Bouvard and Pecuchet (Flaubert) resources

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Web resources for Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet and Dictionary of Received Ideas

Jorn Barger September 2002

"I am planning a thing in which I give vent to my anger... I shall vomit over my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me... It will be big and violent." --GF, Oct 1872 [ht262]
'Flaubert having recorded provincial customs in Bovary and city habits in L'Education, set out to complete his record of 19thC life by presenting all sorts of things that the average man of the period would have had in his head...' --Ezra Pound [etext]
"We do not know yet almost anything and we would like to guess this last word which will never be revealed to us. The rage to arrive at a conclusion is most disastrous of the manias." --Google-translation of GF as quoted by Borges in 'Defense of Bouvard and Pecuchet' [cite]

timeline

1 franc in 1850 was equal to about $4 today

1821: 12Dec: Gustave Flaubert born in Rouen [map]

1830: 31Dec: 9yo GF launches writing career-- comedies featuring the "stupid things" a friend of his father says

1836: writes A Lesson in Natural History: Genus Clerk

1848: 08Apr? GF witnesses ridiculous ceremonial planting of 'Tree of Liberty'

1850: letter refers to Dictionary of Received Ideas

1852: 17Dec:

"I sometimes have an uncontrollable urge to rail at the human race and I'll do it some day, ten years from now, in a long novel with a large canvas; meanwhile, an old idea camew to me again, namely, my Dictionary of Received Ideas (did I tell you about it?). I am particularly excited about the preface, and the way I conceive of it (it would be a whole book), I would be safe from the law although I would attack everything. It would be the glorification, down through history, of everything that is accepted. In it I woulkd demonstrate that majorities have always been right and minorities have always been wrong. I would sacrifice the great men to all the idiots, the martyrs to all the executioners, and this in an extravagant, bombastic style."

1858: GF probably sees Barthelemy Maurice's story 'The Two Court Clerks'

1863: draft refers to 'The Two Woodlice' (Les Deux Cloportes)

1864-1869: writing Sentimental Education
1872: death of mother

1872: 18Aug: "I am going to begin a book that will occupy me for several years... the farcical story of those two characters who copy a kind of critical encyclopedia" [ht260]

1872: begins Bouvard and Pecuchet under those names

1872: 05Oct: "I am planning a thing in which I give vent to my anger... I shall vomit over my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me... It will be big and violent." [ht262]

1872: 04Dec: GF to GS: "I write not for the reader of today but for all the readers who may present themselves, as long as the language lives." [ht263]

1873: May-Jul: revises Bouilhet's play, 'The Weaker Sex'

1873: Jul-Nov: writes political comedy (play), The Candidate [French]

1873: fall: scouts locale for B&P [ht271]

1874: 17Jun: resumes search "I need a silly place in the midst of beautiful countyside... where one can go on geological and archeological expeditions... I am overwhelmed by the difficulties of this work for which I have already read and summarised 294 volumes." [ht279]

1874: 06Aug: writes first sentence of B&P [ht280] "I'm floundering, scratching out, feeling generally desperate."

1874: Dec: GF to GS: "I am becoming too stupid, I bore everyone to death. In short, thanks to his intolerance, your Cruchard has become an intolerable fellow himself.... there's not a thing I can do about it..." [ht282] "B&P is leading me very quietly, or rather relentlessly, to the abode of the shades. It will be the death of me!"

1875: 27Mar: GF to GS: "I am working, but without enthusiasm... it may be the work that is making me ill, for this book is an insane enterprise." [ht283]

1875: Apr: begins second chapter (chem, medicine, geology?) "I am so filled with B&P that I have become them. Their stupidity is mine, and I'm dying of it... there has to be some semblance of action... so the thing doesn't seem like a philosophical dissertation. What makes me despair is that I no longer believe in my book." [ht284]

1875: Jul: niece experiences financial crisis [ht286] GF sells Deauville farm for 200k francs

1875: Sep: five months writing St Julian
1876: writes Simple Soul and begins Herodias (finished Feb 1877)

1877: Jun: resumes work on B&P after two years [ht305] "The whole part about medicine can be done in three months."

"For the last two days I've been doing excellent work. There are times when I'm dazzled by the vast scope of this book. How will it turn out? Unless I'm completely mistaken, and instead of being sublime it's just foolish? But I think not! Something tells me that I am on the right road." [ht305]

1877: summer? losing teeth, going deaf, mercury treatments? [ht306]

1880: 08May: dies suddenly of stroke [deathmask]

sources: [overview] [website] [bio] [bio] World&I, bk-rev, ditto, ditto, short, Barron's, Bibliomania, short, Babelfished, quotes, philosophy, bibliog

French: website, timeline, ditto, etexts, ditto, works

other: Dutch

Works

search: French

Bouvard and Pecuchet (1881, unfinished)

French: 580k, etext, 600k, extracts

tributes: Java projects

Amazon: paper, French

Dictionary of Received Ideas (1911, aka Dictionary of Accepted Ideas/Opinions; Dictionary of the Usual)

"a collection of platitudes which would be 'the historical glorification of everything generally approved.' It would he said, for instance, show that 'in literature, mediocrity, being within the reach of everyone, is alone legitimate and that consequently every kind of originality must be denounced as dangerous, ridiculous etc.' The work would, he said, be 'raucous and ironic' and would lead to the great modern idea of equality, demonstrating 'everything one should say if one is to be considered a decent and likeable member of society.'" [Byatt]

French: multi, 1pg-incomplete, multi-incomplete

English: etext, ditto, pdf&flash

tributes: economics, Internet

Amazon: paper-Wall, paper-Barzun

internal timeline of novel

1791: Francois Denys Bartholomee Bouvard born; Juste Romain Cyrille Pecuchet born

no-date: P's mother dies

1797-1877: Adolphe Thiers (GF's bete noir, mentioned ch1) [bio] ditto

B grows up on Loire farm, studies business in Paris

1806: P withdrawn from boarding school, first employer arrested

P tries pharmacy, school-usher, boat-purser, copy-clerk

no-date: B's father marries c40yo, two sons (Etienne and Alexandre), widowed

1809/1812? B inherits 1000 francs (per year?); marries, starts confectioner's shop; wife runs off

1826: B hired as copy-clerk by Descambos (income of 1500 francs)

1838: calendar

ch1