”A Journey into Flaubert’s Normandy”, is a fascinating, lively, & informative book
- richly illustrated with 19th-century art, modern & archival photos, & custom-designed street maps
- that allows both tourists & armchair travelers to visit the novelist’s homes, some of which are now museums, & to discover the locations that featured prominently in his controversial work & colorful private life. Susannah Patton takes the reader to Rouen, with its stunning cathedral; to the resort town of Trouville & its much-painted beach; to Croisset, where Flaubert’s riverside house gave him the refuge to write; to the quiet country town of Ry, where the real Madame Bovary lived & died; & to pastoral Pont L’ Eveque. In Madame Bovary, as in his other books, Gustave Flaubert revealed his love-hate relationship with Normandy. Set along the northern French coast, the region is steeped in history & beguilingly beautiful, but in Flaubert’s time it was also stiflingly close-minded. This combination inspired the novelist, whose heroes struggle to escape social convention upon a stage that is unmistakably Norman: the ancient capital of Rouen, where Flaubert was born in 1821; the small towns that dot the lush expanse of meadows, orchards, & rolling hills; the windswept coast, where he first fell in love & to which he frequently returned.