ID 1108894
Lot 95 | Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
Autograph letter signed (with initial 'G.') to [Louise Colet], [Croisset], 'Nuit de samedi, 1 h.', [25-26 June 1853]
In French. Four pages, 247 x 190mm, bifolium, date added on p.1 in another hand. Autograph envelope (to 'Madame Colet / rue de Sèvres, 21 / Paris'). With a typed transcript. Provenance: Sotheby's, 5 December 1991, lot 453.
On his progress with Madame Bovary, and his concerns over its flawed proportions. 'I have at last just finished my first part (of the second) ... I shall spend the rest of the week reading it all over and copying it up and a week tomorrow I shall vomit it all out to master Bouilhet' (his friend Louis Bouilhet, who was closely involved in the development of the novel). He worries that 'this book will have a major flaw, which is: the lack of material proportion. I already have 260 pages and they contain only the preparations for action, more or less thinly disguised expositions of character ... , landscapes, places. My conclusion, which will be the narrative of the death of my little wife, her burial and the sadness of her husband which follows, will have at least 60 pages. There therefore remains, for the very body of the action, 120 to 160 pages at most. Is this not a great defect?'. Flaubert reassures himself that the work is more a biography than an adventure, 'The drama has little part in it ... And then it seems to me that life itself is a bit like that ... Our passions are like volcanoes: they are always rumbling, but the eruption is only intermittent'. The problem is that nature of the French reader, always in search of amusement: 'My suffering at writing and thinking in this language is nothing new! At bottom, I am a German!'. He longs to write books where it is only a question of stringing sentences together: 'What bothers me are the clever plans, the combinations of effects, all the underlying calculations which are nevertheless Art, because the effect of the style depends on it – exclusively'. He enquires after Colet's own writing, advising her to follow through her metaphors and avoid extraneous details: 'Perfection has the same character everywhere, which is precision, accuracy'. If he succeeds in his book, he will have established two truths: 'first, that poetry is purely subjective ... and that Yvetot is therefore as good as Constantinople; and that as a result one can write about the insignificant just as well as about the significant'. The letter concludes with local news, including a sensational murder trial.
Enfin, je viens de finir ma première partie (de la seconde) ... Je passerai la semaine encore à relire tout cela et à le recopier et, de demain en huit, je dégueulerai tout au sieur Bouilhet.... Mais je pense pourtant que ce livre aura un grand défaut, à savoir : le défaut de proportion matérielle. J’ai déjà deux cent soixante pages et qui ne contiennent que des préparations d’action, des expositions plus ou moins déguisées de caractère ..., de paysages, de lieux. Ma conclusion, qui sera le récit de la mort de ma petite femme, son enterrement et les tristesses du mari qui suivent, aura soixante pages au moins. Restent donc, pour le corps même de l’action, cent vingt à cent soixante pages tout au plus. N’est-ce pas une grande défectuosité ? Ce qui me rassure (médiocrement cependant), c’est que ce livre est une biographie plutôt qu’une péripétie développée. Le drame y a peu de part ... Et puis il me semble que la vie en elle-même est un peu ça. Un coup dure une minute et a été souhaité pendant des mois ! Nos passions sont comme les volcans : elles grondent toujours, mais l’éruption n’est qu’intermittente.
Malheureusement l’esprit françois a une telle rage d’amusement ! ... Ce n’est pas d’aujourd’hui que je souffre d’écrire en ce langage et d’y penser ! Au fond, je suis Allemand ! ... Je voudrais faire des livres où il n’y eût qu’à écrire des phrases (si l’on peut dire cela), comme pour vivre il n’y a qu’à respirer de l’air. Ce qui m’embête, ce sont les malices de plan, les combinaisons d’effets, tous les calculs du dessous et qui sont de l’Art pourtant, car l’effet du style en dépend, et exclusivement.
Si le livre que j’écris avec tant de mal arrive à bien, j’aurai établi par le fait seul de son exécution ces deux vérités, qui sont pour moi des axiomes, à savoir : d’abord que la poésie est purement subjective, qu’il n’y a pas en littérature de beaux sujets d’art, et qu’Yvetot donc vaut Constantinople ; et qu’en conséquence l’on peut écrire n’importe quoi aussi bien que quoi que ce soit.
Published in the Conard edition of the Correspondance, vol. 3, no. 403. The poet and salonist Louise Colet (1810-1876) and Flaubert were lovers intermittently over the eight years before 1855, latterly coinciding with the composition of Madame Bovary (1851-1856). Flaubert's letters to her are one of the principal sources on his progress with his great novel.
| Artist: | Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880) |
|---|---|
| Place of origin: | France |
| Auction house category: | Letters, documents and manuscripts |
| Artist: | Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880) |
|---|---|
| Place of origin: | France |
| Auction house category: | Letters, documents and manuscripts |
| Address of auction |
CHRISTIE'S 8 King Street, St. James's SW1Y 6QT London United Kingdom | |||||
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| Auction date | 15.12.2023 |
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| Auction house | CHRISTIE'S |
| Auction date | 15.12.2023 |
