Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 2

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.6
Word count
431K words
Chapters
44

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Literary GiantsComplex HumanityMoral DilemmaIntellectual CommentarySelf-ReflectionSatirical Style19th Century

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 2 by FlaubertAuthor: Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Sep 20, 2014

Editor's review

This is part two of Flaubert's unfinished novel Bouvard and Pécuchet, a public-domain English electronic text from Project Gutenberg. The story follows two copyists who, after retiring, throw themselves into every field of knowledge, fail repeatedly, and return to copying, offering a coolly comic dissection of the nineteenth-century bourgeois thirst for learning and intellectual fashion. This part continues the previous volume's satirical tone and documentary-style narrative; structurally it resembles an encyclopedic comedy rather than a tightly plotted traditional novel. As you read, note how the author uses seemingly trivial excerpts and experiments to expose the tension between intellectual presumption and ordinary life. Suited to readers interested in French literature, the satirical tradition, and modernist narrative. The electronic edition has a plain interface; reading with annotations or a guide is recommended to lower the barrier posed by its documentary passages.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read part one first or acquaint yourself with the overall plot before entering this volume, so the character relationships do not feel disconnected.
  2. Keep notes on characters and themes by chapter, tracing the fields of knowledge the two repeatedly attempt.
  3. Skim dense quotation and documentary passages; grasping the overall satirical tone is enough.
  4. Read alongside other works by Flaubert or a related guide to understand his narrative experiments.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44

FAQ

Is this a complete novel? No. This is part two of Bouvard and Pécuchet, the latter half of the whole work. Before reading, it is best to know the plot and character relationships of part one; otherwise the narrative thread may feel unfamiliar.
Is the English electronic edition suitable for direct reading? The original is in French; this version is a public-domain English electronic text. The language is moderately to fairly difficult, and the text contains much documentary narration. It is recommended for readers with some foundation in English reading who are used to satire and intellectually oriented fiction.
Does reading this book require literary background knowledge? It helps. The work touches on nineteenth-century science, religion, history, literature, and other fields, and satirizes bourgeois intellectual fashion. Knowing Flaubert's era and the satirical tradition makes its comic sense easier to grasp.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880 Author

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) was a French novelist known for his precise, restrained narrative style. His masterpiece Madame Bovary, through the tragedy of Emma, a provincial woman, examines the conflict between ordinary life and romantic illusion; controversial upon publication, it later became a classic of realist literature. Another important work, Trois contes, includes A Simple Heart and other stories, displaying his refined craft and devotion to style and detail. The novel L'Éducation sentimentale uses the experiences of a young man, Frédéric, to reflect the spirit of the era. The library holds thirty-three of his works, including multiple editions of Madame Bovary and portions of his collected works, showing his enduring value for reading and research. Public information is limited, so biographical details are omitted; the above focuses on subject matter, writing style, and literary influence.