Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour
By the author of Madame Bovary. Flaubert's journal entries are too much like notes to give the reader a clear idea of his response to the sights.
Trying to our post-modern sensibilities are his stories of dallying with Egyptian prostitutes. The lewdness dismays but worse is the contempt he expresses “The oriental woman is no more than a machine: she makes no distinction between one man and another man. Smoking, going to the baths, painting her eyelids and drinking coffee— such is the circle of occupations...”
He hitched a boat ride with an Arab slave trader and of the enslaved women he says, “All these faces are calm, nothing irritated in their expression – brutes take these things as a matter of course.” Yeah, he’s excused, being an artist and all.
Right.
The footnotes by translator Steegmuller are informative and not obtrusive.
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