Reviews

November by Gustave Flaubert

lost_inbooks's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

halliyana_'s review

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

hanwithabook's review

reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

ilyaeve's review

challenging emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

luciasanchezmu's review against another edition

2.0

2.5*

truffe's review

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

assimbya's review

3.0

Do not be put off by the adolescent objectification practiced by the narrator in the beginning of this novella, as he gazes obsessively at each woman he encounters - this is a profoundly moral book, in all its youth and naivete, a book about people searching for a mutual experience of sexual pleasure, freely and enthusiastically chosen. Behind its romanticism and overwrought language, it is a scathing condemnation of all sexual relations involving coercion, all the ways in which the women of Flaubert's society were required to submit to sex they did not desire. I found the moral fervor of the twenty-year-old Flaubert who wrote this book startling and exciting.

For all that, it is a young book, a slip of a thing, without much nuance or development, still rife with the mistakes and excesses of youth. Wonderful to see Flaubert's development, from Memoirs of a Madman to this to Madame Bovary and Salammbo.