Flaubert

than this well-written and exhaustively researched biography of this fascinating character? I am now going to reread Madame Bovary with some knowledge of the author in mind. Apparently Flaubert was always asking himself what life should be all about, although the answer for him was 'writing'. Nevertheless despite his knowing what the answer was for him, he went through tumultous vicissitudes of emotion. Supposedly he said, Madame Bovary, c'est moi! In summary, I enjoyed this biography and felt as if I learned a great deal, and the writing flowed fairly easily, although not as easily as his Catherine the Great.

In "Flaubert" Henri Troyat has written another charming & cozy account of the life of Gustav Flaubert_____arguably the most meticulous literary prose stylist there ever was. Troyat covers all the bases of Flaubert's life starting with his childhood___his father was a solid ,bourgeois doctor___to his earliest literary stirrings & goes on to recount his transformation into one of the most obsessive literary perfectionists of all times.His dalliances with different mistresses ,his solitary forays into the uncharted waters of literary creation [from the safety of his well-stocked study overlooking the river____mostly at night____the light from his study serving as a landmark for the sailors] are narrated with verve .Troyat has drawn extensively from Flaubert's correspondence .Though charming , this work lacks the breadth & sweep of Troyat's " Tolstoy ".