Word: flaubert
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...final figure was Émile Moreau of the Banque de France. The others were bankers, but he was a civil servant. He was the mayor of his little town for 35 years, and that captures his character - a rural Frenchman, he could have come out of a novel by Flaubert. Insular, xenophobic, he refused to learn English and believed, somewhat justifiably, that international finance was an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy designed to exclude France...
...disappointed with Wood’s results. “How Fiction Works,” down to its small size and faded auburn cover, emits a distinctly quaint feel. At times, Wood’s writing is tweedy and old-fashioned. He returns again and again to Flaubert, “as if unable to stop rereading the old letters of a former lover.” Wood is right to idolize Flaubert—his eye for detail and his polished technique exemplify Wood’s aesthetic ideal of literary realism, and he offers an ideal model...
...pleasure of the book lies in watching Wood read. For Wood, the history of the novel is itself like a novel, in which genius-heroes perform astounding feats of literary innovation. Proust finds a new way to render character in Swann's Way ("Progress!" Wood shouts); Flaubert ("the bearish Norman, wrapped in his dressing gown") writes prose with a precision that until then had been reserved for poetry, and in the process inadvertently invents realism as we know it; Tolstoy narrates the fading consciousness inside a freshly severed head. Wood's enthusiasm is glorious. Reading alongside him is like going...
...ranks have begun to swell with people nominated purely for their celebrity rather than any loftier merits. That list grew further, Thursday, when President Nicolas Sarkozy conferred the title on Canadian singer Céline Dion, welcoming her into the company of Alexis de Tocqueville, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Gustave Flaubert, Alexander Graham Bell and Albert Dreyfus - and also Jerry Lewis. Not surprisingly, some observers suggest that the contrast in achievements of its various honorees has cheapened the medal to the point of self-parody...
...still waiting, it is true, for a contemporary Flaubert or Proust. But how many Tolstoys do the Russians have? How many Melvilles are in the U.S.? A great, contemporary French writer is, however, long overdue. Here's betting that when he or she turns up, his or her first name will be something like Ahmed or Rachida. John Lichfield, IN THE INDEPENDENT...