copying mode, I'm going to copy out an excerpt from Guy de Maupassant's review of when it was finally published unfinished in 1881. Flaubert died in 1880.
Maupassant's review appeared in 'Le Gaulois' on April 6th, 1881 and is included at the end of my addition of (Scroll down for a translation)
On peut dire que la moitié de la vie de Gustave Flaubert s’est passée à méditer Bouvard et Pécuchet, et qu’il a consacré ses dix dernières années à exécuter ce tour de force. Liseur insatiable, chercheur infatigable, il amoncelait sans repos les documents. Enfin, un jour, il se mit à l’œuvre, épouvanté toutefois devant l’énormité de la besogne. « Il faut être fou, disait-il souvent, pour entreprendre un pareil livre. » Il fallait surtout une patience surhumaine et une indéracinable bonne volonté.
Là-bas, à Croisset, dans son grand cabinet à cinq fenêtres, il geignait jour et nuit sur son œuvre. Sans aucune trêve, sans délassements, sans plaisirs et sans distractions, l’esprit formidablement tendu, il avançait avec une lenteur désespérante, découvrant chaque jour de nouvelles lectures à faire, de nouvelles recherches à entreprendre. Et la phrase aussi le tourmentait, la phrase si concise, si précise, colorée en même temps, qui devait renfermer en deux lignes un volume, en un paragraphe toutes les pensées d’un savant. Il prenait ensemble un lot d’idées de même nature et comme un chimiste préparant un élixir, il les fondait, les mêlait, rejetait les accessoires, simplifiait les principales, et de son formidable creuset sortaient des formules absolues contenant en cinquante mots un système entier de philosophie.
Une fois il lui fallut s’arrêter, épuisé, presque découragé, et comme repos il écrivit son délicieux volume intitulé : Trois Contes.
Puis il se remit à la besogne.
Mais l’œuvre entreprise était de celles qu’on n’achève point. Un livre pareil mange un homme, car nos forces sont limitées et notre effort ne peut être infini. Flaubert écrivit deux ou trois fois à ses amis : "J’ai peur que la terminaison de l’homme n’arrive avant celle du livre ce serait une belle fin de chapitre."
Ainsi qu’il l’avait écrit, il est tombé, un matin, foudroyé par le travail, comme un Titan trop audacieux qui aurait voulu monter trop haut.
Et, puisque je suis dans les comparaisons mythologiques, voici l’image qu’éveille en mon esprit l’histoire de Bouvard et Pécuchet.
J’y revois l’antique fable de Sisyphe : ce sont deux Sisyphes modernes et bourgeois qui tentent sans cesse l’escalade de cette montagne de la science, en poussant devant eux cette pierre de la compréhension qui sans cesse roule et retombe.
Mais eux, à la fin, haletants, découragés, s’arrêtent, et, tournant le dos à la montagne, se font un siège de leur rocher.
Here’s my translation of the quoted part of Maupassant's review :
"It could be said that Flaubert spent half his life thinking about the story of Bouvard and Pécuchet, and that he spent the last ten years working on it. He was a dedicated reader and a tireless researcher, and he had been constantly accumulating documents. One day, he finally began the book, apprehensive nonetheless about what he was about to undertake. "A person would need to be crazy," he often said to himself, "to tackle such a book." Incredible amounts of patience and unshakable determination were what he needed most.
At Croisset, in his large study with its five windows, he slaved day and night on the project. Without a respite, or any distractions, his mental capacities stretched to breaking point, he progressed with a terrible slowness, discovering each day new subjects to examine, new research to explore. And the shape of his sentences also preoccupied him, he needed concise expressions to render in two lines the ideas of a particular thinker but the sentences also needed to be interesting. He'd gather a group of similar themes, and just as a pharmacist preparing an elixir, he'd mix and meld, throwing away what was superfluous, extracting the essentials, and from his flask there emerged perfect aphorisms which, in fifty words, summarized complete systems of philosophy.
At one stage he had to give up the project. He was exhausted, discouraged, and as a way to relax, he wrote the excellent 'Trois Contes'.
Then he returned to the task. But the project undertaken was one that would never be completed. Such a book destroys a man because our strength has its limits and our energy can never be infinite. Flaubert wrote on several occasions to friends, "I fear that the end of the man will arrive before the end of the book which will make for a fitting final chapter."
And just as he'd foretold, one morning, like an overly ambitious Titan who had climbed too high, he collapsed, struck down by the weight of the work.
And since I've had recourse to mythological allusion, the image that comes to my mind when I think of the story of Bouvard and Pécuchet is the following. I see the myth of Sisyphus: Bouvard and Pécuchet are a modern bourgeois Sisyphus who tirelessly try to scale the mountain represented by science, while pushing ahead of them the rock of understanding which constantly rolls backwards. Finally, breathless and discouraged, they give up, and turning their back on the mountain, they use the rock as a seat instead." Guy de Maupassant
It turned out that Bouvard and Pécuchet were more than happy sitting on that rock of knowledge in the end rather than trying to move it forward. Contentment at a desk with a blank sheet of paper and a pot of ink and lots of lovely words just waiting to be copied...
November 19, 2023
“Las negligencias o desdenes o libertades del último Flaubert han desconcertado a los críticos; yo creo ver en ellas un símbolo. El hombre que con Madame Bovary forjó la novela realista fue también el primero en romperla (�) la obra mira, hacia atrás, a las parábolas de Voltaire y de Swift y de los orientales y, hacia delante, a las de Kafka�. - Jorge Luis Borges
Siguiendo con mi lecturas de libros distintos, extraños y diferentes he terminado en esta ocasión de leer esa especie de excentricidad filosófico literaria que es "Bouvard y Pécuchet" del gran escritor francés Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert escribió varias novelas pero no fue un escritor tan frondoso como un Balzac, por ejemplo.
Fue contemporáneo de otros grandes autores como casualmente Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Stendhal y cultor de una gran amistad con la escritora George Sand. A decir verdad sólo escribió ocho, siendo las más recordadas “Madame Bovary�, “Salambó�, “La tentación de San Antonio�, “La educación sentimental�, y ésta, “Bouvard y Pécuchet�.
Esta edición de Penguin Clásicos incluye en su totalidad todo lo que Flaubert escribió relacionado a su idea inicial por el año 1872 hasta el momento de su muerte en 1880 que culminó con la publicación de la novela un año después a partir de los apuntes que el autor dejó y que fueron ordenados previamente por su sobrina.
El libro se compone, de la primera parte que es la novela en sí, en la que conocemos con la precisión que caracterizaba al movimiento del Realismo, cuando en el banco de una plaza y con un calor de 33 grados centígrados se encuentran dos copistas: un señor gordo y petiso llamado François Denys Bartholomé Bouvard con otro alto y flaco apellidado Justine Romain Cyrille Pécuchet. Ambos de 47 años, los dos copistas, sin hijos (uno es soltero y el otro viudo) y ávidos por abarcar todas las ramas del conocimiento.
A partir de allí entablarán una férrea e indestructible amistad que se mantendrá hasta el final de la novela, cuya concepción por parte del autor es de una alta excentricidad, extravagancia, irónica, mordaz y especialmente paródica y en la que Flaubert aprovecha para lanzar innumerables dardos envenenados a la burguesía que tanto aborrecía.
Flaubert, que invirtió los últimos ocho años de su vida para concebir este libro, aseguraba en enero de 1880 sobre la novela: ”¿Sabes cuántos libros tuve que tragarme a causa de mis dos buenos hombres? Más de mil quinientos.�
Como no tenemos manera de comprobar esto fehacientemente tampoco podemos descreerle. Lo que sí es verdad es que el exagerado afán de conocimientos de todas las ciencias que poseen los personajes principales pueden hacernos llegar a la conclusión de que haya leído muchísimos volúmenes.
Sostengo esto a favor de Flaubert, porque a partir de que se conocen, Bouvard y Pécuchet deciden comprar una finca en la localidad de Chavignolles y no paran de dar rienda suelta para querer aprenderlo todo.
Desde que se mudan en 1838 hasta el final del libro en 1862, estos dos personajes incursionan en agricultura, botánica, arboricultura, química, medicina, anatomía, geología, astronomía, paleontología, religión, arqueología, historia, mnemotécnica, biografía, estética, gramática, ciencias políticas, gimnasia, magnetismo animal, magia, hechicería, espiritismo, esoterismo, pedagogía, frenología, filosofía y por supuesto, literatura. Destilan bebidas, hacen cerámicas, transforman la finca en un museo, escriben una biografía y hasta adoptan a dos niños para enseñarles.
Los copistas aprenden todo lo que los libros les dicen, pero cuando intentan poner en práctica todo esto, los resultados serán desastrosos por la contradicción de las obras consultadas.
Como dije, la extensa novela se torna un tanto tediosa e interminable para el lector, dado que una de las características más remarcadas del Realismo es la de la extremada descripción y detallismo de cada cosa, especialmente la superflua, lo que hace que el lector quiera abandonar su lectura.
Pero todo este tedio es recompensado a partir de la segunda parte, llamada “La copia� en la que ambos personajes (o sea Flaubert) comienzan a pertrechar y escribir el “Diccionario de las ideas corrientes�, un compendio de frases desopilantes y definiciones ordenadas (obviamente) en orden alfabética.
Este diccionario está escrito en un estilo altamente irónico y corrosivo, muy a la manera de otra genialidad, me refiero a "El Diccionario del Diablo", de Ambrose Bierce. Creo que sería genial leerse los dos de corrido para reírse sin parar por tanta muestra de acidez genial.
Y son tan geniales que tendría que incluirlas a todas en esta reseña, pero prefiero que el lector que se interese pueda descubrirlas por sí mismo leyendo el libro.
Luego nos encontramos con otro apartado, el “Estupidario�, un espacio desordenado y caótico, severamente mordaz e irónico y sin ningún tipo de estructura narrativa en que el autor dispone anotar todo tipo de frases, apuntes, editoriales de periódicos, referencias, citas, barbaridades, críticas y errores escritos por diversas personalidades, desde escritores y filósofos hasta políticos, historiadores, editores y gente relacionada al ámbito de la cultura.
Entre las personalidades que desfilan por la monstruosa cantidad de frases compiladas por Flaubert en otro apartado llamado "Citas tomadas de todo tipo de literatura", en donde nos encontramos con Voltaire, Swift, Rabelais, Napoleón, Chateaubriand, Homero, Virgilio, Montaigne, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Corneille, Racine, Bacon, Kant, Dumas, De Maistre, Robespierre, Marat y muchos más.
Es verdaderamente completa esta edición de Penguin porque seguido a esto nos encontramos también con "El Catálogo de las ideas chic", muy parecido al "Estupidario" y por último "El Álbum de la Marquesa", que es una colección de frases de las personalidades más importantes de Francia acerca de una misteriosa marquesa apodada "S".
Está muy claro que Bouvard y Pécuchet son directamente equiparables a Don Quijote y Sancho Panza de Cervantes, dado que todos los ideales de Alonso Quijano absorbidos en las novelas de caballerías condicen con todo lo que Bouvard y Pécuchet asimilan de sus distintas lecturas y que como en el el ingenioso hidalgo, plasman de la peor manera práctica.
La novela fue muy resistida dentro del ámbito literario francés y como dice Borges en la frase inicial de esta reseña fue incomprendida, siendo salvajemente criticada, lo que demuestra que cuando un autor decide escribir algo que sale fuera de los cánones de lo que llamamos "normalidad" (Joyce, Baudelaire, Faulkner, Beckett o Cortázar son algunos que rompieron este molde), la resistencia de los críticos o de aquellos que se consideran los que "más saben" es total, con la excepción del lector; y es en el lector en donde yo creo que está la respuesta y el reconocimiento al esfuerzo, las ideas y la convicción que el autor deposita en su obra.
Siguiendo con mi lecturas de libros distintos, extraños y diferentes he terminado en esta ocasión de leer esa especie de excentricidad filosófico literaria que es "Bouvard y Pécuchet" del gran escritor francés Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert escribió varias novelas pero no fue un escritor tan frondoso como un Balzac, por ejemplo.
Fue contemporáneo de otros grandes autores como casualmente Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Stendhal y cultor de una gran amistad con la escritora George Sand. A decir verdad sólo escribió ocho, siendo las más recordadas “Madame Bovary�, “Salambó�, “La tentación de San Antonio�, “La educación sentimental�, y ésta, “Bouvard y Pécuchet�.
Esta edición de Penguin Clásicos incluye en su totalidad todo lo que Flaubert escribió relacionado a su idea inicial por el año 1872 hasta el momento de su muerte en 1880 que culminó con la publicación de la novela un año después a partir de los apuntes que el autor dejó y que fueron ordenados previamente por su sobrina.
El libro se compone, de la primera parte que es la novela en sí, en la que conocemos con la precisión que caracterizaba al movimiento del Realismo, cuando en el banco de una plaza y con un calor de 33 grados centígrados se encuentran dos copistas: un señor gordo y petiso llamado François Denys Bartholomé Bouvard con otro alto y flaco apellidado Justine Romain Cyrille Pécuchet. Ambos de 47 años, los dos copistas, sin hijos (uno es soltero y el otro viudo) y ávidos por abarcar todas las ramas del conocimiento.
A partir de allí entablarán una férrea e indestructible amistad que se mantendrá hasta el final de la novela, cuya concepción por parte del autor es de una alta excentricidad, extravagancia, irónica, mordaz y especialmente paródica y en la que Flaubert aprovecha para lanzar innumerables dardos envenenados a la burguesía que tanto aborrecía.
Flaubert, que invirtió los últimos ocho años de su vida para concebir este libro, aseguraba en enero de 1880 sobre la novela: ”¿Sabes cuántos libros tuve que tragarme a causa de mis dos buenos hombres? Más de mil quinientos.�
Como no tenemos manera de comprobar esto fehacientemente tampoco podemos descreerle. Lo que sí es verdad es que el exagerado afán de conocimientos de todas las ciencias que poseen los personajes principales pueden hacernos llegar a la conclusión de que haya leído muchísimos volúmenes.
Sostengo esto a favor de Flaubert, porque a partir de que se conocen, Bouvard y Pécuchet deciden comprar una finca en la localidad de Chavignolles y no paran de dar rienda suelta para querer aprenderlo todo.
Desde que se mudan en 1838 hasta el final del libro en 1862, estos dos personajes incursionan en agricultura, botánica, arboricultura, química, medicina, anatomía, geología, astronomía, paleontología, religión, arqueología, historia, mnemotécnica, biografía, estética, gramática, ciencias políticas, gimnasia, magnetismo animal, magia, hechicería, espiritismo, esoterismo, pedagogía, frenología, filosofía y por supuesto, literatura. Destilan bebidas, hacen cerámicas, transforman la finca en un museo, escriben una biografía y hasta adoptan a dos niños para enseñarles.
Los copistas aprenden todo lo que los libros les dicen, pero cuando intentan poner en práctica todo esto, los resultados serán desastrosos por la contradicción de las obras consultadas.
Como dije, la extensa novela se torna un tanto tediosa e interminable para el lector, dado que una de las características más remarcadas del Realismo es la de la extremada descripción y detallismo de cada cosa, especialmente la superflua, lo que hace que el lector quiera abandonar su lectura.
Pero todo este tedio es recompensado a partir de la segunda parte, llamada “La copia� en la que ambos personajes (o sea Flaubert) comienzan a pertrechar y escribir el “Diccionario de las ideas corrientes�, un compendio de frases desopilantes y definiciones ordenadas (obviamente) en orden alfabética.
Este diccionario está escrito en un estilo altamente irónico y corrosivo, muy a la manera de otra genialidad, me refiero a "El Diccionario del Diablo", de Ambrose Bierce. Creo que sería genial leerse los dos de corrido para reírse sin parar por tanta muestra de acidez genial.
Y son tan geniales que tendría que incluirlas a todas en esta reseña, pero prefiero que el lector que se interese pueda descubrirlas por sí mismo leyendo el libro.
Luego nos encontramos con otro apartado, el “Estupidario�, un espacio desordenado y caótico, severamente mordaz e irónico y sin ningún tipo de estructura narrativa en que el autor dispone anotar todo tipo de frases, apuntes, editoriales de periódicos, referencias, citas, barbaridades, críticas y errores escritos por diversas personalidades, desde escritores y filósofos hasta políticos, historiadores, editores y gente relacionada al ámbito de la cultura.
Entre las personalidades que desfilan por la monstruosa cantidad de frases compiladas por Flaubert en otro apartado llamado "Citas tomadas de todo tipo de literatura", en donde nos encontramos con Voltaire, Swift, Rabelais, Napoleón, Chateaubriand, Homero, Virgilio, Montaigne, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Corneille, Racine, Bacon, Kant, Dumas, De Maistre, Robespierre, Marat y muchos más.
Es verdaderamente completa esta edición de Penguin porque seguido a esto nos encontramos también con "El Catálogo de las ideas chic", muy parecido al "Estupidario" y por último "El Álbum de la Marquesa", que es una colección de frases de las personalidades más importantes de Francia acerca de una misteriosa marquesa apodada "S".
Está muy claro que Bouvard y Pécuchet son directamente equiparables a Don Quijote y Sancho Panza de Cervantes, dado que todos los ideales de Alonso Quijano absorbidos en las novelas de caballerías condicen con todo lo que Bouvard y Pécuchet asimilan de sus distintas lecturas y que como en el el ingenioso hidalgo, plasman de la peor manera práctica.
La novela fue muy resistida dentro del ámbito literario francés y como dice Borges en la frase inicial de esta reseña fue incomprendida, siendo salvajemente criticada, lo que demuestra que cuando un autor decide escribir algo que sale fuera de los cánones de lo que llamamos "normalidad" (Joyce, Baudelaire, Faulkner, Beckett o Cortázar son algunos que rompieron este molde), la resistencia de los críticos o de aquellos que se consideran los que "más saben" es total, con la excepción del lector; y es en el lector en donde yo creo que está la respuesta y el reconocimiento al esfuerzo, las ideas y la convicción que el autor deposita en su obra.
November 19, 2023
The peasant and the working-class world had no better treated by a Flaubert who, although born in Rouen, was no illusion of the natural greed of his compatriots. In the events of 1848, the great and small cowardice of the notables sifted. With a rare purity and the absolute opposite of the Hugo of the "Misérables," Flaubert finally camps irretrievable children of the convict that Bouvard & Pécuchet, as are philanthropists as moved naive, try in vain to raise out mud where they were born.
In short, this book is incredible cruelty to human nature, for which he leaves no possible forgiveness. And yet, in front of this parade written of silhouettes, the reader has fun from start to end, sharing between laughter that inspires him the successive failures of the poor Bouvard and Pécuchet and the tenderness that, little by little, the fundamental originality of these two characters finished up encouraging him.
Of course, we do not laugh out loud - though, sometimes. And here we are, much closer to English humor than Rabelaisian bursts. Nevertheless, this novel reads without effort in a single day, and when it closes, one wonders if, finally, in his youth, we did not miss Gustave Flaubert.
In short, this book is incredible cruelty to human nature, for which he leaves no possible forgiveness. And yet, in front of this parade written of silhouettes, the reader has fun from start to end, sharing between laughter that inspires him the successive failures of the poor Bouvard and Pécuchet and the tenderness that, little by little, the fundamental originality of these two characters finished up encouraging him.
Of course, we do not laugh out loud - though, sometimes. And here we are, much closer to English humor than Rabelaisian bursts. Nevertheless, this novel reads without effort in a single day, and when it closes, one wonders if, finally, in his youth, we did not miss Gustave Flaubert.
September 30, 2020
As I watched the heroes of Flaubert's last, unfinished novel meander aimlessly from one disaster to the next, they began to seem strangely familiar. And after a while, I couldn't help wondering
What Might Have Happened If Bouvard And Pécuchet Had Been Able To Join ŷ
That year, Paris talked of nothing but the internet, and, even in Normandy, people began to experiment with the new invention. The two friends found an internet café in Caen; but the connection was slow, and the other habitués made remarks about their uncertain skills. Despite the expense, they asked Gorgu to install a broadband connection for them. After perusing a number of sites in an attempt to find one which accorded with their taste for knowledge and lively discussion, they finally discovered ŷ.
They had always had opinions about the many books they had read, and, within a day, their first posts appeared. Bouvard wrote a critical review of Infinite Jest, a work he felt to be overlong and poorly constructed; he was especially incensed by the endnotes, many of which, he claimed, were quite unnecessary. Not to be outdone, Pécuchet composed a review of The Road, which he was unafraid to say he had found downbeat and depressing. They logged in the next day, and the one after, to see if people had voted for their efforts; but no votes appeared. After a week, Bouvard made an announcement to his friend as they were eating their breakfast.
"Evidently," he said, "success on the Internet requires strategy. I have studied several blogs which offer helpful advice. Primo, we need a group of supporters who will vote for us and raise our profile."
They resolved to start by voting for each other's reviews; Bouvard promised he could persuade Mme. Bordin to join their little group, and Pécuchet made a similar undertaking with regard to Foureau.
"Secondo," continued Bouvard, "we must write in English. If this requires us to improve our command of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, so be it."
There were indeed a few lacunae in their knowledge of English. Also, something had happened to the laptop's shift key, so that everything they wrote came out in capitals; but they did not allow these setbacks to discourage them. By evening, they had successfully revised and translated their reviews. They were somewhat shorter than the original ones, but the essential content, they felt, remained unaltered. They pressed the Submit button, and waited.
The response was immediate and gratifying. Foureau and Mme. Bordin, summoned by urgent Skype calls, had duly voted; but, to their great surprise, many other votes began to pour in from the four corners of the Earth. They were not entirely certain they understood the accompanying comments, for the greater part couched in an idiom more colloquial than they were used to.
"What does 'Go for it?' mean?" asked Pécuchet, after fruitlessly consulting his lexicon; Bouvard was unable to enlighten him, but they agreed it could only be a positive exhortation of some kind. They returned to the laptop several times during the night, each time to find new additions. They had managed to accumulate over a dozen votes on each review.
Encouraged by this success, they posted several more reviews over the following days, to greater and greater acclaim. They abandoned their attempts to correct the problem with the shift key when they noticed several other reviewers copying their style.
Despite obvious difficulties, they felt themselves obliged to post their opinions on Flaubert. They condemned Madame Bovary for its unsympathetic and immoral heroine, and found L'Education Sentimentale pointless and dull. Finally, they reached their own book, where their opinions were divided. Pécuchet pronounced himself less than overwhelmed. The story, he said, was haphazard and lacked cohesion. In addition, most of the characters were poorly sketched and uninteresting, and there was too much philosophy but not enough action; worst of all, the author had died before managing to complete it. He grudgingly gave it three stars, noting that he had considered reducing this to two. Bouvard, on the contrary, was impressed with Flaubert's diligence in reading over 1500 books as part of the background research, and found the novel solidly constructed and entertaining. Having his own doubts about the value of the Christian faith, he approved the author's ambiguous presentation of the theme. Both reviews were enthusiatically received.
That evening, when they were taking a well-earned glass at Beljambe's establishment, Doctor Vaucorbeil asked if they were still wasting their time on the internet. Bouvard drew himself up to his full height and answered with dignity.
"We are not wasting our time," he said. "People appreciate our writing." His words drew a round of applause, and the Doctor left precipitately.
The very next day, however, Bouvard saw fit to post his long-awaited review of Twilight. He drew parallels between vampirism and Christian doctrine, quoting the opinions of Origène on the Miracle of the Transubstantiation and equating the vampire's thirst for blood with the Christian's thirst for the Body of his Lord. There was a storm of complaints. Several people, including the Comte, immediately unfriended them; other members flagged the review, and within a day the administrators had taken it down.
The friends, crushed, responded by closing their accounts and leaving the site. People there were evidently too petty-minded to appreciate them; but, with their customary optimism, they hoped that they would be more welcome on Wikipedia.
What Might Have Happened If Bouvard And Pécuchet Had Been Able To Join ŷ
That year, Paris talked of nothing but the internet, and, even in Normandy, people began to experiment with the new invention. The two friends found an internet café in Caen; but the connection was slow, and the other habitués made remarks about their uncertain skills. Despite the expense, they asked Gorgu to install a broadband connection for them. After perusing a number of sites in an attempt to find one which accorded with their taste for knowledge and lively discussion, they finally discovered ŷ.
They had always had opinions about the many books they had read, and, within a day, their first posts appeared. Bouvard wrote a critical review of Infinite Jest, a work he felt to be overlong and poorly constructed; he was especially incensed by the endnotes, many of which, he claimed, were quite unnecessary. Not to be outdone, Pécuchet composed a review of The Road, which he was unafraid to say he had found downbeat and depressing. They logged in the next day, and the one after, to see if people had voted for their efforts; but no votes appeared. After a week, Bouvard made an announcement to his friend as they were eating their breakfast.
"Evidently," he said, "success on the Internet requires strategy. I have studied several blogs which offer helpful advice. Primo, we need a group of supporters who will vote for us and raise our profile."
They resolved to start by voting for each other's reviews; Bouvard promised he could persuade Mme. Bordin to join their little group, and Pécuchet made a similar undertaking with regard to Foureau.
"Secondo," continued Bouvard, "we must write in English. If this requires us to improve our command of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, so be it."
There were indeed a few lacunae in their knowledge of English. Also, something had happened to the laptop's shift key, so that everything they wrote came out in capitals; but they did not allow these setbacks to discourage them. By evening, they had successfully revised and translated their reviews. They were somewhat shorter than the original ones, but the essential content, they felt, remained unaltered. They pressed the Submit button, and waited.
The response was immediate and gratifying. Foureau and Mme. Bordin, summoned by urgent Skype calls, had duly voted; but, to their great surprise, many other votes began to pour in from the four corners of the Earth. They were not entirely certain they understood the accompanying comments, for the greater part couched in an idiom more colloquial than they were used to.
"What does 'Go for it?' mean?" asked Pécuchet, after fruitlessly consulting his lexicon; Bouvard was unable to enlighten him, but they agreed it could only be a positive exhortation of some kind. They returned to the laptop several times during the night, each time to find new additions. They had managed to accumulate over a dozen votes on each review.
Encouraged by this success, they posted several more reviews over the following days, to greater and greater acclaim. They abandoned their attempts to correct the problem with the shift key when they noticed several other reviewers copying their style.
Despite obvious difficulties, they felt themselves obliged to post their opinions on Flaubert. They condemned Madame Bovary for its unsympathetic and immoral heroine, and found L'Education Sentimentale pointless and dull. Finally, they reached their own book, where their opinions were divided. Pécuchet pronounced himself less than overwhelmed. The story, he said, was haphazard and lacked cohesion. In addition, most of the characters were poorly sketched and uninteresting, and there was too much philosophy but not enough action; worst of all, the author had died before managing to complete it. He grudgingly gave it three stars, noting that he had considered reducing this to two. Bouvard, on the contrary, was impressed with Flaubert's diligence in reading over 1500 books as part of the background research, and found the novel solidly constructed and entertaining. Having his own doubts about the value of the Christian faith, he approved the author's ambiguous presentation of the theme. Both reviews were enthusiatically received.
That evening, when they were taking a well-earned glass at Beljambe's establishment, Doctor Vaucorbeil asked if they were still wasting their time on the internet. Bouvard drew himself up to his full height and answered with dignity.
"We are not wasting our time," he said. "People appreciate our writing." His words drew a round of applause, and the Doctor left precipitately.
The very next day, however, Bouvard saw fit to post his long-awaited review of Twilight. He drew parallels between vampirism and Christian doctrine, quoting the opinions of Origène on the Miracle of the Transubstantiation and equating the vampire's thirst for blood with the Christian's thirst for the Body of his Lord. There was a storm of complaints. Several people, including the Comte, immediately unfriended them; other members flagged the review, and within a day the administrators had taken it down.
The friends, crushed, responded by closing their accounts and leaving the site. People there were evidently too petty-minded to appreciate them; but, with their customary optimism, they hoped that they would be more welcome on Wikipedia.
February 16, 2011
Bouvard and Pécuchet could be read as Flaubert playing the role of prankster God, watching his protagonists build castles made of sand and then sending forth all the tides of failure, ruin, and ill-luck to topple them. No doubt, that element is there; Flaubert conceived of what was to be his last (never finished) novel as an “encyclopedia made into a farce�, a vent for all his anger (“I shall rid myself of what is stifling me. I shall vomit back onto my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me.�). Yet, taking Bouvard and Pécuchet strictly as some sort of jeremiad against boorishness would be missing the point. Though it is a farce of the notion of human progress as an end in itself, as well as a compendium of ideas and their correlative contradictions, it is more than a mockery of mankind’s somewhat lackluster striving from the primordial ooze to enlightenment. There is an ever-present sympathy for these two little creatures, scurrying between pursuit and disaster, disaster and pursuit, the architects of their own hell always attempting a new construction to raise them from the depths, but always finding at their summit a new abyss. Who has not played the role of a Bouvard or a Pécuchet, to a greater or lesser extent, at some point in their development, when their ambition exceeds their talent? Isn’t this groping and failing and further groping one of the more charming aspects of humanity?
What Flaubert is satirizing is the mind that seeks its end in the absolute and cannot cope with the fact that history, knowledge, and even personal experience are composed of contradictions, gray-areas, trials and errors, ambiguities. When the absolute is not easily revealed, when success is not immediately attained, Bouvard and Pécuchet give up the attempt or blame the progenitor as a foolish or flawed mind. Easily stifled, they easily move on, and are just as easily confounded again. Man is essentially an attempting being, but success requires a fundamental base and a broad, imaginative intellect; those looking for a quick route to genius through the foggy path of ideas will certainly wind up lost. “Stupidity consists in wanting to conclude. We are a thread and we want to know the pattern... what mind of any strength... has ever come to a conclusion?� (Flaubert in another correspondence). The fault he finds in his two heroes, the fault he ceaselessly mocks in man in general, is that they expect genius to alight because they have the capacity to desire it, yet not always the fortitude to work toward it.
Flaubert was the consummate workhorse of a writer, slowly and methodically searching for his mot juste, and his (earned) genius is evidenced by the novel itself (he famously claimed to have read 1,500 volumes in preparation for composing the text). The lists of agricultural, geological, biological, chemical, archaeological, architectural, pseudo-scientific, pedagogical, political, philosophical and historic terms and concepts that Bouvard and Pécuchet stumble through in their quest for glory are laid into the text with a seeming effortlessness on ܲ’s part, as if all of this was assimilated within his own mind before he set pen to paper. No doubt this is the work of a master illusionist (one who knows well how to hide the seams), but still this is a comedy of errors and ideas that belies in its author a deep erudition and a broad knowledge, not only of facts but of wit and humor, as well as touching strokes of landscape painting, nature portraiture (light cascading through limbs, rain accumulating in ruts on roads, bright clear skies, a chorus of waves, the way candles illuminate a midnight mass, snowy expanses), the coy exchanges between potential lovers, the various languages of human gesture. Above all, this book gives one the impression that Flaubert possessed an intimate understanding of the complexity of human beings and the world they inhabit, as well as the absurdity inherent therein. Bouvard and Pécuchet exposes the bumbling absurdity of man’s existence on this earth as well as any Godot or Stranger, yet it still remains essentially on our side. Could it be called an elaborate, hilarious love letter to stupidity? More accurately perhaps an excoriation of a beloved but errant brother, done with his best interests in mind.
What Flaubert is satirizing is the mind that seeks its end in the absolute and cannot cope with the fact that history, knowledge, and even personal experience are composed of contradictions, gray-areas, trials and errors, ambiguities. When the absolute is not easily revealed, when success is not immediately attained, Bouvard and Pécuchet give up the attempt or blame the progenitor as a foolish or flawed mind. Easily stifled, they easily move on, and are just as easily confounded again. Man is essentially an attempting being, but success requires a fundamental base and a broad, imaginative intellect; those looking for a quick route to genius through the foggy path of ideas will certainly wind up lost. “Stupidity consists in wanting to conclude. We are a thread and we want to know the pattern... what mind of any strength... has ever come to a conclusion?� (Flaubert in another correspondence). The fault he finds in his two heroes, the fault he ceaselessly mocks in man in general, is that they expect genius to alight because they have the capacity to desire it, yet not always the fortitude to work toward it.
Flaubert was the consummate workhorse of a writer, slowly and methodically searching for his mot juste, and his (earned) genius is evidenced by the novel itself (he famously claimed to have read 1,500 volumes in preparation for composing the text). The lists of agricultural, geological, biological, chemical, archaeological, architectural, pseudo-scientific, pedagogical, political, philosophical and historic terms and concepts that Bouvard and Pécuchet stumble through in their quest for glory are laid into the text with a seeming effortlessness on ܲ’s part, as if all of this was assimilated within his own mind before he set pen to paper. No doubt this is the work of a master illusionist (one who knows well how to hide the seams), but still this is a comedy of errors and ideas that belies in its author a deep erudition and a broad knowledge, not only of facts but of wit and humor, as well as touching strokes of landscape painting, nature portraiture (light cascading through limbs, rain accumulating in ruts on roads, bright clear skies, a chorus of waves, the way candles illuminate a midnight mass, snowy expanses), the coy exchanges between potential lovers, the various languages of human gesture. Above all, this book gives one the impression that Flaubert possessed an intimate understanding of the complexity of human beings and the world they inhabit, as well as the absurdity inherent therein. Bouvard and Pécuchet exposes the bumbling absurdity of man’s existence on this earth as well as any Godot or Stranger, yet it still remains essentially on our side. Could it be called an elaborate, hilarious love letter to stupidity? More accurately perhaps an excoriation of a beloved but errant brother, done with his best interests in mind.
May 10, 2021
Returning one evening from one of their fossil gathering expeditions (this was during their palaeontology phase which was the 23rd phase since they started all this nonsense) Bouvard and Pecuchet were exhausted. Heaving their complete edition of the works of George Cuvier off the sofa, they collapsed into the soft cushions and fell asleep. Mysteriously, when they awoke it was in the year 2021. Even more mysteriously Bouvard found a Razer Blade 15 laptop in front of him and Pecuchet found a MacBook Pro. Being the inquisitive fellows we know them to be, in five minutes they had discovered the internet.
“This is most excellent�, said Bouvard. “We can get rid of all these old books. Everything is on the internet!�
“Just what I was thinking,� said Pecuchet. “Imagine the time we could have saved if we had this all along. All that stuff we read on agriculture, chemistry, anatomy, geology, archaeology –�
“And now we can just click click and know everything all at once!�
“Clearly my dear friend, our task is now simple. We must read the whole internet.�
Some weeks passed and finally Pecuchet announced
“My dear old pal, I have read the very last page of the internet. We have finished our great task.�
“Yes at last. Let’s summarise what we have learned.�
They gazed into space. At length Bouvard said
“We know what beanie babies are now!�
“We know what a mockbuster is!�
“I spent a whole afternoon trying to understand the Mach–Zehnder interferometer. Perhaps we don’t need that information just now.�
“I feel the same way about Kac-Moody algebras and why there are only five superstring theories. Oh the headache I got!�
“But we have seen a woman yelling at a cat and we have seen Baby Yoda."
“And many 45 second videos of really cute baby animals."
“And we should look into this interesting proposal from a director of the Nigerian National Bank. This man says he will give us 15 million francs if we first of all give him a million francs.�
“And I have found there are many lovely young women who are anxious to meet us, Bouvard. Imagine! Us old fools! All they need is money to buy a plane ticket to France.�
"And Pecuchet, we really have to do the ice bucket challenge, I think that is a must.�
“Yes, and the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge."
“Ah, I did not see details on that one, it sounds most interesting.�
“My dear friend, life is just beginning.�
“This is most excellent�, said Bouvard. “We can get rid of all these old books. Everything is on the internet!�
“Just what I was thinking,� said Pecuchet. “Imagine the time we could have saved if we had this all along. All that stuff we read on agriculture, chemistry, anatomy, geology, archaeology –�
“And now we can just click click and know everything all at once!�
“Clearly my dear friend, our task is now simple. We must read the whole internet.�
Some weeks passed and finally Pecuchet announced
“My dear old pal, I have read the very last page of the internet. We have finished our great task.�
“Yes at last. Let’s summarise what we have learned.�
They gazed into space. At length Bouvard said
“We know what beanie babies are now!�
“We know what a mockbuster is!�
“I spent a whole afternoon trying to understand the Mach–Zehnder interferometer. Perhaps we don’t need that information just now.�
“I feel the same way about Kac-Moody algebras and why there are only five superstring theories. Oh the headache I got!�
“But we have seen a woman yelling at a cat and we have seen Baby Yoda."
“And many 45 second videos of really cute baby animals."
“And we should look into this interesting proposal from a director of the Nigerian National Bank. This man says he will give us 15 million francs if we first of all give him a million francs.�
“And I have found there are many lovely young women who are anxious to meet us, Bouvard. Imagine! Us old fools! All they need is money to buy a plane ticket to France.�
"And Pecuchet, we really have to do the ice bucket challenge, I think that is a must.�
“Yes, and the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge."
“Ah, I did not see details on that one, it sounds most interesting.�
“My dear friend, life is just beginning.�
October 2, 2016
Αν κάποτε έγγραφα ένα βιβλίο, φαντάζομαι πως θα ήταν κάτι σαν αυτό. Από τα μεγαλύτερα έργα της παγκόσμιας λογοτεχνίας. Απορώ πως ο Flaubert έμεινε γνωστός με τη Μαντάμ Μποβαρύ. Είναι ο ορισμός του φιλοσοφικού μυθιστορήματος και επάξια το καλύτερο στην κατηγορία του, απ� όσα έχω διαβάσει.
Από το έργο αυτό προκύπτουν πολλά ηθικά διδάγματα. Πρώτα απ� όλα η ημιμάθεια. «Η ημιμάθεια είναι χειρότερη της αμάθειας». Οι δύο ήρωες αφού αποσύρονται στην επαρχία της Γαλλίας, ασχολούνται με όλες σχεδόν τις επιστήμες, με απογοητευτικά αποτελέσματα, φερόμενοι αλαζονικά. Ταυτοχρόνως, αναδεικνύεται η ανθρώπινη ματαιοδοξία της γνώσης των πάντων. Είναι σαφώς περιορισμένες οι δυνατότητες ενός ανθρώπου να γνωρίζει πολλά πράγματα, επαρκώς καλά. Αντιθέτως η δίψα για μάθηση, η όρεξη για δημιουργία είναι μια άλλη θεώρηση του βιβλίου αυτού.
Ο Guy de Maupassant παρομοιάζει τους ήρωες με «δύο σύγχρονους αστούς Σισύφους που πασχίζουν αδιάκοπα να αναρριχηθούν στο βουνό της επιστήμης, σπρώχνοντας μπροστά τους αυτόν το βράχο της κατανόησης που συνέχεια τους γλυστρά και ξανακυλάει κάτω». Είναι ένα έργο στο οποίο ο Flaubert αφιέρωσε σχεδόν 10 χρόνια, μέχρι το θάνατό του. Είναι τόσο ζωντανό, καθώς αναπτύσσει όλα του τα πιστεύω, που δικαίως ο Borges τον παραλλήλισε με τον Πλάτωνα, «ο Σωκράτης καταλήγει να γίνει Πλάτων».
Από το έργο αυτό προκύπτουν πολλά ηθικά διδάγματα. Πρώτα απ� όλα η ημιμάθεια. «Η ημιμάθεια είναι χειρότερη της αμάθειας». Οι δύο ήρωες αφού αποσύρονται στην επαρχία της Γαλλίας, ασχολούνται με όλες σχεδόν τις επιστήμες, με απογοητευτικά αποτελέσματα, φερόμενοι αλαζονικά. Ταυτοχρόνως, αναδεικνύεται η ανθρώπινη ματαιοδοξία της γνώσης των πάντων. Είναι σαφώς περιορισμένες οι δυνατότητες ενός ανθρώπου να γνωρίζει πολλά πράγματα, επαρκώς καλά. Αντιθέτως η δίψα για μάθηση, η όρεξη για δημιουργία είναι μια άλλη θεώρηση του βιβλίου αυτού.
Ο Guy de Maupassant παρομοιάζει τους ήρωες με «δύο σύγχρονους αστούς Σισύφους που πασχίζουν αδιάκοπα να αναρριχηθούν στο βουνό της επιστήμης, σπρώχνοντας μπροστά τους αυτόν το βράχο της κατανόησης που συνέχεια τους γλυστρά και ξανακυλάει κάτω». Είναι ένα έργο στο οποίο ο Flaubert αφιέρωσε σχεδόν 10 χρόνια, μέχρι το θάνατό του. Είναι τόσο ζωντανό, καθώς αναπτύσσει όλα του τα πιστεύω, που δικαίως ο Borges τον παραλλήλισε με τον Πλάτωνα, «ο Σωκράτης καταλήγει να γίνει Πλάτων».
April 11, 2017
One of the world's most unreadable books, Boulevard and Pecuchet was Flaubert's last work and was intended to be a sort of summary of all kinds of knowledge he had acquired using a comical tone with his two protagonists. However, unlike Madame Bovary or Education Sentimental, I found no affinity with either character and found the lack of a plot and the cluelessness of Bouvard and Pecuchet annoying and a put off. Perhaps others had more success than me with this one? I guess I should still read Salammbô and Saint Antoine, but probably won't attempt the unfinished last work again.
October 26, 2020
Ο θ��ηνητικά απογοητευτικός μονόλογος του Φάουστ, στην αρχή του πρώτου μέρους, είναι όλο το προσχέδιο του «Μπουβάρ και Πεκισέ». Η απελπισία και η πικρή μετάνοια του Φάουστ που μελέτησε άδικα φιλοσοφία, νομικά, ιατρική και φεύ! θεολογία, εκφράζει την επισκόπηση του Φλωμπέρ αναφορικά με όλες τις μοντέρνες ιδέες, τη ματαιότητα και τις αντιφάσεις συσσωρευμένων γνώσεων και αδιαμφισβήτητων νόμων, την εξερεύνηση του ιδεατού νοήματος σε οντολογική ύπαρξη και σε ένα πνευματικό βασίλειο το οποίο μοιράζονται οι άνθρωποι με το σύμπαν.
Η θεμελιώδης άποψη ότι οι άνθρωποι, τα φυτά, τα ζώα και τα ουράνια σώματα κατέχουν πνεύμα ανεξάρτητο από τη φυσική ύπαρξη των θρησκειών, των επιστημών και των τεχνών.
Η επισκόπηση αυτή έχει ανατεθεί σε δυο ηλίθιους, μάλλον σε δυο πνεύματα αρκετά διαυγή, μέτρια και απλοϊκά, μα επιβλητικά ηλίθια.
Σας παρουσιάζουμε τον Μπουβάρ και Πεκισέ, μέσα απο την ιστορία ενός Φάουστ που τυχαίνει να είναι και τρυφερά ηλίθιος.
Αυτοί οι δυο μεσήλικοι άνδρες, δυο φίλοι που εργάζονταν ως αντιγραφείς στο Παρίσι, γνωρίζονται τυχαία και μοιραία, χωρίς να τους ενώνουν πολλά κοινά και δίχως να τους χωρίζουν τραγικές διαφωνίες αποτραβιούνται στην επαρχιακή Νορμανδία για να ευτυχήσουν.
Καταλήγουν να γίνουν θαυμάσιοι στοχαστές της αιώνιας οικουμενικής βλακείας που παύουν να την ανέχονται καθώς την αναγνωρίζουν παντού.
Το λαμπρό ημιτελές μυθιστόρημα του Flaubert, «Μπουβάρ & Πεκισέ» σε μια εξαιρετική έκδοση καταδεικνύει απερίφραστα και ορθολογιστικά πως οι αναγνώστες που κατέκριναν αυτό το επικό,διαχρονικό έργο είναι ως φαίνεται τα τέλεια ισοδύναμα των Messieurs Bouvard και Pécuchet, αν και με αντίστροφη πνευματική φιλοδοξία.
Ευτυχώς για τους απαιτητικούς αναγνώστες, ορισμένα πράγματα δεν αλλάζουν ποτέ - στην πραγματικότητα,
ο κόσμος στον πραγματικό χωροχρονικό κυβερνοχώρο μας έχει δημιουργήσει πολλούς Bouvards και Pécuchets.
Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι πολύτιμο λογοτέχνημα, η ημιτελής, τελική εργασία του Flaubert (πέθανε χωρίς να ολοκληρώσει τα τελευταία του κεφάλαια, τα οποία υπάρχουν μόνο σε ανέκδοτα περιγράμματα)
ένα θαυματουργό ιαματικό υγρό νοητικής κατάποσης
με απείρως ευνοϊκές και μακροχρόνιες ενδείξεις.
Στον ασθενή Flaubert κόστισε πολλά χρόνια με τη σχολαστική δεξιοτεχνία του, που αντικατοπτρίζει τις κηλίδες, το χάος, τις μαύρες τρύπες και τη ματαιοδοξία της επιβεβαίωσης ως προς την αιώνια δυστυχία απο τα αντίθετα και τα απόλυτα δόγματα του κόσμου.
( προσωπική άποψη- #no_hate_speech).
«Μεταξύ όλων των έργων αυτού του λαμπρού συγγραφέα, η Bouvard και η Pécuchet είναι σίγουρα το βαθύτερο, το πιο λεπτομερές, το ευρύτερο. . . . Είναι ο Πύργος της Βαβέλ των επιστημών, όπου όλα τα διαφορετικά, αντίθετα και απόλυτα δόγματα - το καθένα με τη δική του γλώσσα - καταδεικνύει την αδυναμία της προσπάθειας, τη ματαιοδοξία της επιβεβαίωσης και την αιώνια «δυστυχία των πάντων»
Φυσικά, είναι επίσης ένα γνήσιο αριστούργημα, όπως είναι η πιο διάσημη κυρία, «Μαντάμ Μποβαρύ», που προσφέρει βαθιά εικόνα για την ανθρώπινη ψυχολογία.
Αυτό συμβαίνει κατά το δεύτερο μισό του 19ου αιώνα, αλλά φαίνεται απολύτως σχετικό με τη σημερινή μοντέρνα κουλτούρα, με όλες τις μαζικές και εκφυλιστικές μόδες, καθώς και όλες τις δημοφιλείς ψυχολογικές, πολιτικές, οικονομικές, κοινωνιολογικές θεωρίες, τις οποίες ο Flaubert παριστάνει σε καταστροφικές καταστάσεις
Έργο βραδείας καύσης, λίγο ιδιόμορφο, λίγο αντισυμβατικό, λίγο φωτεινό, μα πιο πολύ σκοτεινά αστείο, μια πένα συναρπαστική, δραματική και ρεαλιστική με άρωμα ανατριχιαστικού ρομαντισμού.
Ακατάλληλο για τους εγκληματίες της εγκεφαλικής λογοτεχνίας.
Τρυφερό, ερευνητικό και εμψυχωτικό μέσα σε ένα
άψογο πλαίσιο ματαιότητας και ανατρεπτικής πολυτελείας ηθών, παθών, μηχανισμών ανθρώπινης πικάντικης απόγνωσης και άγνοιας.
Φλωμπέρ ο κόμης του πνευματικού τύπου που ανατρέπει με πραγματικές και ειλικρινείς ανακρίβειες το δυνατό και ερευνητικό Συμπαντικό μυστήριο.
Η απειλητική του ατμόσφαιρα αιωρείται πάνω στο βόρειο σέλας πριν την γέννηση του ήλιου, όταν ήταν ένα σύμπτωμα του οργασμού του πλανήτη, μια πληθωρική έκχυση.
Και σε όλες τις πανεπιστημονικές κυνικές εξελίξιμες ανακαλύψεις των φυσικών και υπερφυσικών φαινομένων που συνθέτουν την δημιουργία της τέλειας και οικουμενικά δυστοπικής διαδρομής προς την φυσική νομοτέλεια της παντοτινά ημιτελούς γνώσης και προκλητικά ερευνητικής αβεβαιότητας που πάντα θα ανατρέπει αυτά που η νόηση ανακαλύπτει.
✡️✡️🟪🟪✡️🟦🟦🟪⭐️⭐️🟦🟦🟦
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Η θεμελιώδης άποψη ότι οι άνθρωποι, τα φυτά, τα ζώα και τα ουράνια σώματα κατέχουν πνεύμα ανεξάρτητο από τη φυσική ύπαρξη των θρησκειών, των επιστημών και των τεχνών.
Η επισκόπηση αυτή έχει ανατεθεί σε δυο ηλίθιους, μάλλον σε δυο πνεύματα αρκετά διαυγή, μέτρια και απλοϊκά, μα επιβλητικά ηλίθια.
Σας παρουσιάζουμε τον Μπουβάρ και Πεκισέ, μέσα απο την ιστορία ενός Φάουστ που τυχαίνει να είναι και τρυφερά ηλίθιος.
Αυτοί οι δυο μεσήλικοι άνδρες, δυο φίλοι που εργάζονταν ως αντιγραφείς στο Παρίσι, γνωρίζονται τυχαία και μοιραία, χωρίς να τους ενώνουν πολλά κοινά και δίχως να τους χωρίζουν τραγικές διαφωνίες αποτραβιούνται στην επαρχιακή Νορμανδία για να ευτυχήσουν.
Καταλήγουν να γίνουν θαυμάσιοι στοχαστές της αιώνιας οικουμενικής βλακείας που παύουν να την ανέχονται καθώς την αναγνωρίζουν παντού.
Το λαμπρό ημιτελές μυθιστόρημα του Flaubert, «Μπουβάρ & Πεκισέ» σε μια εξαιρετική έκδοση καταδεικνύει απερίφραστα και ορθολογιστικά πως οι αναγνώστες που κατέκριναν αυτό το επικό,διαχρονικό έργο είναι ως φαίνεται τα τέλεια ισοδύναμα των Messieurs Bouvard και Pécuchet, αν και με αντίστροφη πνευματική φιλοδοξία.
Ευτυχώς για τους απαιτητικούς αναγνώστες, ορισμένα πράγματα δεν αλλάζουν ποτέ - στην πραγματικότητα,
ο κόσμος στον πραγματικό χωροχρονικό κυβερνοχώρο μας έχει δημιουργήσει πολλούς Bouvards και Pécuchets.
Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι πολύτιμο λογοτέχνημα, η ημιτελής, τελική εργασία του Flaubert (πέθανε χωρίς να ολοκληρώσει τα τελευταία του κεφάλαια, τα οποία υπάρχουν μόνο σε ανέκδοτα περιγράμματα)
ένα θαυματουργό ιαματικό υγρό νοητικής κατάποσης
με απείρως ευνοϊκές και μακροχρόνιες ενδείξεις.
Στον ασθενή Flaubert κόστισε πολλά χρόνια με τη σχολαστική δεξιοτεχνία του, που αντικατοπτρίζει τις κηλίδες, το χάος, τις μαύρες τρύπες και τη ματαιοδοξία της επιβεβαίωσης ως προς την αιώνια δυστυχία απο τα αντίθετα και τα απόλυτα δόγματα του κόσμου.
( προσωπική άποψη- #no_hate_speech).
«Μεταξύ όλων των έργων αυτού του λαμπρού συγγραφέα, η Bouvard και η Pécuchet είναι σίγουρα το βαθύτερο, το πιο λεπτομερές, το ευρύτερο. . . . Είναι ο Πύργος της Βαβέλ των επιστημών, όπου όλα τα διαφορετικά, αντίθετα και απόλυτα δόγματα - το καθένα με τη δική του γλώσσα - καταδεικνύει την αδυναμία της προσπάθειας, τη ματαιοδοξία της επιβεβαίωσης και την αιώνια «δυστυχία των πάντων»
Φυσικά, είναι επίσης ένα γνήσιο αριστούργημα, όπως είναι η πιο διάσημη κυρία, «Μαντάμ Μποβαρύ», που προσφέρει βαθιά εικόνα για την ανθρώπινη ψυχολογία.
Αυτό συμβαίνει κατά το δεύτερο μισό του 19ου αιώνα, αλλά φαίνεται απολύτως σχετικό με τη σημερινή μοντέρνα κουλτούρα, με όλες τις μαζικές και εκφυλιστικές μόδες, καθώς και όλες τις δημοφιλείς ψυχολογικές, πολιτικές, οικονομικές, κοινωνιολογικές θεωρίες, τις οποίες ο Flaubert παριστάνει σε καταστροφικές καταστάσεις
Έργο βραδείας καύσης, λίγο ιδιόμορφο, λίγο αντισυμβατικό, λίγο φωτεινό, μα πιο πολύ σκοτεινά αστείο, μια πένα συναρπαστική, δραματική και ρεαλιστική με άρωμα ανατριχιαστικού ρομαντισμού.
Ακατάλληλο για τους εγκληματίες της εγκεφαλικής λογοτεχνίας.
Τρυφερό, ερευνητικό και εμψυχωτικό μέσα σε ένα
άψογο πλαίσιο ματαιότητας και ανατρεπτικής πολυτελείας ηθών, παθών, μηχανισμών ανθρώπινης πικάντικης απόγνωσης και άγνοιας.
Φλωμπέρ ο κόμης του πνευματικού τύπου που ανατρέπει με πραγματικές και ειλικρινείς ανακρίβειες το δυνατό και ερευνητικό Συμπαντικό μυστήριο.
Η απειλητική του ατμόσφαιρα αιωρείται πάνω στο βόρειο σέλας πριν την γέννηση του ήλιου, όταν ήταν ένα σύμπτωμα του οργασμού του πλανήτη, μια πληθωρική έκχυση.
Και σε όλες τις πανεπιστημονικές κυνικές εξελίξιμες ανακαλύψεις των φυσικών και υπερφυσικών φαινομένων που συνθέτουν την δημιουργία της τέλειας και οικουμενικά δυστοπικής διαδρομής προς την φυσική νομοτέλεια της παντοτινά ημιτελούς γνώσης και προκλητικά ερευνητικής αβεβαιότητας που πάντα θα ανατρέπει αυτά που η νόηση ανακαλύπτει.
✡️✡️🟪🟪✡️🟦🟦🟪⭐️⭐️🟦🟦🟦
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
October 10, 2021
� Arrivarono presto al problema del Progresso.
Bouvard lo ammetteva nel campo delle scienze; ma, in letteratura, un progresso non è altrettanto evidente.
E se il benessere cresce, è però scomparso lo splendore della vita.
Ho già dichiarato più volte il mio pensiero in merito alla lettura di opere lasciate incompiute.
Sicuramente un senso di disagio, come se aprissi i cassetti in casa altrui.
Poi la stessa sensazione dubbiosa la trovo espressa, appena apro il libro, nell’introduzione di Vassalli che scrive:
(�)� ma chissà poi se Flaubert avrebbe veramente seguito quella traccia, o se l’avrebbe modificata. Il dubbio è legittimo, perché gli schemi, nel lavoro di uno scrittore, hanno sempre un valore relativo, e possono essere vanificati in ogni momento dal progredire autonomo della storia, che finisce per condizionare il suo stesso autore.�
In ogni caso, qualcosa m’incuriosisce, così decido di leggere.
Bouvard e Pecuchet sono due anime affini che, in una giornata parigina estremamente afosa, casualmente si ritrovano a sedersi sulla stessa panchina.
Cominciando a conversare scoprono di avere in comune tantissime cose e presi da uno slancio, pari a quello dell’incontro di due anime gemelle, da quel giorno coltivano un’amicizia che diventerà sempre più forte.
Entrambi impiegati (e nello specifico entrambi con la stessa identica mansione di copista), dopo una serie di eventi, decidono di lasciare un lavoro che non li appaga si trasferiscono in campagna nel paesino di Chavignolles in Normandia.
L’inizio della nuova vita sprona i due a compiere un’avventura infaticabile nel mondo della conoscenza.
All’inizio è, giocoforza, la scienza agraria a coinvolgerli.
La proprietà che acquistano comprende anche una fattoria, pertanto, è automatico che cerchino conferma nei testi di come trarre al meglio le ricchezze della terra.
Da lì, tuttavia, s’innesta una corsa vorticosa.
Un affanno che a mani tese cerca di afferrare tutto il sapere:
geologia, astronomia, archeologia, storia, filosofia, letteratura, teatro, grammatica, estetica.
Poi i moti rivoluzionari del 1848 li trascinano nella passione politica da cui ne escono disgustati tanto da rifugiarsi in scienze occulte paranormali, desiderando il suicidio, mettendo in pratica le scienze pedagogiche allevando due fratellini, infine, progettando una nuova urbanistica del paesino�
Ogni tentativo è condotto con la passione del conoscere ma con la continua esperienza di fallimenti.
I libri si contraddicono e i due sono come due naufraghi in balìa di altrui opinioni (�(�) e del fatto che questi libri si contraddicessero a vicenda, non si davano pensiero. Ciascuno vi attingeva quel che giovava alla sua causa�)
Ondeggiano ora da una parte ora dall’altra.
Il risultato è quello di una farsa soprattutto nelle scene con il prete del paese che stuzzicano ed affrontano per cogliere in fallo la fede cristiana.
Una lettura che fa ridere, sorridere e riflettere nonostante non ci sia un finale e non si sappia esattamente se quello che leggiamo negli appunti ritrovati fosse la definitiva evoluzione della storia.
Quello che appare abbastanza chiaro è il peso che questi due personaggi assumono al di là della storia raccontata:
due figure emblematiche che rispecchiano un’epoca prettamente rivolta ai progressi della scienza e della conoscenza.
Una corsa, spesso, condotta ad occhi bendati e guidata dall’ansia del profitto economico e della conquista di fama.
Oggi sappiamo bene dove ci ha condotto questa corsa e negli appunti finali possiamo leggere qualcosa di sconcertante in merito.
Flaubert traccia un bivio che divide i due personaggi nel loro pensiero riguardo al futuro:
Pecuchet pessimista e Bouvard ottimista.
Il bicchiere è mezzo vuoto per Pecuchet e Flaubert scrisse, a riguardo, queste note:
� Pécuchet vede il futuro dell’umanità pessimisticamente:
L’uomo moderno ha perso valore ed è diventato una macchina.
Anarchia finale del genere umano (Buehner, I, 11).
Impossibilità della pace (ibidem).
Barbarie causata dall’eccesso d’individualismo e dal delirio della Scienza.
3 ipotesi: 1) il radicalismo panteista romperà ogni legame col passato e ne deriverà un dispotismo disumano; 2) se trionfa l’assolutismo teistico, soccomberà il liberalismo di cui l’umanità si è imbevuta dopo la Riforma, tutto sarà rovesciato; 3) se le agitazioni che ci sono dall�89 continuano senza fine fra due estremi, queste oscillazioni, per la loro stessa forza, ci trascineranno.
Non ci saranno piú ideali, religione, moralità.
L’America avrà conquistato la terra.
Avvenire della letteratura.
Marioleria universale. Tutto non sarà che un’unica baldoria d’operai.
Fine del mondo per estinzione del calorico�
Brivido!
Bouvard lo ammetteva nel campo delle scienze; ma, in letteratura, un progresso non è altrettanto evidente.
E se il benessere cresce, è però scomparso lo splendore della vita.
Ho già dichiarato più volte il mio pensiero in merito alla lettura di opere lasciate incompiute.
Sicuramente un senso di disagio, come se aprissi i cassetti in casa altrui.
Poi la stessa sensazione dubbiosa la trovo espressa, appena apro il libro, nell’introduzione di Vassalli che scrive:
(�)� ma chissà poi se Flaubert avrebbe veramente seguito quella traccia, o se l’avrebbe modificata. Il dubbio è legittimo, perché gli schemi, nel lavoro di uno scrittore, hanno sempre un valore relativo, e possono essere vanificati in ogni momento dal progredire autonomo della storia, che finisce per condizionare il suo stesso autore.�
In ogni caso, qualcosa m’incuriosisce, così decido di leggere.
Bouvard e Pecuchet sono due anime affini che, in una giornata parigina estremamente afosa, casualmente si ritrovano a sedersi sulla stessa panchina.
Cominciando a conversare scoprono di avere in comune tantissime cose e presi da uno slancio, pari a quello dell’incontro di due anime gemelle, da quel giorno coltivano un’amicizia che diventerà sempre più forte.
Entrambi impiegati (e nello specifico entrambi con la stessa identica mansione di copista), dopo una serie di eventi, decidono di lasciare un lavoro che non li appaga si trasferiscono in campagna nel paesino di Chavignolles in Normandia.
L’inizio della nuova vita sprona i due a compiere un’avventura infaticabile nel mondo della conoscenza.
All’inizio è, giocoforza, la scienza agraria a coinvolgerli.
La proprietà che acquistano comprende anche una fattoria, pertanto, è automatico che cerchino conferma nei testi di come trarre al meglio le ricchezze della terra.
Da lì, tuttavia, s’innesta una corsa vorticosa.
Un affanno che a mani tese cerca di afferrare tutto il sapere:
geologia, astronomia, archeologia, storia, filosofia, letteratura, teatro, grammatica, estetica.
Poi i moti rivoluzionari del 1848 li trascinano nella passione politica da cui ne escono disgustati tanto da rifugiarsi in scienze occulte paranormali, desiderando il suicidio, mettendo in pratica le scienze pedagogiche allevando due fratellini, infine, progettando una nuova urbanistica del paesino�
Ogni tentativo è condotto con la passione del conoscere ma con la continua esperienza di fallimenti.
I libri si contraddicono e i due sono come due naufraghi in balìa di altrui opinioni (�(�) e del fatto che questi libri si contraddicessero a vicenda, non si davano pensiero. Ciascuno vi attingeva quel che giovava alla sua causa�)
Ondeggiano ora da una parte ora dall’altra.
Il risultato è quello di una farsa soprattutto nelle scene con il prete del paese che stuzzicano ed affrontano per cogliere in fallo la fede cristiana.
Una lettura che fa ridere, sorridere e riflettere nonostante non ci sia un finale e non si sappia esattamente se quello che leggiamo negli appunti ritrovati fosse la definitiva evoluzione della storia.
Quello che appare abbastanza chiaro è il peso che questi due personaggi assumono al di là della storia raccontata:
due figure emblematiche che rispecchiano un’epoca prettamente rivolta ai progressi della scienza e della conoscenza.
Una corsa, spesso, condotta ad occhi bendati e guidata dall’ansia del profitto economico e della conquista di fama.
Oggi sappiamo bene dove ci ha condotto questa corsa e negli appunti finali possiamo leggere qualcosa di sconcertante in merito.
Flaubert traccia un bivio che divide i due personaggi nel loro pensiero riguardo al futuro:
Pecuchet pessimista e Bouvard ottimista.
Il bicchiere è mezzo vuoto per Pecuchet e Flaubert scrisse, a riguardo, queste note:
� Pécuchet vede il futuro dell’umanità pessimisticamente:
L’uomo moderno ha perso valore ed è diventato una macchina.
Anarchia finale del genere umano (Buehner, I, 11).
Impossibilità della pace (ibidem).
Barbarie causata dall’eccesso d’individualismo e dal delirio della Scienza.
3 ipotesi: 1) il radicalismo panteista romperà ogni legame col passato e ne deriverà un dispotismo disumano; 2) se trionfa l’assolutismo teistico, soccomberà il liberalismo di cui l’umanità si è imbevuta dopo la Riforma, tutto sarà rovesciato; 3) se le agitazioni che ci sono dall�89 continuano senza fine fra due estremi, queste oscillazioni, per la loro stessa forza, ci trascineranno.
Non ci saranno piú ideali, religione, moralità.
L’America avrà conquistato la terra.
Avvenire della letteratura.
Marioleria universale. Tutto non sarà che un’unica baldoria d’operai.
Fine del mondo per estinzione del calorico�
Brivido!
September 25, 2021
What they admired most about the cedar tree was that it had been transported there in a hat. At the Louvre, they did their best to admire Raphael. At the national library, they wanted to know the exact number of volumes.
As promised, a better translation than the one I read years ago, seemingly a very good translation. And now, au revoir, B & P. Too bad Gustave didn't live to finish you after reading 1500 books (!) to research this one, but what's there is quintessential Flaubert. Dictionary of Accepted Ideas at the end of this is a better translation too and ends with the Catalogue of Fashionable Ideas. To do: re-read Proust's sketch bringing them forward in time and say a final farewell to Bouvard and to Pecuchet, not that I could ever forget them.
from translator Mark Polizzoti's essay Stan and Ollie in the Lab, which opens the book:
IN THE SUMMER OF 1872, the fifty-year-old Flaubert wrote to the literary salonist Edma Roger des Genettes, “I’m contemplating something in which I’ll vent all my anger. Yes, at last I shall rid myself of what is stifling me. I shall vomit back onto my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me, even if it means ripping my chest open.�...
Originally titled “The Story of Two Nobodies,� this was to be an encyclopedic panorama of human stupidity, the project for which had occupied him for decades, and which finally reached near-fruition as his last, unfinished novel...
The comedy, of course, stems from the disparity between their self-image as undiscovered geniuses, the unassailable gravity with which they go about their endeavors, and the hopeless inadequacy of their actual talents. In fact, the only talent they are able to maintain throughout the book is their devotion to each other—for this is also a tale of a remarkable and enduring friendship...
More than anything, however, Bouvard and Pécuchet stages ܲ’s legendary intolerance for stupidity and the rigid bourgeois mentality; for the commonplaces, clichés, and biases that regulated society. (Such a statement has itself become a commonplace..)...
In Bouvard and Pécuchet, stupidity takes many forms, from the protagonists� hopeless pursuit of instant knowledge to the moronic (and ever-changing) social policies that crop up throughout. The most trenchant satire, however, is reserved for the mental laziness that leads us to have others do our thinking for us, that resists critical judgment...
As Flaubert told a correspondent at the time, “The book’s subtitle would be, ‘On the Lack of Method in the Sciences.� In short, my goal is nothing less than to conduct a review of all modern thinking.� To the majority who clung to the belief that science and industry were all to the good, Flaubert countered with the absurd sight of his two characters chasing after a hunk of knowledge, swallowing it whole, and having nothing to show for it but indigestion....
Still, it would be a disservice to the author to make of his heroes simple clowns, comic or evil, just as it would be inaccurate to portray Flaubert as a distant intelligence sitting in judgment on the inanity of his times. As he knew all too well, stupidity belongs to no age or place; it is a universal human trait, one to which he himself was far from immune. “Stupidity does not sit on one side and Intelligence on the other,� he wrote to Louis Bouilhet in 1855. “They’re like Vice and Virtue—it takes an awfully shrewd mind to tell them apart.�
from Raymond Queneau's preface:
They seldom laugh, and never “have fun.� As for the novel itself, there is nothing lighthearted about it. “I want to produce such an impression of lassitude and ennui,� said Flaubert to Maxime Du Camp, “that in reading this book one could believe it had been composed by a cretin.�...
(Flaubert read, he says, more than fifteen hundred volumes toward this end) can only confirm this identification. Demorest picks up the following sentences from ܲ’s Correspondence (that I can do no better than pillage: see Demorest, p. 37): “Bouvard and Pécuchet have filled me up to such a point that I’ve become them! Their stupidity is my own and I am bursting with it.� “I live as much as I can in my two fellows.� “I am too full of my subject…the stupidity of my two characters has invaded me.�...
Yes, stupidity consists in wanting to conclude. We are a thread and we want to know the pattern. That goes back to those eternal discussions about the decadence of art. Now one spends one’s time telling oneself: we are completely finished, here we are at the very end, etc., etc. What mind of any strength—beginning with Homer—has ever come to a conclusion?
As promised, a better translation than the one I read years ago, seemingly a very good translation. And now, au revoir, B & P. Too bad Gustave didn't live to finish you after reading 1500 books (!) to research this one, but what's there is quintessential Flaubert. Dictionary of Accepted Ideas at the end of this is a better translation too and ends with the Catalogue of Fashionable Ideas. To do: re-read Proust's sketch bringing them forward in time and say a final farewell to Bouvard and to Pecuchet, not that I could ever forget them.
from translator Mark Polizzoti's essay Stan and Ollie in the Lab, which opens the book:
IN THE SUMMER OF 1872, the fifty-year-old Flaubert wrote to the literary salonist Edma Roger des Genettes, “I’m contemplating something in which I’ll vent all my anger. Yes, at last I shall rid myself of what is stifling me. I shall vomit back onto my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me, even if it means ripping my chest open.�...
Originally titled “The Story of Two Nobodies,� this was to be an encyclopedic panorama of human stupidity, the project for which had occupied him for decades, and which finally reached near-fruition as his last, unfinished novel...
The comedy, of course, stems from the disparity between their self-image as undiscovered geniuses, the unassailable gravity with which they go about their endeavors, and the hopeless inadequacy of their actual talents. In fact, the only talent they are able to maintain throughout the book is their devotion to each other—for this is also a tale of a remarkable and enduring friendship...
More than anything, however, Bouvard and Pécuchet stages ܲ’s legendary intolerance for stupidity and the rigid bourgeois mentality; for the commonplaces, clichés, and biases that regulated society. (Such a statement has itself become a commonplace..)...
In Bouvard and Pécuchet, stupidity takes many forms, from the protagonists� hopeless pursuit of instant knowledge to the moronic (and ever-changing) social policies that crop up throughout. The most trenchant satire, however, is reserved for the mental laziness that leads us to have others do our thinking for us, that resists critical judgment...
As Flaubert told a correspondent at the time, “The book’s subtitle would be, ‘On the Lack of Method in the Sciences.� In short, my goal is nothing less than to conduct a review of all modern thinking.� To the majority who clung to the belief that science and industry were all to the good, Flaubert countered with the absurd sight of his two characters chasing after a hunk of knowledge, swallowing it whole, and having nothing to show for it but indigestion....
Still, it would be a disservice to the author to make of his heroes simple clowns, comic or evil, just as it would be inaccurate to portray Flaubert as a distant intelligence sitting in judgment on the inanity of his times. As he knew all too well, stupidity belongs to no age or place; it is a universal human trait, one to which he himself was far from immune. “Stupidity does not sit on one side and Intelligence on the other,� he wrote to Louis Bouilhet in 1855. “They’re like Vice and Virtue—it takes an awfully shrewd mind to tell them apart.�
from Raymond Queneau's preface:
They seldom laugh, and never “have fun.� As for the novel itself, there is nothing lighthearted about it. “I want to produce such an impression of lassitude and ennui,� said Flaubert to Maxime Du Camp, “that in reading this book one could believe it had been composed by a cretin.�...
(Flaubert read, he says, more than fifteen hundred volumes toward this end) can only confirm this identification. Demorest picks up the following sentences from ܲ’s Correspondence (that I can do no better than pillage: see Demorest, p. 37): “Bouvard and Pécuchet have filled me up to such a point that I’ve become them! Their stupidity is my own and I am bursting with it.� “I live as much as I can in my two fellows.� “I am too full of my subject…the stupidity of my two characters has invaded me.�...
Yes, stupidity consists in wanting to conclude. We are a thread and we want to know the pattern. That goes back to those eternal discussions about the decadence of art. Now one spends one’s time telling oneself: we are completely finished, here we are at the very end, etc., etc. What mind of any strength—beginning with Homer—has ever come to a conclusion?
Read
August 7, 2014If you’re one of those people who have always wanted to dip into the tradition of the encyclopedic novel but have always been intimidated by the page count or just can’t find the time to swallow so damn much at one time then let me recommend as a great little gateway book this slim (280 pages!) little volume as what just might be the treat you’ve been waiting for. But how?! you might ask. Well see Flaubert in his research for this little unfinished novel (that’s a point in it’s favor now isn’t it?) read or claimed to have read 1500 (fifteen hundred) volumes in various areas of study undertaken by his protagonists Bouvard and Pécuchet (I will also refrain from making the obvious comparisons between B&P and many of our illustrious neighbors, but I will compare them to the equally charming and book=damaged characters of Great Literature such as the very noble Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance) :: agriculture, chemistry, medicine, history, archeology, literature, aesthetics, politics, love, spiritualism, religion, athletics, pedagogy.... to list only those listed on a list in the introduction of Mark Polizzotti which he entitles “Stan and Ollie in the Lab� and in which he even goes so far as to make the comparison with Seinfeld (1990’s popular television show in which famously nothing happens). Let me just say before I say too much more (but I’ll be wrapping this up shortly) that I’ve not yet read the famous Bovary by Flaubert nor have I previously read anything by this Flaubert whom I understand to count as one of those all=time Great Novelists but let me just say that I have a hard time swallowing the fact that this same guy wrote both Bovary (I mean in so far as I have some sliver of understanding about it via second=hand info which is just about totally impossible to avoid running across on these bookish internet sites) and Bouvard and Pécuchet but on the other hand I would have to guess that B&P would have been a colossal failure (read : boring) were it not written by someone in possession of those heights of novelistic skill. Flaubert outstrips those other novelists of stupidity, our Swifts and Diderots and Wielands just by the fact of being a real honest to goodness novelist in the way that only a novelist can be a novelist. And the other thing mentioned previously in this paragraph is the fact that like other classic works of a materialist nature (mention only that big thing by Marx) such as ܲ’s clear predecessor Rabelais this novel was not completed when ܲ’s life was so rudely interrupted (i.e., when he changed tense) but there is this sentence in the twelfth chapter (which consists of a mere eleven lines of notes) that goes something like “They [ie B&P] recapitulate their actions and thoughts, which for the reader should be a critique of the novel� and o boy! wouldn’t it have been nice to have had this novel completed! Fantastic! {nota bene also included in my Dalkey edition is a the afore=noted Introduction by Polizotti; a clever Preface by that guy I hear so much about, Queneau; the “Dictionary of Accepted Ideas� (“NOVELS: Pervert the masses. Are less immoral in serial form than in volumes. Only historical novels can be tolerated, because at least they teach history. Some novels are written with the point of a scalpel; others rest on the tip of a needle.� “POETRY: Is utterly useless. Out f fashion.�) which in fact is part of the novel (kind of maybe it was written by our protagonists Bouvard and Pécuchet) and is quite entertaining; something rather incomplete called “Catalogue of Fashionable Ideas� which goes on for all of two (disappointing) pages; and does not include annotations which, were they to have been prepared would have increased the size of this volume by approximately one hundred ten percent depending on the skill and verbosity of the annotator but in any case I would have welcomed the opportunity to wallow in all that detail etc etc etc }
April 8, 2024
Orijinal adı iki özel isimden oluşan “Bouvard ve Pecuchet� ancak yerine tam oturan bir yeni adlandırmayla “Bilirbilmezler� olarak çevrilmiş. Gustave Flaubert denilince akla hemen “Madam Bovary� gelir, halbuki bu yapıtının, çok farklı konuda da olsa onun önüne geçmemiş olmasına şaşırdım. Belki bunda kitabın son yapıt olup bitirilmemiş olmasının etkisi vardır.
Eğlenceli, mizah dozu çok iyi ayarlanmış bir anlatıya sahip olsa da bu kitap kesinlikle bir genel kültür eğitim kitabı. Aydın-cahil, bilgi-boş inanış, iyi-kötü, özgürlük-despotluk gibi karşıt kavramlar, sosyal bilimler ve doğa bilimlerinin neredeyse tüm alt bölümlerini içine alacak çeşitlilikte anlatılmış. Aslında felsefi ve siyasi bir deneme kitabı da denebilir.
Flaubert kendi döneminin olaylarını öncelemekle birlikte antik kadim tarihlere kadar uzanan kişiler ve olaylarla, yaşadığı çağın politikasını, felsefesini, sanat ve edebiyatını, bilimini mizahi olarak eleştirmekte, adeta çağdaşlarından intikam almaktadır. Çok okumuş, araştırmış, çağının gerçek aydınlarından olduğu anlaşılıyor. Oldukça etkileyici anlatımı, son derece sade dili ile okunmasını önereceğim yazarın bence başyapıtı.
Eğlenceli, mizah dozu çok iyi ayarlanmış bir anlatıya sahip olsa da bu kitap kesinlikle bir genel kültür eğitim kitabı. Aydın-cahil, bilgi-boş inanış, iyi-kötü, özgürlük-despotluk gibi karşıt kavramlar, sosyal bilimler ve doğa bilimlerinin neredeyse tüm alt bölümlerini içine alacak çeşitlilikte anlatılmış. Aslında felsefi ve siyasi bir deneme kitabı da denebilir.
Flaubert kendi döneminin olaylarını öncelemekle birlikte antik kadim tarihlere kadar uzanan kişiler ve olaylarla, yaşadığı çağın politikasını, felsefesini, sanat ve edebiyatını, bilimini mizahi olarak eleştirmekte, adeta çağdaşlarından intikam almaktadır. Çok okumuş, araştırmış, çağının gerçek aydınlarından olduğu anlaşılıyor. Oldukça etkileyici anlatımı, son derece sade dili ile okunmasını önereceğim yazarın bence başyapıtı.
October 13, 2016
Another of my absolute favourites. Includes the Dictionary of Received Ideas, which was shamelessly and profitably plagiarized by William Donaldson for his World According to Henry Root. Super stuff.
I'm going to have to write a longer review to explain why it is that this book means so much to me. It's a wonderful satire on "book learning" that many of us nerds might feel slighted by, but in fact the message I take away from it is about individuality and the fact that every book of instruction is necessarily one of generalization. No theory of reality captures the particular, in the same way that a map of the world, to be entirely accurate, must be 1:1 scale.
I will elaborate further, I promise.
I'm going to have to write a longer review to explain why it is that this book means so much to me. It's a wonderful satire on "book learning" that many of us nerds might feel slighted by, but in fact the message I take away from it is about individuality and the fact that every book of instruction is necessarily one of generalization. No theory of reality captures the particular, in the same way that a map of the world, to be entirely accurate, must be 1:1 scale.
I will elaborate further, I promise.
December 2, 2014
I just had a very Bouvard-Pécuchetian moment. After writing most of what I thought was a rather good review of Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet, I clumsily exed out the tab holding my unpublished review. All that hard work and no fruit to bear! Flaubert is a keen master of small human foibles taken to extremes. In Madame Bovary, his very funny, though perhaps severely misunderstood novel about a woman's mawkish sentimentality whose vitality exceeds her own, Flaubert plays with the elements of comedy and tragedy in such a way that our emotions toward Emma are constantly at odds. On the one hand, she is all schmaltz and vanity, she is shallow, she is vapid, but on the other hand, she represents that undying will in all of us that strives for our ideals, that unbendingly demands the perfect image of our future which is ever cast in front of out own imaginations. In Flaubert we are always dealing in extremes, in those who go too far, who do too much: who are self-destructive in their passions to the point of parody. In Bouvard and Pécuchet we are introduced to our dunce-capped duo: the embodiment of human failure and foolhardiness, but also of human endurance and academic fervor. Where Emma Bovary loves too much, but in a false love, an empty love, play-acted from pulp romances, Bouvard and Pécuchet seek an infinite knowledge, but lack the creative genius to form definite opinions, and instead fall on the contradictions and lacuna of scholarly texts on a number of subjects.
Bouvard and Pécuchet meet and become instant friends, as close as brothers. Both work as copy clerks in Paris, and occupy cramped corner apartments, until Bouvard comes upon a large sum inheritance from his avuncular father-figure, and the two head off to live in the country. Like Emma, play-acting in love, Bouvard and Pécuchet are always acting at the proscenium of their solipsism (a shared solipsism, a double madness, folie à deux) and critical reality. Their madness is in their methods: they are copyists by vocation, and as such they can only copy, but never create.
Their minds always at work at something which is beyond their reach, they are often too mired in specifics to grasp the larger picture. Their bottom-up approach to everything is ultimately their undoing and frequently leads to their frustration and disappointment. Even in deciding where to live gives them tremendous trouble. For though they have a tremendous capacity for seeing all sides of an issue, they lack the power to synthesize and balance that knowledge to form a clear image of reality:
Repeatedly, Flaubert refers to the misguided attempts and misadventures of our mock-heroes as having created "monsters" - great failures of applied knowledge. In their agriculurist-phase, after failing in cash crops and fruit, and moving on to garden vegetables:
Knowledge is a powerful thing: but power is morally neutral. It can be used to achieve progress, or halt and immolate progress; to save lives and to destroy them. Flaubert reminds us that complete knowledge is impossible, what we don't know always eclipses what we do, and the even greater shadow is what we don't know that we don't know. We cannot let this lack of knowledge rule us, we must seek to self-inform, to read in great volumes and in broad topics, to keep us from becoming narrow-minded. But equally important is to form our own knowledge, to synthesize what we take-in, to create our own views, to stand by them, but to remain always receptive and skeptical. It is a danger not to. Our Faustian fools give up everything in their pursuit of knowledge, but are unable to reconcile the quantity of views. As Bouvard and Pécuchet is a panorama of the follies in science and human knowledge, knowledge itself is the very mirror of that panorama. Every failure, folly, mistake, and every rare success feeds into the great accumulation of the human ken.
Bouvard and Pécuchet meet and become instant friends, as close as brothers. Both work as copy clerks in Paris, and occupy cramped corner apartments, until Bouvard comes upon a large sum inheritance from his avuncular father-figure, and the two head off to live in the country. Like Emma, play-acting in love, Bouvard and Pécuchet are always acting at the proscenium of their solipsism (a shared solipsism, a double madness, folie à deux) and critical reality. Their madness is in their methods: they are copyists by vocation, and as such they can only copy, but never create.
Sometimes Pécuchet pulled his manual from his pocket and studied a paragraph, standing, with his spade beside him, in the pose of the gardener decorating the book’s frontispiece.Like Pécuchet imitating the illustration in the book, the dunderheaded duo is ever ruined by their own lack of creative capacity. Their imaginations are purely proleptic: before opening a book they have already fully envisioned their success, but they ultimately lack the modest-temperament and genius required for that achievement. Despite their constant failures, the duo is dogged in their scholarship, and their itinerant passions are never extinguished by embarrassment or disheartedness. They are ever in the pursuit of their grande achievement, and care little wherein that achievement comes from: Like artists they craved applause. In Bouvard and Pécuchet, Flaubert splits himself in two: the stock and liberal, libertine Bouvard, and the gaunt, conservative and virginal Pécuchet. Like in Madame Bovary, Flaubert's last novel is both a condemnation and a mea culpa of human stupidity: a final salut to both mental frailty and scholastic endurance. Our pied protagonists are always devouring book upon book, volume upon volume, and mirror their creator's voracious reading appetite: Flaubert claims to have read north of 1,500 books in preparation for writing Bouvard and Pécuchet. And whether Flaubert's unfinished masterpiece is an encyclopedic farce or, in fact, a farcical encyclopedia, is a matter of debate: the reader will be grateful to have a dictionary handy, for each academic whim and fancy is pursued in the parlance and nomenclature particular to that rite. The great tragedy, and the grade statement of the novel, which teases us and jocosely punishes our foolish friends, is:
“Science is based on data supplied by a small corpus of knowledge. Perhaps it doesn’t apply to all the rest that we don’t know about, which is much more vast, and which we can never understand.�The worlds of science, of literature, of love, are much more in the shadow of our knowledge than in the light: there is ever more to know, and also that which cannot be taught, that which will never be precise or certain, but requires a creative cement to fill in the apertures. Bouvard and Pécuchet simply lack creative genius, they consume and consume knowledge, read books, study at length, but the inherent differences of opinion, vagaries of incomplete knowledge, and contradictions between authors are a pediment to what they believe is true success and enlightenment.
They no longer had a single fixed idea bout individuals and events of that time. To form an impartial judgement, they would have to read every history, every memoir, every newspaper and manuscript, for the slightest omission could foster an error that would lead to others, and unto infinity. They gave up."They gave up" is the ringing leitmotif of our foolhardy duo, and despite their frequent differences of opinion, they are forever united in their surrender and transition to greener, untended pastures.
Their minds always at work at something which is beyond their reach, they are often too mired in specifics to grasp the larger picture. Their bottom-up approach to everything is ultimately their undoing and frequently leads to their frustration and disappointment. Even in deciding where to live gives them tremendous trouble. For though they have a tremendous capacity for seeing all sides of an issue, they lack the power to synthesize and balance that knowledge to form a clear image of reality:
At times they has almost reached a decision; then fearing they would regret it later, changed their minds, the chosen place striking them as unwholesome, or exposed to the sea winds, or too near a factory, or difficult to reach.It is hard not to love these clumsy copyists, for every failure is taken in stride, and both stooges and spectators are visited by laughter at the precipitous ruin. Like a slapstick commedia dell'arte, the novel is suffused with physical comedy, but also high-minded ideas and a doggedness of heart that is truly endearing to behold.
Repeatedly, Flaubert refers to the misguided attempts and misadventures of our mock-heroes as having created "monsters" - great failures of applied knowledge. In their agriculurist-phase, after failing in cash crops and fruit, and moving on to garden vegetables:
The cabbages were his only consolation. One in particular gave him hope. It blossomed, grew, ended up being huge and absolutely inedible. No matter. Pécuchet was glad to have produced a monster.It is the nature of their madness to produce monsters, but fortunately those monsters are largely innocuous: simply mementos of their own folly. However, it is the zealotry of their simple-mindedness which produces these monsters, and has the capacity to create devastation. Like the monomania of the church or the rigid single-mindedness of political demagogues, zealous ignorance is far more dangerous than Bouvard's and Pécuchet's creative impotence. For Flaubert, though his two stooges lack in any real creative power, and in fact, are life-long copyists no matter the manifestation of their ephemeral endeavors, the stubborn ignorance and deliberate blindness of many of his heroes' critics are more likely to incite the reader's censure. Bouvard and Pécuchet are simple men with an innocent, if practically useless goal of self-enlightment, but they are often subject to the iniquities of their fellow townspeople, whether in the form of harsh criticism, personal attacks, or outright swindling, their simpleness is constantly being taken advantage of by their more Machiavellian country-folk. Despite their flaws, Flaubert's protagonists are exceedingly brave, determined and happy: they refuse to submit, despite their follies, to the yokes of others' preaches, and pursue their own happiness with a dogged passion.
Knowledge is a powerful thing: but power is morally neutral. It can be used to achieve progress, or halt and immolate progress; to save lives and to destroy them. Flaubert reminds us that complete knowledge is impossible, what we don't know always eclipses what we do, and the even greater shadow is what we don't know that we don't know. We cannot let this lack of knowledge rule us, we must seek to self-inform, to read in great volumes and in broad topics, to keep us from becoming narrow-minded. But equally important is to form our own knowledge, to synthesize what we take-in, to create our own views, to stand by them, but to remain always receptive and skeptical. It is a danger not to. Our Faustian fools give up everything in their pursuit of knowledge, but are unable to reconcile the quantity of views. As Bouvard and Pécuchet is a panorama of the follies in science and human knowledge, knowledge itself is the very mirror of that panorama. Every failure, folly, mistake, and every rare success feeds into the great accumulation of the human ken.
Still, all their reading had gone to their brains.
Bouvard, coming down with a cold, imagined he was getting pneumonia. Since leeches hadn’t relieved the twinge in his side, he resorted to a vesicatory, which affected his kidneys and made him think he was suffering from gallstones.
Pécuchet felt some stiffness while pruning the arbor and vomited after his dinner, which left him terrified. Then, noticing that his skin was a bit sallow, he suspected a liver condition, wondered “Am I in pain?� and ended up deciding that he was.
September 8, 2011
Although Flaubert intended to make chumps of his protagonists, B&P are actually lovable eccentrics, whose inquiring minds put our dull unquestioning conformist lumps to shame. A tour through the humanities, sciences, and theologies woven around a tale of two civil servants free to pursue a life of the mind outside the drudgery of work, ܲ’s last book is far from becoming the final masterpiece he intended, but still dazzles, tickles and titillates with erudition and high-class humour. Manny’s review, as ever, is the best.
January 5, 2018
Υπάρχουν βιβλία που ειναι απλως αναγνώσματα Αυτό δεν ειναι ενα απο αυτα . Προκειτε για ενα βιβλιο αναφοράς . Ενα διασκεδαστικό βιβλιο , αλλα αναφοράς . Ενα μελαγχολικό, θλιμμένο , ειρωνικό, δραματικό βιβλιο αναφοράς .
Και τι εννοω με το αναφοράς ; αυτο το βιβλιο και κυρίως οι δυο ήρωες του , που δίνουν το όνομα τους και στο τίτλο του , ειναι βασικα σημεία αναφοράς ηδη απο τον Προυστ . Στο " τέρψεις Άι ημέρες " ενα ολόκληρο διήγημα ειναι μια συνεχεια-μεταγραφή -του " μπουβαρ και Πεκυσε" . Επισης αυτο το βινλιο διαβάζεται συνδυάστικά και με το κείμενο του Ρόλαντ Μπαρτ " ο θανατος του συγγραφέα .
Και τι εννοω με το αναφοράς ; αυτο το βιβλιο και κυρίως οι δυο ήρωες του , που δίνουν το όνομα τους και στο τίτλο του , ειναι βασικα σημεία αναφοράς ηδη απο τον Προυστ . Στο " τέρψεις Άι ημέρες " ενα ολόκληρο διήγημα ειναι μια συνεχεια-μεταγραφή -του " μπουβαρ και Πεκυσε" . Επισης αυτο το βινλιο διαβάζεται συνδυάστικά και με το κείμενο του Ρόλαντ Μπαρτ " ο θανατος του συγγραφέα .
March 18, 2017
DILETTANTI ALLO SBARAGLIO
Bouvard e Pecuchet, due anime semplici che ingenuamente credono di poter immagazzinare tutte le conoscenze in un unico sapere, metafora della cultura enciclopedica positivistica di stampo illuminista che pretendeva di dare una risposta completa a tutto. Una cultura al tramonto all'epoca in cui Flaubert scrive, che sta per lasciare il passo all'alba della "distruzione delle certezze".
I due abbandonano Parigi e si rifugiano in una proprietà in campagna dove si dedicano alle loro passioni, agli studi e alle letture, per soddisfare il loro desiderio di conoscenza. Flaubert gioca e si diverte a prendere in giro un tale ridicolo accanimento “culturale�, destinato inesorabilmente al fallimento. Ogni testo, in qualsiasi branca del sapere, contiene teorie in contrasto tra loro o comunque contraddittorie le une con le altre, a dimostrazione che il tentativo di mettere ordine nel caos è impossibile da realizzare e che la contraddizione costituisce il fondamento del pensiero umano. Nonostante le continue sconfitte i due amici, che vengono descritti da Flaubert sempre in parallelo, sia nelle caratteristiche fisiche che nelle attività che svolgono, come se fossero un’unica persona vista da più lati, a sottolineare la personalità sfaccettata dell’essere umano, rimangono entusiasticamente convinti fino alla fine di poter riuscire nell’impresa: il romanzo, rimasto incompiuto per il sopraggiungere della morte di Flaubert, si interrompe proprio all’inizio di una nuova avventura, una conferenza per illustrare ai più le loro idee pedagogiche. Tuttavia restano gli appunti di Flaubert per il seguito del romanzo, dai quali possiamo ricostruire come egli intendeva concluderlo. La soluzione finale è quella di tornare alle origini, al punto di partenza, a copiare tutte le sciocchezze e le banalità prodotte dalla “conoscenza�.
Come ho detto sopra, è evidente che Flaubert si è divertito nello scrivere questa sua ultima opera, ogni esperimento dei due “eroi� è raccontato con toni ironici, presentandoci i protagonisti come due macchiette; a fianco dell’ilarità che provoca la lettura vi è l� amara (per chi leggeva all’epoca positivistica di fine ottocento) conclusione che “nessun grande genio ha concluso e neanche i grandi libri concludono, perché l’umanità è sempre in marcia ed essa stessa non conclude.�
Per me un monito contro lo sfoggio inutile di cultura, che nasconde il vuoto, e uno stimolo all'umiltà.
In fondo al libro vi è il “dizionario dei luoghi comuni�, in cui -dice Flaubert- “vi si troverà in ordine alfabetico, su tutti gli argomenti possibili, tutto ciò che bisogna dire in società per essere un uomo come si deve e amabile�. Quanta ironia in queste parole e quanta ironia nel dizionario. Un esempio: “IMBECILLI : Chiunque non la pensi come noi�.
Interessante è l’introduzione di Sebastiano Vassalli, illuminante il saggio finale di Raimond Queneau.
August 11, 2019
Due sciocchi alla corte dell' Գ⳦DZé徱
Non è agevole comprendere cosa sottende in profondità l'ultima opera del genio di Flaubert e la brusca interruzione del libro non rende le cose più facili.
La vicenda dei due sempliciotti che vagano dispersi per le praterie del sapere (affidabile o cialtronesco che sia) è narrata con la solita spietatezza da Flaubert, ma questa volta non sembra esserci alcuna istituzione religiosa o statuale, alcuna sapienza empirica o metafisica, alcuna luce morale o filosofica che possa salvare i due amici. Ed allora rischiamo di finire anche noi nel tritacarne sardonico dell'autore, noi e ogni nostra minima fede scientifica, politica, sociale o religiosa che sia.
Lo stile asciutto, frammentato quasi sincopato rende le vicende quasi ansiose e affrettate: Bouvard e Pecuchet corrono da un fallimento ad un altro, si gettano da una fede all'altra rimediando solo delusioni, tradimenti, solitudine - è tutto il mondo della Francia della Seconda Repubblica (e poi dell'Impero di Napoleone III) a finire sotto il cinismo sarcastico di un Flaubert mai così lontano dal riconciliarsi con una società stupida, ignorante e cattiva.
E l'autore gioca anche noi lettori, dato che non abbiamo mai modo di capire se il tono del libro è sapidamente ironico o dannatamente serio - se cioè B&P veicolino una visione satirica dell'uomo positivista, empirista o anche solamente entusiasta del nuovo sapere enciclopedico o (invece) i due protagonisti siano una maschera tragica di una umanità che ha perso ogni riferimento e finisce per ridursi alla copiatura di testi già scritti in un clima di oppressione tirannica.
In ogni caso un libro modernissimo che (forse) coglie già i segni di un Novecento dove tutto andrà in pezzi (compresa la letteratura) - e anche lo stile fatto di frasi brevi, icastiche, quasi ellittiche nasconde una ricerca linguistica che pone questo libro ben oltre l'Ottocento letterario.
Non è agevole comprendere cosa sottende in profondità l'ultima opera del genio di Flaubert e la brusca interruzione del libro non rende le cose più facili.
La vicenda dei due sempliciotti che vagano dispersi per le praterie del sapere (affidabile o cialtronesco che sia) è narrata con la solita spietatezza da Flaubert, ma questa volta non sembra esserci alcuna istituzione religiosa o statuale, alcuna sapienza empirica o metafisica, alcuna luce morale o filosofica che possa salvare i due amici. Ed allora rischiamo di finire anche noi nel tritacarne sardonico dell'autore, noi e ogni nostra minima fede scientifica, politica, sociale o religiosa che sia.
Lo stile asciutto, frammentato quasi sincopato rende le vicende quasi ansiose e affrettate: Bouvard e Pecuchet corrono da un fallimento ad un altro, si gettano da una fede all'altra rimediando solo delusioni, tradimenti, solitudine - è tutto il mondo della Francia della Seconda Repubblica (e poi dell'Impero di Napoleone III) a finire sotto il cinismo sarcastico di un Flaubert mai così lontano dal riconciliarsi con una società stupida, ignorante e cattiva.
E l'autore gioca anche noi lettori, dato che non abbiamo mai modo di capire se il tono del libro è sapidamente ironico o dannatamente serio - se cioè B&P veicolino una visione satirica dell'uomo positivista, empirista o anche solamente entusiasta del nuovo sapere enciclopedico o (invece) i due protagonisti siano una maschera tragica di una umanità che ha perso ogni riferimento e finisce per ridursi alla copiatura di testi già scritti in un clima di oppressione tirannica.
In ogni caso un libro modernissimo che (forse) coglie già i segni di un Novecento dove tutto andrà in pezzi (compresa la letteratura) - e anche lo stile fatto di frasi brevi, icastiche, quasi ellittiche nasconde una ricerca linguistica che pone questo libro ben oltre l'Ottocento letterario.
January 7, 2024
Bilirbilmezler, Flaubert’in külliyatı içinde hak ettiği değeri görememiş bir kitap. Madam Bovary sansasyonel bir roman olduğu için hemen her kitabı onun gölgesinde kalmış. Çevirmen Tahsin Yücel muazzam bir önsöz yazmış. Kitabı okumadan önce kesinlikle okunması gereken harika bir giriş yazısı. Tahsin Yücel’den daha anlamlı bir şey söyleyebileceğimi sanmıyorum ama yazıyorum işte.
Kitap Bouvard ile Pécuchet adıyla biliniyor. Yücel farklı bir başlık seçmiş. Bu ikili Paris’te bir parkta karşılaşıyor. Yaptıkları small talk ömürlük bir dostluğa uzanıyor. İkisi de katip olan kahramanlarımız sohbetlerinden büyük bir haz alıyor. Gün geçtikçe yaşadıkları hayattan daha iyisini hak ettiklerine birbirlerini inandırıyorlar. Talih yüzlerine gülüyor ve ikisi de katipliği bırakarak entelektüel olarak kendilerini geliştirebilecekleri bir yaşama adım atıyorlar.
Türk aydınının Bodrum başta olmak üzere sahil kasabasına yerleşme isteği evrenselmiş meğer. Bouvard ile Pécuchet de Fransa taşrasına gidiyor. Küçük kasabalarındaki inzivaları inanılmaz eğlenceli. Flaubert döneminin aydınlarını eleştiriyor bu kitapla. Aydınların hevesleri, derinlikleri ve toplumdaki yerleri çok zekice tiye alınıyor.
İkilimiz tam anlamıyla otodidakt. Her şeyi öğrenebileceklerini, her şeyin altından kalkacaklarını düşünüyorlar. Özgüveni sürekli kutsayıp, çocuklara istediğin her şeyi olabilirsin dediğimiz çağımızda bu romanı ebeveynler okumalı. Özgüven ile hevesi karıştırıp ilk tökezlemede dağılıyor ya da başka bir heves bulmaya kalkıyoruz. Bouvard ile Pécuchet de buğdaydan sebzeye her şeyi yetiştirmeye çalışıyor. Tarımla sınırla kalmayıp hayvancılık da yapıyorlar. Bir türlü verim alamıyorlar. Bunun üzerine yardımcıları olan bahçıvan da onları sürekli kandırıyor. Ama ikili başka bir heves bulmakta gecikmiyor. Botanikte verim alamayınca arkeolojiye, arkeolojide başarısız olunca kimyaya, kısaca akıllarına gelen her konuya bakıyorlar.
Pratik alanlardan entelektüel alanlara da kayıyor elbette bu ilgi. Tarihten daha yüce bir şey ararken tarihsel roman okumaya karar veriyorlar Walter Scott okuyorlar. Descartes felsefesiyle tanrının varlığını tartışıyorlar; yetinmiyor Kant, Leibniz, Spinoza da okuyorlar ama bir türlü tanrı ile ilgili bir görüş edinemiyorlar. Tahmin edebileceğiniz gibi en sonunda yolları kiliseye düşüyor ve orada tanrı bulmayı umuyorlar. Fransız Devrimi okuduklarında öyle kaptırıyorlar ki Bouvard jironden Pecuchet jakoben oluyor bir anda.
Ama okumak yetmediği için bir türlü derinleşemiyorlar. Sadece okudukları için fikirleri, bir filozofun bulup diğerinin bu fikirleri yıktığını düşünüyorlar, özümseyemiyorlar. Bu derinleşememe hallerini okurken zevkten dört köşe oldum. Aydın olmaktan bahsederken sürekli atladığımız şeyleri yıllar önce Flaubert yazmış meğer. ŷ, instagram gibi pek çok mecra kitap okumayı yaygınlaştırdı. Kitap okuyan insanların bir araya gelmesinin iyi bir şey olacağını düşündük. Ama bence beklediğimizi alamadık. Özellikle twitter ve instagramda bir sürü Bouvard ve Pecuchet’ye sahip olduk. Sadece kitap okuyarak, okuduğunu göstererek entelektüel oldu bir grup insan. Keşke bununla sınırlı kalsa ama kalmadı tabi ki. Akademide de sadece okuma yaparak üretim yapar oldular. Akademisyenlerin öğrencilere öğrettikleri tek şey bu. Skolastik bir çabayla sürekli aynı metinlerin okumaları yapılıyor. Özellikle sosyal bilimler okumadan ibaret. Hemen şu an bir üniversite sitesinden etkinlik takvimine bakın, birileri Cixous ile Lacan’ın karşılaştırmalı okumalarını yapıyor, eminim. Okumalarla nereye gidebileceğimizi çok tatlı ve komik hallerle anlatıyor roman. Kitap okuyarak pek çok şey biliriz ama bununla yetinmek güdükleştirir. Entelektüellik kitap okuma kulübüne dönmemeli. Heves ettiğimiz her alanda iki üç bilgi edinip bırakmak, uzmanlaşmamak düşünsel olarak en yıkıcı stil. Haliyle hiç derinleşemeyen, meselelerin özünü kavrayamayan, herhangi bir zevke sahip olmayan onlarca entelektüel var. Yalçın Küçük’ün Aydın Üzerine Tezler’de Türk aydını için söylediklerinin bugün daha anlamlı olduğunu düşünüyorum.
“Düşünce, Türk aydını için ve bir eğilim olarak, eylemin aktörlerini harekete getiren bir kuvvet yerine, tarihsel içgüdülerle sahnelenen eylemlerin güzellik örtüsü, daha başka bir deyişle bir şal olduğu için, Türk aydınının çeşitli düşün akımları karşısındaki tutumu deneyimli bir kabzımalın toptan sebze piyasasındaki davranışını hatırlatır. Hep seçici kalır, ilgisi hiçbir zaman derinlemesine olmaz.�
Kitap beni çok düşündürdü. Evrenselin hakkını veren harika bir roman bu. Said’in Entelektüel’i ile birlikte okumanızı tavsiye ederim.
Kitap Bouvard ile Pécuchet adıyla biliniyor. Yücel farklı bir başlık seçmiş. Bu ikili Paris’te bir parkta karşılaşıyor. Yaptıkları small talk ömürlük bir dostluğa uzanıyor. İkisi de katip olan kahramanlarımız sohbetlerinden büyük bir haz alıyor. Gün geçtikçe yaşadıkları hayattan daha iyisini hak ettiklerine birbirlerini inandırıyorlar. Talih yüzlerine gülüyor ve ikisi de katipliği bırakarak entelektüel olarak kendilerini geliştirebilecekleri bir yaşama adım atıyorlar.
Türk aydınının Bodrum başta olmak üzere sahil kasabasına yerleşme isteği evrenselmiş meğer. Bouvard ile Pécuchet de Fransa taşrasına gidiyor. Küçük kasabalarındaki inzivaları inanılmaz eğlenceli. Flaubert döneminin aydınlarını eleştiriyor bu kitapla. Aydınların hevesleri, derinlikleri ve toplumdaki yerleri çok zekice tiye alınıyor.
İkilimiz tam anlamıyla otodidakt. Her şeyi öğrenebileceklerini, her şeyin altından kalkacaklarını düşünüyorlar. Özgüveni sürekli kutsayıp, çocuklara istediğin her şeyi olabilirsin dediğimiz çağımızda bu romanı ebeveynler okumalı. Özgüven ile hevesi karıştırıp ilk tökezlemede dağılıyor ya da başka bir heves bulmaya kalkıyoruz. Bouvard ile Pécuchet de buğdaydan sebzeye her şeyi yetiştirmeye çalışıyor. Tarımla sınırla kalmayıp hayvancılık da yapıyorlar. Bir türlü verim alamıyorlar. Bunun üzerine yardımcıları olan bahçıvan da onları sürekli kandırıyor. Ama ikili başka bir heves bulmakta gecikmiyor. Botanikte verim alamayınca arkeolojiye, arkeolojide başarısız olunca kimyaya, kısaca akıllarına gelen her konuya bakıyorlar.
Pratik alanlardan entelektüel alanlara da kayıyor elbette bu ilgi. Tarihten daha yüce bir şey ararken tarihsel roman okumaya karar veriyorlar Walter Scott okuyorlar. Descartes felsefesiyle tanrının varlığını tartışıyorlar; yetinmiyor Kant, Leibniz, Spinoza da okuyorlar ama bir türlü tanrı ile ilgili bir görüş edinemiyorlar. Tahmin edebileceğiniz gibi en sonunda yolları kiliseye düşüyor ve orada tanrı bulmayı umuyorlar. Fransız Devrimi okuduklarında öyle kaptırıyorlar ki Bouvard jironden Pecuchet jakoben oluyor bir anda.
Ama okumak yetmediği için bir türlü derinleşemiyorlar. Sadece okudukları için fikirleri, bir filozofun bulup diğerinin bu fikirleri yıktığını düşünüyorlar, özümseyemiyorlar. Bu derinleşememe hallerini okurken zevkten dört köşe oldum. Aydın olmaktan bahsederken sürekli atladığımız şeyleri yıllar önce Flaubert yazmış meğer. ŷ, instagram gibi pek çok mecra kitap okumayı yaygınlaştırdı. Kitap okuyan insanların bir araya gelmesinin iyi bir şey olacağını düşündük. Ama bence beklediğimizi alamadık. Özellikle twitter ve instagramda bir sürü Bouvard ve Pecuchet’ye sahip olduk. Sadece kitap okuyarak, okuduğunu göstererek entelektüel oldu bir grup insan. Keşke bununla sınırlı kalsa ama kalmadı tabi ki. Akademide de sadece okuma yaparak üretim yapar oldular. Akademisyenlerin öğrencilere öğrettikleri tek şey bu. Skolastik bir çabayla sürekli aynı metinlerin okumaları yapılıyor. Özellikle sosyal bilimler okumadan ibaret. Hemen şu an bir üniversite sitesinden etkinlik takvimine bakın, birileri Cixous ile Lacan’ın karşılaştırmalı okumalarını yapıyor, eminim. Okumalarla nereye gidebileceğimizi çok tatlı ve komik hallerle anlatıyor roman. Kitap okuyarak pek çok şey biliriz ama bununla yetinmek güdükleştirir. Entelektüellik kitap okuma kulübüne dönmemeli. Heves ettiğimiz her alanda iki üç bilgi edinip bırakmak, uzmanlaşmamak düşünsel olarak en yıkıcı stil. Haliyle hiç derinleşemeyen, meselelerin özünü kavrayamayan, herhangi bir zevke sahip olmayan onlarca entelektüel var. Yalçın Küçük’ün Aydın Üzerine Tezler’de Türk aydını için söylediklerinin bugün daha anlamlı olduğunu düşünüyorum.
“Düşünce, Türk aydını için ve bir eğilim olarak, eylemin aktörlerini harekete getiren bir kuvvet yerine, tarihsel içgüdülerle sahnelenen eylemlerin güzellik örtüsü, daha başka bir deyişle bir şal olduğu için, Türk aydınının çeşitli düşün akımları karşısındaki tutumu deneyimli bir kabzımalın toptan sebze piyasasındaki davranışını hatırlatır. Hep seçici kalır, ilgisi hiçbir zaman derinlemesine olmaz.�
Kitap beni çok düşündürdü. Evrenselin hakkını veren harika bir roman bu. Said’in Entelektüel’i ile birlikte okumanızı tavsiye ederim.
February 18, 2018
"Siamo un filo d'erba e vogliamo conoscere la trama"
Da diverso tempo non siamo i migliori negli scacchi, un automa è in grado di battere il miglior scacchista in circolazione; lo stesso avviene nella medicina, Dottor Watson, supercomputer della IBM, è in grado di eseguire in 10 minuti diagnosi complesse che ad alcuni team di medici richiederebbero 160 ore. Ricordate HAL 9000, nell'Odissea nello spazio? Sono 50 anni che non passa giorno in cui un esperto non venga a dirci che prima o poi gli automi prenderanno il nostro posto. Che siamo scemi, sorpassati e che un automa sarà in grado di piangere, di aver paura della morte, di innamorarsi, esattamente come noi. Perfino con più poesia. E ci scriverà dei romanzi. Alcune App già lo fanno. Mi fermo qui. Ci siamo capiti. Io penso una cosa sola: Sono parole e pensieri che ci piacciono pensare, ci eccitano perfino, suscitano Black Mirror. Siamo un filo d'erba e vogliamo conoscere la trama. Che un computer sia migliore di me in un'attività è già assodato, che un computer sia me, o te, o un altro, non ci crederò mai. L'infinitamente grande e l'infinitamente piccolo, lo smarrimento, resteranno, Pascal lo sapeva, gli scienziati lo sanno, siamo una dotta ignoranza incessante. Flaubert provava avversione per tutto ciò che gli uomini pensano di aver concluso, la loro prosopopea. Nelle sue lettere scriveva: "La stupidità consiste nel voler concludere". Si annotava scoperte e frasi fatte. Quando annota: "Cometa. Ridere della gente che ne aveva paura", non ce l'ha né con la gente credulona che credeva alla stella cometa e nemmeno con coloro che ridono di chi ci credeva, Flaubert scrivendolo non fa altro che inscenare il grottesco della vita e dello strumento Dizionario Enciclopedico stesso, di chi vuole miopemente tirare le somme definitive, perché tutti siamo, allo stesso tempo, scettici e creduloni.
In Bouvard e Pécuchet, il suo ultimo, grandioso e inconcluso libro, due bizzarri parigini fanno amicizia e si ritirano in campagna, iniziano a studiare e sperimentare qualsiasi campo affrontabile, prima attraverso l'uso di libri e poi, quando possono, applicano gli insegnamenti appresi: e fanno disastri. Botanica, anatomia, astronomia, teatro, politica, storia, grammatica, spiritismo, magnetismo, medicina, poesia, religione, filosofia, eccetera. Leggono forsennatamente e si accorgono che sullo stesso evento storico ci sono versioni diverse su più libri, sulla stessa religione altrettanto, sulla politica può andare bene un concetto e il suo contrario, sulla chimica, sulle coltivazioni, sull'amore, sulla letteratura, perfino sulla scienza, sul teatro, "con poche eccezioni la commedie gli parvero ancora più deboli dei romanzi. Il teatro si basa su una storia di maniera, fissata una volta per sempre e che nulla può mutare, i personaggi sono tutti d'un pezzo, schemi e non caratteri: il che va incontro alla semplicità di mente del pubblico e ne rispetta la ignoranza".
Si mettono a recitare tragedie, si improvvisano attori, si chiedono cosa è il bello, il vero, il bene, il male. Coltivano uva, diventano giardinieri dal gusto discutibile da far inorridire i vicini, sezionano cadaveri per capire il funzionamento del corpo umano. Parlano con idee che traggono dai libri e si confondono ancora di più, gli stessi libri che consultano dicono cose diverse tra loro sullo stesso argomento, oppure dicono le stesse cose che hanno già detto i libri del passato spacciandole per novità; si stancano e passano ad altro, ma non c'è niente da fare: ritrovano sempre la stessa aria. Sulla grammatica: "Conclusero che la sintassi è una fantasia, e la grammatica un'illusione".
Sulla geologia: "Il fuoco centrale aveva rotto la crosta del globo, sollevato le terre, formato i crepacci. Come se un mare interno avesse i suoi flussi e riflussi. Non riusciremmo più a dormire se pensassimo a tutto quello che c'è sotto in nostri piedi. Eppure il fuoco centrale diminuisce, il sole si affievolisce, per cui la terra perirà un giorno per raffreddamento. Diverrà sterile; tutto si trasformerà in anidride carbonica, e nessun essere potrà sopravvivere".
Sul bene e sul male: "Un'intenzione, un piano. E perché mai? Il Male è organizzato altrettanto perfettamente del Bene. Le mostruosità sorpassano le funzioni normali. Lasciar perdere, visto che la creazione è fatta di una materia ondeggiante e fugace; meglio occuparsi d'altro".
Sulla morte: "L'idea della morte li aveva ghermiti. Ne discussero tornando a casa. Dopo tutto, la morte non esiste. È un andarsene nella rugiada, nella brezza, nelle stelle. Si diventa parte della linfa degli alberi, dello splendore delle pietre preziose, delle piume degli uccelli".
Ora, venitemi a dire che un cazzo di computer scriverà questa frase, ma con lo stato d'animo con cui l'ha scritta Flaubert! Non ci crederò mai.
Da diverso tempo non siamo i migliori negli scacchi, un automa è in grado di battere il miglior scacchista in circolazione; lo stesso avviene nella medicina, Dottor Watson, supercomputer della IBM, è in grado di eseguire in 10 minuti diagnosi complesse che ad alcuni team di medici richiederebbero 160 ore. Ricordate HAL 9000, nell'Odissea nello spazio? Sono 50 anni che non passa giorno in cui un esperto non venga a dirci che prima o poi gli automi prenderanno il nostro posto. Che siamo scemi, sorpassati e che un automa sarà in grado di piangere, di aver paura della morte, di innamorarsi, esattamente come noi. Perfino con più poesia. E ci scriverà dei romanzi. Alcune App già lo fanno. Mi fermo qui. Ci siamo capiti. Io penso una cosa sola: Sono parole e pensieri che ci piacciono pensare, ci eccitano perfino, suscitano Black Mirror. Siamo un filo d'erba e vogliamo conoscere la trama. Che un computer sia migliore di me in un'attività è già assodato, che un computer sia me, o te, o un altro, non ci crederò mai. L'infinitamente grande e l'infinitamente piccolo, lo smarrimento, resteranno, Pascal lo sapeva, gli scienziati lo sanno, siamo una dotta ignoranza incessante. Flaubert provava avversione per tutto ciò che gli uomini pensano di aver concluso, la loro prosopopea. Nelle sue lettere scriveva: "La stupidità consiste nel voler concludere". Si annotava scoperte e frasi fatte. Quando annota: "Cometa. Ridere della gente che ne aveva paura", non ce l'ha né con la gente credulona che credeva alla stella cometa e nemmeno con coloro che ridono di chi ci credeva, Flaubert scrivendolo non fa altro che inscenare il grottesco della vita e dello strumento Dizionario Enciclopedico stesso, di chi vuole miopemente tirare le somme definitive, perché tutti siamo, allo stesso tempo, scettici e creduloni.
In Bouvard e Pécuchet, il suo ultimo, grandioso e inconcluso libro, due bizzarri parigini fanno amicizia e si ritirano in campagna, iniziano a studiare e sperimentare qualsiasi campo affrontabile, prima attraverso l'uso di libri e poi, quando possono, applicano gli insegnamenti appresi: e fanno disastri. Botanica, anatomia, astronomia, teatro, politica, storia, grammatica, spiritismo, magnetismo, medicina, poesia, religione, filosofia, eccetera. Leggono forsennatamente e si accorgono che sullo stesso evento storico ci sono versioni diverse su più libri, sulla stessa religione altrettanto, sulla politica può andare bene un concetto e il suo contrario, sulla chimica, sulle coltivazioni, sull'amore, sulla letteratura, perfino sulla scienza, sul teatro, "con poche eccezioni la commedie gli parvero ancora più deboli dei romanzi. Il teatro si basa su una storia di maniera, fissata una volta per sempre e che nulla può mutare, i personaggi sono tutti d'un pezzo, schemi e non caratteri: il che va incontro alla semplicità di mente del pubblico e ne rispetta la ignoranza".
Si mettono a recitare tragedie, si improvvisano attori, si chiedono cosa è il bello, il vero, il bene, il male. Coltivano uva, diventano giardinieri dal gusto discutibile da far inorridire i vicini, sezionano cadaveri per capire il funzionamento del corpo umano. Parlano con idee che traggono dai libri e si confondono ancora di più, gli stessi libri che consultano dicono cose diverse tra loro sullo stesso argomento, oppure dicono le stesse cose che hanno già detto i libri del passato spacciandole per novità; si stancano e passano ad altro, ma non c'è niente da fare: ritrovano sempre la stessa aria. Sulla grammatica: "Conclusero che la sintassi è una fantasia, e la grammatica un'illusione".
Sulla geologia: "Il fuoco centrale aveva rotto la crosta del globo, sollevato le terre, formato i crepacci. Come se un mare interno avesse i suoi flussi e riflussi. Non riusciremmo più a dormire se pensassimo a tutto quello che c'è sotto in nostri piedi. Eppure il fuoco centrale diminuisce, il sole si affievolisce, per cui la terra perirà un giorno per raffreddamento. Diverrà sterile; tutto si trasformerà in anidride carbonica, e nessun essere potrà sopravvivere".
Sul bene e sul male: "Un'intenzione, un piano. E perché mai? Il Male è organizzato altrettanto perfettamente del Bene. Le mostruosità sorpassano le funzioni normali. Lasciar perdere, visto che la creazione è fatta di una materia ondeggiante e fugace; meglio occuparsi d'altro".
Sulla morte: "L'idea della morte li aveva ghermiti. Ne discussero tornando a casa. Dopo tutto, la morte non esiste. È un andarsene nella rugiada, nella brezza, nelle stelle. Si diventa parte della linfa degli alberi, dello splendore delle pietre preziose, delle piume degli uccelli".
Ora, venitemi a dire che un cazzo di computer scriverà questa frase, ma con lo stato d'animo con cui l'ha scritta Flaubert! Non ci crederò mai.
November 30, 2020
Είχα διαβάσει την Μαντάμ Μποβαρυ και το Ταξίδι Στην Ελλάδα τα οποία και τα δυο τα λάτρεψα. Τώρα ακολούθησε αυτό το βιβλίο του Φλωμπερ.
Πολλοί δεν γνωρίζουν και θέλω να τονίσω ότι ο Φλωμπερ διάβασε 1500 βιβλία πριν ξεκινήσει την συγγραφή αυτού του βιβλίου. Αυτό απο μόνο του μας δείχνει πόσο αποφασισμένος ήταν να αποκτήσει πολλές γνώσεις. Εντυπωσιαστηκα πολυ και θελησα να το διαβάσω. Πέρασαν 10 χρόνια για να τελειώσει τον πρώτο τόμο. Εκανε μια διακοπή για να γράφει τις Τρεις Ιστορίες και μετά το συνέχισε. Πέθανε το 1880 και εμειναν οι σημειωσεις του για το δευτερο τομο που δεν πρόλαβε.
Ειναι ενα φιλοσοφικό μυθιστόρημα με την μορφή εγκυκλοπαίδειας.
Δυο γραφιάδες - αντιγραφείς γνωρίζονται τυχαία. Ο ενας παιρνει κληρονομιά και ο αλλος με τις οικονομίες του αποφασιζουν να ζησουν στην εξοχή σε ενα κτήμα. Οι δυο ήρωες καταγινονται με γεωργία, ιστορία, ιατρική, φιλοσοφία, αστρονομία, θρησκεία, αρχαιολογία, παιδεία, γυμναστική, κηπουρική, Λογοτεχνία, μαγεία, πολιτική. Το παράδοξο είναι οτι αποτυγχάνουν συνεχώς... στο τέλος γίνονται γραφιάδες ξανά...
Ο Μωπασσαν υπήρξε μαθητής του. Αξιζει να διαβάσετε το οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου που είναι τα λόγια του Μωπασσαν για το έργο του.
Πολλοί δεν γνωρίζουν και θέλω να τονίσω ότι ο Φλωμπερ διάβασε 1500 βιβλία πριν ξεκινήσει την συγγραφή αυτού του βιβλίου. Αυτό απο μόνο του μας δείχνει πόσο αποφασισμένος ήταν να αποκτήσει πολλές γνώσεις. Εντυπωσιαστηκα πολυ και θελησα να το διαβάσω. Πέρασαν 10 χρόνια για να τελειώσει τον πρώτο τόμο. Εκανε μια διακοπή για να γράφει τις Τρεις Ιστορίες και μετά το συνέχισε. Πέθανε το 1880 και εμειναν οι σημειωσεις του για το δευτερο τομο που δεν πρόλαβε.
Ειναι ενα φιλοσοφικό μυθιστόρημα με την μορφή εγκυκλοπαίδειας.
Δυο γραφιάδες - αντιγραφείς γνωρίζονται τυχαία. Ο ενας παιρνει κληρονομιά και ο αλλος με τις οικονομίες του αποφασιζουν να ζησουν στην εξοχή σε ενα κτήμα. Οι δυο ήρωες καταγινονται με γεωργία, ιστορία, ιατρική, φιλοσοφία, αστρονομία, θρησκεία, αρχαιολογία, παιδεία, γυμναστική, κηπουρική, Λογοτεχνία, μαγεία, πολιτική. Το παράδοξο είναι οτι αποτυγχάνουν συνεχώς... στο τέλος γίνονται γραφιάδες ξανά...
Ο Μωπασσαν υπήρξε μαθητής του. Αξιζει να διαβάσετε το οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου που είναι τα λόγια του Μωπασσαν για το έργο του.
June 19, 2009
What does it mean to want to write, as Flaubert famously did, a book about nothing? If Bouvard and Pecuchet is any answer, it might be the attempt to move what we think of as fiction out of the province of princesses and Wutherings and so on, and move it into the drawing room of a pair of incidental little clerks - much the same way that Larry David/Jerry Seinfeld made us realize that spending a day trapped in a parking garage was as suitable a subject for a sitcom as, for example, having an alien Robin Williams as a foster son. As Tolstoy and Gombrowicz both show, art is a continual act of debunking/rebunking: artists look at what they see as the current artistic agenda, then cry Not The Truth, then proceed to give us another set of fictions. This is all to the good - but a compressed study of all these motions (one similar to the vast exercised undertaken by Flaubert's two heroes) does seem to inevitably lead to a view of the enterprise that is paradoxically both flattened and enriched. This is what I learn from reading Bouvard and Pecuchet: not that all human activity is useless, but that all human activity is essentially the expression of a reflex as simple as the flailing of an amoeba's pseudopod. As such it is more lovable, to me at least, than tragic. I mean, who doesn't eventually become endeared to these two? And yet you are reading a book as deeply patient as The Castle (patience, which Kafka called "the only virtue).
Reading this kind of book (like reading B&P's great contemporary successor, Roberto Bolano's 2666) is a discipline, as ridiculously entertaining as it is eventually decentering. What it teaches us - what it has taught me, I think - is as trite and true as an Aerosmith lyric. Life is a journey, not a destination. Or an oasis of suffering in a desert of despair. Or it's just incredibly funny. In any event, you will never get it. As a manual, B&P excels, since it shows how to fill a life that is suffused with this recognition with purpose and joy.
Reading this kind of book (like reading B&P's great contemporary successor, Roberto Bolano's 2666) is a discipline, as ridiculously entertaining as it is eventually decentering. What it teaches us - what it has taught me, I think - is as trite and true as an Aerosmith lyric. Life is a journey, not a destination. Or an oasis of suffering in a desert of despair. Or it's just incredibly funny. In any event, you will never get it. As a manual, B&P excels, since it shows how to fill a life that is suffused with this recognition with purpose and joy.
December 28, 2019
il primo e anche uno degli ultimi romanzi davvero moderni, sconvolgenti. il miglior romanzo di flaubert. la risata che suggerisce (i due sembrano Stanlio e Olio) non è per me satirica, ma macabra: come suggerisce Alan Pauls, è una risata metafisica: è l'impossibilità di squarciare l'indicibile, di riuscire a catalogare il mondo, di classificarlo, proprio per la sua natura ignota. copiare è un gesto di rassegnazione. Bouvard e Pecuchet non finiscono per copiare perché hanno perso i riferimenti, il problema è che non li hanno mai trovati. è una differenza importante, perché altrimenti si banalizzerebbe la vera importanza del romanzo: non un romanzo in linea con il novecento letterario (per niente!), ma con quello fisico o filosofico.
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July 31, 2020The quiet transfiguration of wisdom
Some books are simply unique in the way they transform us, leaving an indelible mark as if a magic spell were cast on the reader. The transformation may not be immediate and evident at first sight and we may not acknowledge it the moment it appears, but when its indisputable presence manifests in its entirety, we realize how much of that change we’ve experienced.
Apparently, as it is revealed in his many letters, Gustave Flaubert had the idea of writing a new novel back in 1862-63 (after completing Salammbô), that required a substantial amount of research. At first, the title he envisaged was “Historie de Deux Cloportes� (“The Story of Two Clerks�). And so, by 1872, having an advanced draft of this future project, he set to work on it passionately. For two years he researched on hundreds of books, taking notes and methodically classifying the material. He was the type of writer that planned and sketched in advance, particularly in reference to the formal part of the novel, for which much praise his works have received over the years.
In a letter to George Sand dated July 1, 1872 he mentions the new project in these terms:
“…je me mettrai à un roman moderne faisant la contrepartie de St Antoine et qui aura la prétention d'être comique. � un petit travail qui me demandera deux ou trois ans, au moins !�
"... I'll start a modern novel that's the counterpart of St Antoine and will pretend to be comical. - a small job that will take me two or three years, at least!"
To his friend Léonie Brainne he writes a revelatory letter dated October 5th:
“J'étudie l'histoire des théories médicales & des traités d'éducation. � Après quoi je passerai à d'autres lectures. J'avale force volumes & je prends des notes. Il en va être ainsi pendant deux ou trois ans, après quoi je me mettrai à écrire. Tout cela dans l'unique but de cracher sur mes contemporains le dégoût qu'ils m'inspirent. Je vais enfin dire ma manière de penser, exhaler mon ressentiment, vomir ma haine, expectorer mon fiel, éjaculer ma colère, déterger mon indignation.�
In the first part he explains his well-known working process, that is particularly interesting in the writing of what would turn out to be his last work: to read and study thoroughly books on various disciplines, taking notes for future references (a total of 11,000 pages are in the Flaubert archives). What strikes here is the second part of the letter, where he describes his objective with virulence and aversion:
“All this for the sole purpose of spitting on my contemporaries the disgust that they inspire me. I will finally say my way of thinking, exhale my resentment, vomit my hatred, expectorate my bile, ejaculate my anger, clear my indignation.�
It is interesting to note that Flaubert described Bouvard et Pécuchet as a novel on stupidity. Furthermore, the novel itself would have been the Preface to his Dictionnaire des idées reçues (Dictionary of preconceived ideas), the second part of this ambitious project. Let’s not forget that both characters are autodidacts and that their empiric method of work resulted, over and over, in unsuccessful outcomes. Through his characters Flaubert expressed some of his own concerns, particularly those related with society, politics and religion.
By the last chapters of the novel, having tried Agriculture, Geology, Literature, Politics, Love, passing briefly through Spiritism, all of them with disastrous results, the two friends engaged in obsessive philosophical discussions. It seemed that every defeat gave them the energy to continue through a different path. But what is remarkable, and I hesitate that that is the right word, is that every time they launched a new project, they did it passionately. After all, they had devoted themselves to the colossal task of acquiring all the knowledge available, for over fourteen years.
The first signs of my transformation occurred right at the beginning, when I looked into which edition of the book to read, and since I had two I used them both: one published by Le Livre de Poche, which has a very thorough introduction by Pierre-Marc de Biasi, who has published a number of interesting works on ܲ’s manuscripts (which I consulted too), and the other, the edition by Flammarion, that also includes studies and analysis. Then, with the aim of deepening the ideas exposed by Flaubert and understanding more closely his method of work, I began consulting other books and articles. My list was getting larger and larger as I read a number of essays by Barthes, Borges, Calvino, Chessex, Derrida, Finkielkraut, Kenner, Kundera, Postel, Sarraute, Sartre, Vargas-Llosa, etc.
Internet once more turned into an invaluable tool, as I accessed three marvelous sites. The first is the one devoted to the complete letters of Flaubert, organized and classified using different criteria and with a wonderful research engine. The second is Les dossiers de Bouvard et Pécuchet kept at the Bibliotèque Municipale de Rouen, a fascinating site of the files compiled during the preparation of the novel, organized by Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé of the Université de Lyon. And the third one, from the Bibliotèque Nationale de France, on the manuscripts of the novel.
Not only was the list of writers increasing by the day, but also the time invested on the project. I realized I was taking much longer to read each chapter, making notes and leaving the novel for hours, while reading other works. The stack of books consulted covered my working table, that now looked more like one of those in a secondhand book shop where the bargains are located. Immersed in reading several books at the same time, leaving them opened while going to another to dissect a concept or formulate a theory, taking notes and writing a list of my discoveries, to my astonishment, I realized I was turning into Bouvard and Pécuchet!
Let me say upfront that the novel does not have the attraction of other works of Flaubert. It is indeed different from the rest and, as we have seen part of an ambitious and unique project. By January of 1880 he was working on the last chapters and announced a second volume to come. Sadly, the novel was left unfinished, since Flaubert died unexpectedly, at his working table, in May 1880. As a fervent reader, the impression of reaching the end as left by the creator is an indescribable experience. The sense of completion is left in suspense as a feeling of emptiness takes over and remains deep inside for days.
The impression is similar to what I experience every time I listen to J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue as the last notes finish abruptly, just the way the composer left them at the time of his death. Hidden inside the silence that follows, there seems to be a whole new universe that every time I enter and experience it in all its magical richness, purifies and transforms me.
__
Some books are simply unique in the way they transform us, leaving an indelible mark as if a magic spell were cast on the reader. The transformation may not be immediate and evident at first sight and we may not acknowledge it the moment it appears, but when its indisputable presence manifests in its entirety, we realize how much of that change we’ve experienced.
Apparently, as it is revealed in his many letters, Gustave Flaubert had the idea of writing a new novel back in 1862-63 (after completing Salammbô), that required a substantial amount of research. At first, the title he envisaged was “Historie de Deux Cloportes� (“The Story of Two Clerks�). And so, by 1872, having an advanced draft of this future project, he set to work on it passionately. For two years he researched on hundreds of books, taking notes and methodically classifying the material. He was the type of writer that planned and sketched in advance, particularly in reference to the formal part of the novel, for which much praise his works have received over the years.
In a letter to George Sand dated July 1, 1872 he mentions the new project in these terms:
“…je me mettrai à un roman moderne faisant la contrepartie de St Antoine et qui aura la prétention d'être comique. � un petit travail qui me demandera deux ou trois ans, au moins !�
"... I'll start a modern novel that's the counterpart of St Antoine and will pretend to be comical. - a small job that will take me two or three years, at least!"
To his friend Léonie Brainne he writes a revelatory letter dated October 5th:
“J'étudie l'histoire des théories médicales & des traités d'éducation. � Après quoi je passerai à d'autres lectures. J'avale force volumes & je prends des notes. Il en va être ainsi pendant deux ou trois ans, après quoi je me mettrai à écrire. Tout cela dans l'unique but de cracher sur mes contemporains le dégoût qu'ils m'inspirent. Je vais enfin dire ma manière de penser, exhaler mon ressentiment, vomir ma haine, expectorer mon fiel, éjaculer ma colère, déterger mon indignation.�
In the first part he explains his well-known working process, that is particularly interesting in the writing of what would turn out to be his last work: to read and study thoroughly books on various disciplines, taking notes for future references (a total of 11,000 pages are in the Flaubert archives). What strikes here is the second part of the letter, where he describes his objective with virulence and aversion:
“All this for the sole purpose of spitting on my contemporaries the disgust that they inspire me. I will finally say my way of thinking, exhale my resentment, vomit my hatred, expectorate my bile, ejaculate my anger, clear my indignation.�
It is interesting to note that Flaubert described Bouvard et Pécuchet as a novel on stupidity. Furthermore, the novel itself would have been the Preface to his Dictionnaire des idées reçues (Dictionary of preconceived ideas), the second part of this ambitious project. Let’s not forget that both characters are autodidacts and that their empiric method of work resulted, over and over, in unsuccessful outcomes. Through his characters Flaubert expressed some of his own concerns, particularly those related with society, politics and religion.
By the last chapters of the novel, having tried Agriculture, Geology, Literature, Politics, Love, passing briefly through Spiritism, all of them with disastrous results, the two friends engaged in obsessive philosophical discussions. It seemed that every defeat gave them the energy to continue through a different path. But what is remarkable, and I hesitate that that is the right word, is that every time they launched a new project, they did it passionately. After all, they had devoted themselves to the colossal task of acquiring all the knowledge available, for over fourteen years.
The first signs of my transformation occurred right at the beginning, when I looked into which edition of the book to read, and since I had two I used them both: one published by Le Livre de Poche, which has a very thorough introduction by Pierre-Marc de Biasi, who has published a number of interesting works on ܲ’s manuscripts (which I consulted too), and the other, the edition by Flammarion, that also includes studies and analysis. Then, with the aim of deepening the ideas exposed by Flaubert and understanding more closely his method of work, I began consulting other books and articles. My list was getting larger and larger as I read a number of essays by Barthes, Borges, Calvino, Chessex, Derrida, Finkielkraut, Kenner, Kundera, Postel, Sarraute, Sartre, Vargas-Llosa, etc.
Internet once more turned into an invaluable tool, as I accessed three marvelous sites. The first is the one devoted to the complete letters of Flaubert, organized and classified using different criteria and with a wonderful research engine. The second is Les dossiers de Bouvard et Pécuchet kept at the Bibliotèque Municipale de Rouen, a fascinating site of the files compiled during the preparation of the novel, organized by Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé of the Université de Lyon. And the third one, from the Bibliotèque Nationale de France, on the manuscripts of the novel.
Not only was the list of writers increasing by the day, but also the time invested on the project. I realized I was taking much longer to read each chapter, making notes and leaving the novel for hours, while reading other works. The stack of books consulted covered my working table, that now looked more like one of those in a secondhand book shop where the bargains are located. Immersed in reading several books at the same time, leaving them opened while going to another to dissect a concept or formulate a theory, taking notes and writing a list of my discoveries, to my astonishment, I realized I was turning into Bouvard and Pécuchet!
Let me say upfront that the novel does not have the attraction of other works of Flaubert. It is indeed different from the rest and, as we have seen part of an ambitious and unique project. By January of 1880 he was working on the last chapters and announced a second volume to come. Sadly, the novel was left unfinished, since Flaubert died unexpectedly, at his working table, in May 1880. As a fervent reader, the impression of reaching the end as left by the creator is an indescribable experience. The sense of completion is left in suspense as a feeling of emptiness takes over and remains deep inside for days.
The impression is similar to what I experience every time I listen to J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue as the last notes finish abruptly, just the way the composer left them at the time of his death. Hidden inside the silence that follows, there seems to be a whole new universe that every time I enter and experience it in all its magical richness, purifies and transforms me.
__
May 10, 2025
Bouvard et Pecuchet by Gustave Flaubert
An algorithm says that this 436th on The Greatest Books of All Time site
Written by one of the greatest authors, this is surely ten out of ten…nonetheless, it was less than that on a personal level.
We have been blessed with a glorious professor of literature, Anton Chevorchian and among the many anecdotes, stories, precious knowledge, lessons for life � be mindful of the difference between having (money, things) and Being � humorous tales � the one where George Calinescu is visited by an official who is afraid of the imposing erudite for instance � our beloved teacher also told us about Gustave Flaubert…something along the lines of ‘he was one of the few real giants�
This reader has finished recently The Sentimental Education aka L’Education Sentimentale after approaching it twice, but it feels that the pace of the Flaubert novels may have become less alert than the public of the age of the light speed is used with, when people look simultaneously at their phones � always there in their hands � and have conversations eat and read something else on another screen…which is all wrong evidently
There is an article in The Economist about life in a small village, isolated somewhere in the vicinity of the alps –if this is not wrong � with a population of about forty, where life does not have the brutality, febricity of the city, where an inhabitant prefers to speak of ‘Zenitude� instead of solitude, the sounds of the birds are probably omnipresent and everything moves at a different speed…there are farmers, the mayor himself has orchards of apricots, but on quite a few levels it looks ethereal, paradisiacal and it reminds one of Bouvard and Pecuchet.
If we are cynical, Bouvard and Pecuchet could bring images of famous comic couples, such as Laurel and Hardy, or perhaps the more recent The Odd Couple, with regretted Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon playing two amusing, if often preposterous men…there are interests they share and traits that separate Bouvard from Pecuchet…for instance, one is more of a miser, while the other spends with more ease, though I forgot which is which.
They will eventually get into a series of troubles, once the fortune inherited by Bouvard is misused by the recklessness of both � albeit we can look at their enterprises from a different angle and say first that money does not bring happiness and their experience proves that theory � just as modern positive psychology has looked at many cases and one particular object of study referred to the winners of lotteries, with prizes in excess of one million dollars, and though the winners experienced a few months of increased life satisfaction levels, after those will have passed, they return to a base level of happiness…a phenomenon known as Hedonic Adaptation, we tend to get used with the bad and the good.
Indeed, there is a fabulous book called Stumbling Upon Happiness, by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, in which we learn about some of the myths of happiness…such as the notion that we would be happy, if only given the chance to move to and live in California…if and when that happens, the subjects of various research programs find that they get used with the weather, the palm trees and everything else that blessed land is associated with and then notice the massive traffic jams, the severe drought � many years of poor rainfalls have had apocalyptic consequences � the multitude of calamitous wild fires�
Perhaps in a similar manner, Bouvard and Pecuchet meet and like each other to the point where the modern age reader might think of a possible gay attraction between the two � when first acquainted with this work, the under signed had not had this idea, but that was a time when homosexuality was way less present in the art he had had contact with � perhaps better said it was almost completely absent- than it is today, when every other film or book refers to it.
The two protagonists then decide to move away from the city and into the country, a project that becomes possible once a serious inheritance is available and the few hundred thousands of francs that come into possession are utilized to acquire a quite vast property, mansion and then unfortunately squandered on a series of projects � many, if not most of which have ended up in boring this flimsy reader � which include some agricultural, peisagistic endeavors that result in financial disaster.
There is also the lack of cooperation of the locals and the employees � and we could say that on some levels at least, Bouvard and Pecuchet represent efforts towards progress and on the other hand, with them, Gustave Flaubert probably means to be ironic, if not use even ridicule, towards a whole class of people that engage in plans for which they are not prepared and they ultimately ruin others with their incompetence.
Uncomfortable as this may be, we are also very much like Bouvard and Pecuchet, in that we try to find our way around � there is nobility in their effort to understand the world, to get acquainted with the mystery of chemistry, agriculture, gardening and so much more…I forgot the anatomy lessons � and they are not just clowns, fools that we need to laugh at, every time they embark on another adventure, that we know quite early is destined to fail yet again.
That would recall Don Quixote - luminaries like Salman Rushdie, the regretted Umberto Eco and many others have voted for the greatest books ever written and Don Quixote is at number one, though yours truly is no fan and would not have it among his 1,000 favorites � with his preposterous attempt to fight and conquer wind mills, but just like the hero of Miguel de Cervantes, Bouvard and Pecuchet are both noble, remarkable, brave and ridiculous characters at the same time�
Their curiosity and love of learning, to name just a couple of traits, are more than laudable, they are to be admired and even when they fail, there is a nobility in their attempt, a romantic feel, as when they have attempted to transform their garden and the neighbors and visitors mocked their ruined walls, their failed efforts to render enviable a landscape that others found only risible�
An algorithm says that this 436th on The Greatest Books of All Time site
Written by one of the greatest authors, this is surely ten out of ten…nonetheless, it was less than that on a personal level.
We have been blessed with a glorious professor of literature, Anton Chevorchian and among the many anecdotes, stories, precious knowledge, lessons for life � be mindful of the difference between having (money, things) and Being � humorous tales � the one where George Calinescu is visited by an official who is afraid of the imposing erudite for instance � our beloved teacher also told us about Gustave Flaubert…something along the lines of ‘he was one of the few real giants�
This reader has finished recently The Sentimental Education aka L’Education Sentimentale after approaching it twice, but it feels that the pace of the Flaubert novels may have become less alert than the public of the age of the light speed is used with, when people look simultaneously at their phones � always there in their hands � and have conversations eat and read something else on another screen…which is all wrong evidently
There is an article in The Economist about life in a small village, isolated somewhere in the vicinity of the alps –if this is not wrong � with a population of about forty, where life does not have the brutality, febricity of the city, where an inhabitant prefers to speak of ‘Zenitude� instead of solitude, the sounds of the birds are probably omnipresent and everything moves at a different speed…there are farmers, the mayor himself has orchards of apricots, but on quite a few levels it looks ethereal, paradisiacal and it reminds one of Bouvard and Pecuchet.
If we are cynical, Bouvard and Pecuchet could bring images of famous comic couples, such as Laurel and Hardy, or perhaps the more recent The Odd Couple, with regretted Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon playing two amusing, if often preposterous men…there are interests they share and traits that separate Bouvard from Pecuchet…for instance, one is more of a miser, while the other spends with more ease, though I forgot which is which.
They will eventually get into a series of troubles, once the fortune inherited by Bouvard is misused by the recklessness of both � albeit we can look at their enterprises from a different angle and say first that money does not bring happiness and their experience proves that theory � just as modern positive psychology has looked at many cases and one particular object of study referred to the winners of lotteries, with prizes in excess of one million dollars, and though the winners experienced a few months of increased life satisfaction levels, after those will have passed, they return to a base level of happiness…a phenomenon known as Hedonic Adaptation, we tend to get used with the bad and the good.
Indeed, there is a fabulous book called Stumbling Upon Happiness, by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, in which we learn about some of the myths of happiness…such as the notion that we would be happy, if only given the chance to move to and live in California…if and when that happens, the subjects of various research programs find that they get used with the weather, the palm trees and everything else that blessed land is associated with and then notice the massive traffic jams, the severe drought � many years of poor rainfalls have had apocalyptic consequences � the multitude of calamitous wild fires�
Perhaps in a similar manner, Bouvard and Pecuchet meet and like each other to the point where the modern age reader might think of a possible gay attraction between the two � when first acquainted with this work, the under signed had not had this idea, but that was a time when homosexuality was way less present in the art he had had contact with � perhaps better said it was almost completely absent- than it is today, when every other film or book refers to it.
The two protagonists then decide to move away from the city and into the country, a project that becomes possible once a serious inheritance is available and the few hundred thousands of francs that come into possession are utilized to acquire a quite vast property, mansion and then unfortunately squandered on a series of projects � many, if not most of which have ended up in boring this flimsy reader � which include some agricultural, peisagistic endeavors that result in financial disaster.
There is also the lack of cooperation of the locals and the employees � and we could say that on some levels at least, Bouvard and Pecuchet represent efforts towards progress and on the other hand, with them, Gustave Flaubert probably means to be ironic, if not use even ridicule, towards a whole class of people that engage in plans for which they are not prepared and they ultimately ruin others with their incompetence.
Uncomfortable as this may be, we are also very much like Bouvard and Pecuchet, in that we try to find our way around � there is nobility in their effort to understand the world, to get acquainted with the mystery of chemistry, agriculture, gardening and so much more…I forgot the anatomy lessons � and they are not just clowns, fools that we need to laugh at, every time they embark on another adventure, that we know quite early is destined to fail yet again.
That would recall Don Quixote - luminaries like Salman Rushdie, the regretted Umberto Eco and many others have voted for the greatest books ever written and Don Quixote is at number one, though yours truly is no fan and would not have it among his 1,000 favorites � with his preposterous attempt to fight and conquer wind mills, but just like the hero of Miguel de Cervantes, Bouvard and Pecuchet are both noble, remarkable, brave and ridiculous characters at the same time�
Their curiosity and love of learning, to name just a couple of traits, are more than laudable, they are to be admired and even when they fail, there is a nobility in their attempt, a romantic feel, as when they have attempted to transform their garden and the neighbors and visitors mocked their ruined walls, their failed efforts to render enviable a landscape that others found only risible�
October 25, 2021
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Alexandre Dumas, fils
I don’t know if Flaubert was familiar with the quote, but after reading Bouvard and Pecuchet I’m fairly sure he would have agreed with Dumas.
The satire is a compendium of errors made by the eponymous duo who criticize everyone and everything. The blundering know-it-alls believe they can improve the world by studying numerous authorities on a wide variety of subjects and putting their newly gained knowledge into practice according to “scientific� method.
Paris, 1838. Bouvard and Pecuchet, one working for the government, the other in the private sector, meet by chance. They begin a conversation and soon discover that they are the same age (47), single (B is a widower: P a bachelor), in the same profession (copyists) and have similar views.
“Their words rushed on in an inexhaustible stream; remarks succeeding to anecdotes, philosophic views to individual considerations. They disparaged the management of the bridges and causeways, the tobacco administration, the theatres, our marine, and the entire human race, like people who had undergone great mortifications.�
“…they glorified the utility of science: how many things could be learned, how many researches one could make, if one had only time!�
A few years after their fortuitous meeting, the middle-aged copyists are granted the opportunity of a lifetime when Bouvard receives an unanticipated inheritance from an “uncle� who was in fact the beneficiary’s natural father. Bouvard purchases a small country estate and farm and Pecuchet contributes his savings to the enterprise.
Bouvard and Pecuchet hop, skip and jump from agriculture to architecture and engineering to medicine to chemistry to geology to archeology, covering virtually all the liberal arts and sciences, relying on “expertise� gleaned from books written by experts who contradict one another. At times they veer off into quack medicine, spiritualism and the occult. Their brief “experiments� with the opposite sex are very disappointing, though in quite different ways.
When their experiments fail, they blame the failure on the subject matter and move on to something else. Philosophy plunges them into doubt and despair to the point where all existence seems absurd. They contemplate suicide and are about to hang themselves when they spot a light coming from the church. It’s Christmas Eve and they’re drawn to the Midnight Mass. Next stop, a brief return to the faith. But they soon question Church dogma; their arguments with the parish priest and everyone else lead to more confusion, frustration and disillusionment.
Like the proverbial broken clock that’s right twice a day, B&P are at times capable of entertaining a coherent, and even profound thought, for example: “Science is constructed according to the data furnished by a corner of space. Perhaps it does not agree with all the rest that we are ignorant of, which is much vaster, and which we cannot discover.� A concise statement of the limits of the scientific method that at least partly explains the contradictions B&P encounter in the books they read.
Here’s B&P on the subject of French history: “In order to have more facts for the support of their arguments they procured other works: Montgaillard, Prudhomme, Gallois, Lacretelle, etc.; and the contradictions of these books in no way embarrassed them. Each took from them what might vindicate the cause he espoused.� In other words, they cherry-picked the “facts� they chose to believe and discarded the rest.
The 1848 Revolution gives B&P an opportunity to dabble in politics, as usual, unsuccessfully, and the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte following the June uprising provides impetus to their speculations on ideal forms of government and systems of economics. This is followed by Bonaparte’s Coup d'état of December 1851, which everyone in the town accepts for various reasons. B&P make the following observations:
“Do you wish to know my opinion?� said Pécuchet. “Since the middle class is ferocious and the working-men jealous-minded, whilst the people, after all, accept every tyrant, so long as they are allowed to keep their snouts in the mess, Napoleon has done right. Let him gag them, the rabble, and exterminate them � this will never be too much for their hatred of right, their cowardice, their incapacity, and their blindness.� Bouvard mused: “Hey! progress! what humbug!� He added: “And politics, a nice heap of dirt!� “It is not a science,� returned Pécuchet. “The military art is better: you can tell what will happen � we ought to turn our hands to it.�
Bouvard and Peruchet keep bumbling along from one hobby-horse to another. Their ultimate failure is one of their most painful; they try to care for and educate the destitute son and daughter of a convicted criminal. “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.�
Flaubert died before completing the novel, but he did leave the outline of a final chapter that is included in this edition. In the end:
“So everything has gone to pieces in their hands. They no longer have any interest in life. A good idea cherished secretly by each of them. They conceal it from each other. From time to time they smile when it comes into their heads; then at last communicate it to each other: To copy as in former times.�
I wonder if this return to the past was ܲ’s final piece of caustic irony? In 1880, when the author died, new technologies, the typewriter and mimeograph, were rendering obsolete Bouvard and Pecuchet’s ancient profession.
Alexandre Dumas, fils
I don’t know if Flaubert was familiar with the quote, but after reading Bouvard and Pecuchet I’m fairly sure he would have agreed with Dumas.
The satire is a compendium of errors made by the eponymous duo who criticize everyone and everything. The blundering know-it-alls believe they can improve the world by studying numerous authorities on a wide variety of subjects and putting their newly gained knowledge into practice according to “scientific� method.
Paris, 1838. Bouvard and Pecuchet, one working for the government, the other in the private sector, meet by chance. They begin a conversation and soon discover that they are the same age (47), single (B is a widower: P a bachelor), in the same profession (copyists) and have similar views.
“Their words rushed on in an inexhaustible stream; remarks succeeding to anecdotes, philosophic views to individual considerations. They disparaged the management of the bridges and causeways, the tobacco administration, the theatres, our marine, and the entire human race, like people who had undergone great mortifications.�
“…they glorified the utility of science: how many things could be learned, how many researches one could make, if one had only time!�
A few years after their fortuitous meeting, the middle-aged copyists are granted the opportunity of a lifetime when Bouvard receives an unanticipated inheritance from an “uncle� who was in fact the beneficiary’s natural father. Bouvard purchases a small country estate and farm and Pecuchet contributes his savings to the enterprise.
Bouvard and Pecuchet hop, skip and jump from agriculture to architecture and engineering to medicine to chemistry to geology to archeology, covering virtually all the liberal arts and sciences, relying on “expertise� gleaned from books written by experts who contradict one another. At times they veer off into quack medicine, spiritualism and the occult. Their brief “experiments� with the opposite sex are very disappointing, though in quite different ways.
When their experiments fail, they blame the failure on the subject matter and move on to something else. Philosophy plunges them into doubt and despair to the point where all existence seems absurd. They contemplate suicide and are about to hang themselves when they spot a light coming from the church. It’s Christmas Eve and they’re drawn to the Midnight Mass. Next stop, a brief return to the faith. But they soon question Church dogma; their arguments with the parish priest and everyone else lead to more confusion, frustration and disillusionment.
Like the proverbial broken clock that’s right twice a day, B&P are at times capable of entertaining a coherent, and even profound thought, for example: “Science is constructed according to the data furnished by a corner of space. Perhaps it does not agree with all the rest that we are ignorant of, which is much vaster, and which we cannot discover.� A concise statement of the limits of the scientific method that at least partly explains the contradictions B&P encounter in the books they read.
Here’s B&P on the subject of French history: “In order to have more facts for the support of their arguments they procured other works: Montgaillard, Prudhomme, Gallois, Lacretelle, etc.; and the contradictions of these books in no way embarrassed them. Each took from them what might vindicate the cause he espoused.� In other words, they cherry-picked the “facts� they chose to believe and discarded the rest.
The 1848 Revolution gives B&P an opportunity to dabble in politics, as usual, unsuccessfully, and the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte following the June uprising provides impetus to their speculations on ideal forms of government and systems of economics. This is followed by Bonaparte’s Coup d'état of December 1851, which everyone in the town accepts for various reasons. B&P make the following observations:
“Do you wish to know my opinion?� said Pécuchet. “Since the middle class is ferocious and the working-men jealous-minded, whilst the people, after all, accept every tyrant, so long as they are allowed to keep their snouts in the mess, Napoleon has done right. Let him gag them, the rabble, and exterminate them � this will never be too much for their hatred of right, their cowardice, their incapacity, and their blindness.� Bouvard mused: “Hey! progress! what humbug!� He added: “And politics, a nice heap of dirt!� “It is not a science,� returned Pécuchet. “The military art is better: you can tell what will happen � we ought to turn our hands to it.�
Bouvard and Peruchet keep bumbling along from one hobby-horse to another. Their ultimate failure is one of their most painful; they try to care for and educate the destitute son and daughter of a convicted criminal. “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.�
Flaubert died before completing the novel, but he did leave the outline of a final chapter that is included in this edition. In the end:
“So everything has gone to pieces in their hands. They no longer have any interest in life. A good idea cherished secretly by each of them. They conceal it from each other. From time to time they smile when it comes into their heads; then at last communicate it to each other: To copy as in former times.�
I wonder if this return to the past was ܲ’s final piece of caustic irony? In 1880, when the author died, new technologies, the typewriter and mimeograph, were rendering obsolete Bouvard and Pecuchet’s ancient profession.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2018
Ντουβάρ και Παρατισέ
Η σύλληψη του Φλωμπέρ είναι εξαιρετικά κουλ και μεγαλοφυής· η εκτέλεση όμως είναι απίστευτα βαρετή και ανυπόφορη, με ή χωρίς ανεμιστήρα. Το βιβλίο δεν έχει πλοκή, είμαι απολύτως οκ με αυτό. Στην θέση της όμως έχει λεπτή ειρωνεία και ανηλεή σαρκασμό. Έχει; Συγγνώμη αλλά εγώ δεν βρήκα τίποτα τέτοιο, άρα και όλο το βιβλίο δεν έχει τίποτα πλέον για μένα. Θα έπρεπε να το δουλέψει παραπάνω κατά την (ηλίθια και αστήρικτη) γνώμη μου, αλλά για έναν τεχνίτη του ύφους όπως ο Φλωμπέρ, είναι ιεροσυλία και μόνο που πάτησα τα παραπάνω πλήκτρα. Ο Γκυ ντε Μωπασάν στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου (εκδ. Πόλις) συνοψίζει θαυμάσια το βιβλίο και την σπουδαιότητά του. Ο τόμος συμπεριλαμβάνει και δυο-τρία ακόμα επίμετρα που αναδεικνύουν το μεγαλεπήβολο φιλοσοφικό εγχείρημα του Φλωμπέρ. Θα μπορούσα να διαβάσω ευχαρίστως μια ολόκληρη μελέτη ΓΙΑ το βιβλίο (αν υπάρχει στα ελληνικά) αλλά όχι ΤΟ βιβλίο! Ζαμέ. Μια παρατήρηση του Claude Digeon, μελετητή του Φλωμπέρ, συμπυκνώνει την αμφίθυμη στάση που κράτησα απέναντι στις λίγες σελίδες του μυθιστορήματος που κατάφερα να διαβάσω: «Η πνευματική τιμιότητα του Flaubert του έπαιξε πολύ άσχημο παιχνίδι: τον παρέσυρε να παραφορτώσει τον φιλοσοφικό του μύθο και να πιάσει τη μυθιστορηματική του πένα για να τον γράψει». Ανεπιτυχώς (η προσθήκη δική μου). Σε κάποιο σημείο ο Μπόρχες κάνει μια σύγκριση του βιβλίου με τα Ταξίδια του Γκιούλιβερ του Σουίφτ... έλα Χόρχε, σε παρακαλώ πάρα πολύ!!
Την εποχή του google it, της ημιμάθειας, της ξερολίασης, το φιλοσοφικό υπόβαθρο του βιβλίου μοιάζει φοβερά επίκαιρο, και είναι, αλλά δεν παλεύεται το λογοτεχνικό. Λυπάμαι που θα αποβάλω τις διανοητικές ιδέες που ήδη μου γεννά το βιβλίο, αλλά δεν γίνεται διαφορετικά. Γι� αυτό θα διάβαζα ένα δοκίμιο γύρω από αυτό -- βρίστε με πρώτα, και προτείνετέ μου μετά αν υπάρχει κάτι σχετικό. Είμαι ο πρώτος που πονάω επειδή το παρατάω, πιστέψτε με. Παλιά, για την ανάδειξη και την καταπολέμηση της ημιμάθειας, υπήρχε εκείνο το ωραίο μότο Ask a librarian -- βέβαια, το μότο με τα χρόνια άλλαξε και πλέον (στην Ελλάδα) είναι first hire then ask a librarian! -- αν με ρωτάτε, λοιπόν, να σας πω ότι δεν ξέρω την τύφλα μου, όπως όλοι μας, όπως και ο Φλωμπέρ όταν έγραφε το περίφημο βιβλίο του :p
Συγγνώμη Φλωμπέρ, συγγνώμη αναγνώστες, συγγνώμη που σας χάλασα την ραστώνη ενός καλοκαιρινού απογεύματος.
Υ.Γ. Να τονίσω και τα θετικά όμως. Είδατε τι χρήσιμες είναι οι δημοτικές βιβλιοθήκες; Φαντάζεστε να πλήρωνα για το βιβλίο; Εγώ το φαντάζομαι, και δεν φαντάζεστε πόσο ανακουφίζομαι, που δεν το έκανα.
Η σύλληψη του Φλωμπέρ είναι εξαιρετικά κουλ και μεγαλοφυής· η εκτέλεση όμως είναι απίστευτα βαρετή και ανυπόφορη, με ή χωρίς ανεμιστήρα. Το βιβλίο δεν έχει πλοκή, είμαι απολύτως οκ με αυτό. Στην θέση της όμως έχει λεπτή ειρωνεία και ανηλεή σαρκασμό. Έχει; Συγγνώμη αλλά εγώ δεν βρήκα τίποτα τέτοιο, άρα και όλο το βιβλίο δεν έχει τίποτα πλέον για μένα. Θα έπρεπε να το δουλέψει παραπάνω κατά την (ηλίθια και αστήρικτη) γνώμη μου, αλλά για έναν τεχνίτη του ύφους όπως ο Φλωμπέρ, είναι ιεροσυλία και μόνο που πάτησα τα παραπάνω πλήκτρα. Ο Γκυ ντε Μωπασάν στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου (εκδ. Πόλις) συνοψίζει θαυμάσια το βιβλίο και την σπουδαιότητά του. Ο τόμος συμπεριλαμβάνει και δυο-τρία ακόμα επίμετρα που αναδεικνύουν το μεγαλεπήβολο φιλοσοφικό εγχείρημα του Φλωμπέρ. Θα μπορούσα να διαβάσω ευχαρίστως μια ολόκληρη μελέτη ΓΙΑ το βιβλίο (αν υπάρχει στα ελληνικά) αλλά όχι ΤΟ βιβλίο! Ζαμέ. Μια παρατήρηση του Claude Digeon, μελετητή του Φλωμπέρ, συμπυκνώνει την αμφίθυμη στάση που κράτησα απέναντι στις λίγες σελίδες του μυθιστορήματος που κατάφερα να διαβάσω: «Η πνευματική τιμιότητα του Flaubert του έπαιξε πολύ άσχημο παιχνίδι: τον παρέσυρε να παραφορτώσει τον φιλοσοφικό του μύθο και να πιάσει τη μυθιστορηματική του πένα για να τον γράψει». Ανεπιτυχώς (η προσθήκη δική μου). Σε κάποιο σημείο ο Μπόρχες κάνει μια σύγκριση του βιβλίου με τα Ταξίδια του Γκιούλιβερ του Σουίφτ... έλα Χόρχε, σε παρακαλώ πάρα πολύ!!
Την εποχή του google it, της ημιμάθειας, της ξερολίασης, το φιλοσοφικό υπόβαθρο του βιβλίου μοιάζει φοβερά επίκαιρο, και είναι, αλλά δεν παλεύεται το λογοτεχνικό. Λυπάμαι που θα αποβάλω τις διανοητικές ιδέες που ήδη μου γεννά το βιβλίο, αλλά δεν γίνεται διαφορετικά. Γι� αυτό θα διάβαζα ένα δοκίμιο γύρω από αυτό -- βρίστε με πρώτα, και προτείνετέ μου μετά αν υπάρχει κάτι σχετικό. Είμαι ο πρώτος που πονάω επειδή το παρατάω, πιστέψτε με. Παλιά, για την ανάδειξη και την καταπολέμηση της ημιμάθειας, υπήρχε εκείνο το ωραίο μότο Ask a librarian -- βέβαια, το μότο με τα χρόνια άλλαξε και πλέον (στην Ελλάδα) είναι first hire then ask a librarian! -- αν με ρωτάτε, λοιπόν, να σας πω ότι δεν ξέρω την τύφλα μου, όπως όλοι μας, όπως και ο Φλωμπέρ όταν έγραφε το περίφημο βιβλίο του :p
Συγγνώμη Φλωμπέρ, συγγνώμη αναγνώστες, συγγνώμη που σας χάλασα την ραστώνη ενός καλοκαιρινού απογεύματος.
Υ.Γ. Να τονίσω και τα θετικά όμως. Είδατε τι χρήσιμες είναι οι δημοτικές βιβλιοθήκες; Φαντάζεστε να πλήρωνα για το βιβλίο; Εγώ το φαντάζομαι, και δεν φαντάζεστε πόσο ανακουφίζομαι, που δεν το έκανα.
May 6, 2022
bayram tatili vesilesiyle biraz rötarlı bir okuma oldu, flaubert'in kitaplarını seviyorum ya tek sıkıntım sonlara doğru biraz sıkılmam.😓
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