At once a classic of travel literature and a penetrating portrait of a “sensibility on tour,” Flaubert in Egypt wonderfully captures the young writer’s impressions during his 1849 voyages. Using diaries, letters, travel notes, and the evidence of Flaubert’s traveling companion, Maxime Du Camp, Francis Steegmuller reconstructs his journey through the bazaars and brothels of Cairo and down the Nile to the Red Sea.
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Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821, the son of a prominent physician. The success of Madame Bovary (1857) was ensured by government prosecution for "immorality"; Salammbô (1862) and The Sentimental Education (1869) received a cool public reception; not until the publication of Three Tales (1877) was his genius popularly acknowledged. His final bitterness and disillusion were vividly evidenced in the savagely satiric Bouvard and Pécuchet, left unfinished at his death in 1880.
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THE Gustave Flaubert who left France in the autumn of 1849 for a long tour of the 'Orient' (a term then often used to denote what we now call the Near and Middle East, and even North Africa) was a young man approaching twenty-eight, unknown outside his own circle, but who impressed friends and strangers alike by his size, his beauty, and his air of athletic vigor. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE Gustave Flaubert who left France in the autumn of 1849 for a long tour of the 'Orient' (a term then often used to denote what we now call the Near and Middle East, and even North Africa) was a young man approaching twenty-eight, unknown outside his own circle, but who impressed friends and strangers alike by his size, his beauty, and his air of athletic vigor. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This compendium of Flaubert's notes and letters from his excursion to Egypt is an absolute delight to read. Starting in October 1849 and lasting for about a year, Flaubert and his friend Maxime du Camp toured what are now the major tourist sites of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation as well as contemporary mid-nineteenth-century Egypt - including Cairo, Luxor, and Giza.
In this volume are selected pieces from Flaubert's travel notes, his letters of reassurance to his over-protective mother, and Flaubert's graphic and fantastically open letters to his friend Louis Bouilhet. Aged 28 when he set out on the trip, Flaubert spent his time taking in the "blatant tones that would make any painter fade away" and thinking about "literature: [his] sweet and never-ending obsession." Also included are some of Du Camp's 'journalistic' impressions of the near East, as well as some of his photographs he took (including the first ever photograph of the partly submerged Sphinx).
On his return to France, Flaubert spent the next five years working on what became Madame Bovary, and given the vast importance of that work (Flaubert was the favourite author of Proust, Joyce and Kafka), these travel notes present a fascinating insight into what at the time was his somewhat unfocused mind looking for direction as to what type of novel he should write. Salammbo, the novel that Flaubert published after Madame Bovary and set in the revolt of the mercenaries at Carthage in 133BC, was also framed through his experiences in the near-East.
So if you add up the historical importance to literature, the golden prose of Flaubert, the photographic importance of their journey, and the sheer delight of an un-Westernised Egypt, it is perhaps a book that should be sitting on more book cases than I suspect it currently does.
In this volume are selected pieces from Flaubert's travel notes, his letters of reassurance to his over-protective mother, and Flaubert's graphic and fantastically open letters to his friend Louis Bouilhet. Aged 28 when he set out on the trip, Flaubert spent his time taking in the "blatant tones that would make any painter fade away" and thinking about "literature: [his] sweet and never-ending obsession." Also included are some of Du Camp's 'journalistic' impressions of the near East, as well as some of his photographs he took (including the first ever photograph of the partly submerged Sphinx).
On his return to France, Flaubert spent the next five years working on what became Madame Bovary, and given the vast importance of that work (Flaubert was the favourite author of Proust, Joyce and Kafka), these travel notes present a fascinating insight into what at the time was his somewhat unfocused mind looking for direction as to what type of novel he should write. Salammbo, the novel that Flaubert published after Madame Bovary and set in the revolt of the mercenaries at Carthage in 133BC, was also framed through his experiences in the near-East.
So if you add up the historical importance to literature, the golden prose of Flaubert, the photographic importance of their journey, and the sheer delight of an un-Westernised Egypt, it is perhaps a book that should be sitting on more book cases than I suspect it currently does.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By P. Soares
Format:Paperback
The sweet naivety in the experience of a journey on a historic moment that will not be repeated. This work shows an extraordinary romantic sensibility. The scene of the first contact "in loco" with the Sphinx is extraordinary and a good example.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By D. Davies
Format:Paperback
Flaubert opens a window on mid-19C Egypt.
A very accessible book, created from a collection of letters and journals from his trip. Flaubert's descriptive skills add a further dimension to this historic travel book.
You can't put this one down.
A very accessible book, created from a collection of letters and journals from his trip. Flaubert's descriptive skills add a further dimension to this historic travel book.
You can't put this one down.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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L'Idiot de la Famille
i read Madame Bovary, and Trois Contes along with all the rest of the literature you associate with 'A level' French many years ago. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Gargantua Pantaloon
5.0 out of 5 stars
A perfect companion
I didn't want to read the usual 'Egypt' or 'Nile' related books on my first trip on the Nile. I needed something that I could lose myself in and relate to by comparing my own... Read more
Published on 27 April 2011 by shelley
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