Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert
Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert
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Sentimental Education

Author: Gustave Flaubert

Narrator: Michael Maloney

Unabridged: 15 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/01/2012


Synopsis

Frederic Moreau is a law student returning home from Paris when he first notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and their paths cross again and again over the years. Through financial upheaval, political turmoil, and countless affairs, Mme. Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau's life. Based on Flaubert's own youthful passion for an older woman, Sentimental Education blends love story, historical authenticity, and satire to create one of the greatest French novels of the nineteenth century.

About Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), French novelist and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction, was born in Rouen, the second son of a noted physician. Beset by ill health and personal misfortune, he led a solitary life of rigid discipline, which was reflected in his writing by his obsession with finding le mot juste (exactly the right word). His first published novel was Madame Bovary (1857). When certain passages in Madame Bovarywere judged to be offensive to public morals, Flaubert, his publisher, and his printer were tried but acquitted.

About Michael Maloney

Michael Maloney is an actor who has appeared in numerous television productions, including as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Prince Hal in Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, for which he won Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor awards. His theater credits include Sleuth, Peer Gynt, and All My Sons, and his film credits include The Young Victoria and Notes on a Scandal. He has narrated numerous audiobooks, earning seven AudioFile Earphones Awards.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sasha on October 06, 2021

A "sentimental education" means your first love, and if Frédéric’s not careful he isn’t going to learn shit from it. He’s an aimless, pointless little man, slowly failing to do anything whatsoever with his life. He’s in love with his friend’s wife, and you sortof wish they'd bang just so we'd all ha......more

Goodreads review by William2 on June 26, 2022

Notes: 1. A beautiful book. Highly readable and gratifying. Too much description, but that was a convention of Flaubert’s day. The book is full of history, the abortive Revolution of 1848, the rise and fall of the French Second Republic and so on. The story of Frederic Moreau himself is the faux-biog......more

Goodreads review by Leonard on December 18, 2022

Si Emma Bovary était une version féminine et romantique de Don Quichotte, Frédéric Moreau est peut-être une version juvénile, idéaliste et velléitaire de Don Juan. En tout cas, c’est l’un des personnages les plus fascinants de la littérature française ; à la fois portrait semi-autobiographique du je......more

Goodreads review by Manny on January 16, 2016

L'Education Sentimentale is well known to be one of Woody Allen's favourite books, and it explores one of Allen's favourite themes. Whether life is a tragedy or a comedy depends on hair-fine nuances. Melinda and Melinda is probably the clearest example: the perspective constantly, and rather confusi......more

Goodreads review by MJ on June 04, 2012

An exhausting thrill-ride through the zany world of womanising socialite Frédéric, or—for the first 300 pages, at least—wannabe womanising socialite Frédéric. Because Frédéric can’t make it happen with his mate Arnoux’s missus, nor his mate Arnoux’s mistress, this frustration is the bane of his exis......more


Quotes

“Reader Michael Maloney...consistently differentiates well among characters and handles French like a Parisian.”
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