“On December 9, 1978, Roland Barthes delivered a lecture in his series about the fantasy of writing a novel. Or rather, he spoke about ‘Wanting-to-Write,’ because he denied he was actually writing one. No, instructed Barthes, it ‘isn’t true; if I were, I clearly wouldn’t be in a position to propose a lecture course on its preparations: writing requires secrecy.’ Secrecy, up to a point. For the French novelist Gustave Flaubert, born 200 years ago this month, the process of writing necessitated complaining about it, loudly. Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, in which he served as a drill sergeant, and the death of his cherished mother in April 1872, perhaps he felt he had much to complain about. ...”
2012 August: On Cataloguing Flaubert, 2013 March: Sentimental Education - 1(1869), 2016 December: Three Tales (1877), 2017 August: The Sentimental Education (1869), 2018 May: In Which Our Tragic Effects Remain Purely Professional, 2019 March: The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1911), 2021 November: Madame Bovary and the Impossibility of Re-reading - Anjali Joseph
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