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A review by franderochefort
Novembre by Gustave Flaubert
3.0
Flaubert's first novel if you count novellas, Novembre is another story on a favourite Flaubert theme - the romantic bildungsroman of a young man. Separating this story into three distinct sections, the first part of the novella in fact recapitulates a lot of what Memoires d'un fou did but with much more structure and clarity than that had, all the way up to the German romanticist inspired sequence where the young protagonist finds himself overcome by the beauty of nature and the wider world. This is rapidly followed up by the second part and its his encounter with Marie which really gives the heart to this story, tinted with a kind of tragic regret and sadness as well as some of the most beautiful writing I've read in French yet. Interesting to draw parallels with Bovary because Marie shares several quite distinctive character traits in common with Emma even if she's ultimately a much more easily sympathetic figure and a more passive victim in her suffering. The last and third part which recounts the protagonist's life from this point onward is definitely the weakest and could probably have been removed to the novella's benefit even if it allows an interesting exploration of a kind of aimless driftlessness in the romantic hero.
A massive leap upwards in quality from Memoires d'un fou which shows how far Flaubert had come in just four years - the fact that he considered this unworthy of publication goes to show just how much of a perfectionist he really was as even with its flaws it's an excellent work even if one which is still a rung below the masterworks he would accomplish later (and I feel like the more earnest and forgiving treatment of the narrator here as opposed to the quite cynical and depressive treatment Flaubert would bring to his works later makes an interesting contrast - here it feels like he still holds out at least a faint hope for romantic transcendence within the world whereas by the time of Bovary it's become a feat synonymous with death and self-abolition.)
______
Noticed how much I was able to sight read during the process of going through this - really feeling confident in my reading fluency that I'm able to do this with works this old at this point.
A massive leap upwards in quality from Memoires d'un fou which shows how far Flaubert had come in just four years - the fact that he considered this unworthy of publication goes to show just how much of a perfectionist he really was as even with its flaws it's an excellent work even if one which is still a rung below the masterworks he would accomplish later (and I feel like the more earnest and forgiving treatment of the narrator here as opposed to the quite cynical and depressive treatment Flaubert would bring to his works later makes an interesting contrast - here it feels like he still holds out at least a faint hope for romantic transcendence within the world whereas by the time of Bovary it's become a feat synonymous with death and self-abolition.)
______
Noticed how much I was able to sight read during the process of going through this - really feeling confident in my reading fluency that I'm able to do this with works this old at this point.