Flaubert was rubbish by Bill Kirton
The man himself I’m a Flaubert bore. I often mention him. It’s both a hangover from when I used to lecture on French literature (that was my day job and they paid me for it. Amazing.) and it’s because his writing is so deceptive and so challenging. This is a composite of two blogs I wrote on my website a few years ago after reading Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace by Kate Summerscale. It’s a fascinating read about adulterous goings-on (or maybe not) in Victorian England. I was reading it on my Kindle and seemed to be getting to the end but was a bit puzzled to see that the percentage indicator showed that I was barely halfway through it. The reason for this was that the second half of the book is a reproduction of the famous translation of Madame Bovary by Eleanor Aveling-Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl. The author had included it because Emma Bovary was also an adulterous Victorian wife. (But then, apparently, so was Eleanor.) Anyway, I read a few passages of the text and the tr...