MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN

This very early work, written when Flaubert was an adolescent but published only long after his death (in 1900), records the amatory and intellectual effusions of a lovestruck youth whose “madness” is really only romantic hyperbole. In its rhapsodies about childhood, schooling, travel, and especially the images of unattainable idealized females, we see glimmering intimations of both Flaubert’s sardonic Bildüngsroman Sentimental Education and his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. But these Memoirs are unmemorable—unlike the brief 1837 story “Bibliomania” that follows them. It’s a deftly plotted, precociously urbane parable of obsession, somewhat reminiscent of (of all things) early Edgar Allan Poe.