Sentimental Education

"I wanted to paint the picture of the men of my era", says Gustave Flaubert in
a letter to his friend when he was contemplating "Sentimental Education".
From a man who was disgusted with the vanity of life at a very young age,
these words could have only come out of a noble and enlightened
state of mind.
Picture is an understatement, what he painted was a master piece. Every word
brings thousand pictures to your head, contrasting and challenging all the art forms.I wouldn't be exaggerating if i said, he elevated the art of writing to a level
beyond it was ever envisioned.

The book is no less than an epic in length, and yet every single word stands out as though it was invented to be there, to serve its purpose. With a nice translation from french by "Walter Kaufmann", this semi-auto biographical story is considered to be one of the bibles of literature.

Having read Madame Bovary, i did expect the succinct style, witty and satiric characterizations. But, what makes it a work of art is the depths of madness and the level of detail that was put in to it. The plot is told from a third person's p.o.v, Frederick the main character of his story becomes Flaubert's paint brush,
painting the picture of France during the revolution ---
the humor he draws out of the inebriated life styles of the rich, the mind set of the socialistic revolutionaries, the smell of perfume from the brothels of Paris, the yearnings of a cowardly protagonist for a married woman, the recurrent love affair with a friends wife --- become some of his collections.

Every character introduced in the first dozen pages of the book, stays with you till the end, serving its purpose. The purpose of filling color in to this master piece, with a realistic touch that can rarely be achieved, even if you know them in your personal life. What makes it a master piece above all ?
Let me quote the mastero himself in a letter to his close friend bouilhet,

' I am slaving away at the revolution of '48,' he told bouilhet in 1867,
'Do you know how many books i have read and annotated in the last six weeks ? Twenty-seven, old fellow, and inspite of that i managed to write ten pages.'

Indeed, the level of detail that goes in to every scene and character description is something you would find unique, Such an effort can only make this long abused art noble. One of the books after bovary, that made me want to never finish it and i kept coming back to it in short intervals just to get those out of body experiences.