Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

Published in 1869, Sentimental Education portrays the coming of age of its central character in the years before France’s Second Empire, an ironic hero whose self-absorption prevents him from any meaningful engagement in life. His involvement in the Revolution of 1848, which led to the first modern democratic election with universal male suffrage, dwindles in comparison to his failed attempts to seduce Madame Arnoux, the object of his affection. His friends fare no better. Flaubert meant the book to be a “moral history” of how the inner lives of his generation were shaped and disillusioned by contemporary events. “The only amusing thing about 1848”, wrote Charles Baudelaire, who unlike Flaubert participated in the revolt, “was that everyone was constructing utopias like castles in the air.” --Times Literary Supplement