BIODIESEL, Try it youll like it.

Steve-

The work of a master craftsman with extreme dedication.What a great book.Reading in and around Flaubert is one of life's great joys.

Re Salaambo - I think ol' G.F's best known work is his most over-rated piece, something not altogether uncommon.

You cantankerous old son of a sod-buster.

What sort of lit.crit. is that?

One presumes thou to be referring to Madame Bovary,which is far and away dear Gustave's best know work.

Why,pray,do you think it over-rated,my dear fellow?Being a self-confessed SOD,much to my amusement I might add,are you not duty bound to heed your own oft-touted mating call-Evidence?

It is my opinion Bovary represents GF's (emminently successful) attempt to satisfy the "Least Commion Denominator" requirement of writing for the broadest possible market. Much of his other work, while perhaps not so polished, appeals to me on any number of levels glossed over if addressed at all by Emma's saga. Its good, no argument, I just think GF has done better, which stands in the shade cast by the glittering success of his mass-market opus.

This came through in one of my trucking industry newsletters today ...

http://www.ttnews.com/members/topNews/0014371.html



<it's a free subscription, if anyone's interested in this stuff>

Truckers have no opinion on Flaubert then?

Steve-

I feel some truckers are probably of a literary cast of mind although I must admit to never having met one.

timber-

There was no mass market when Bovary was published.It first appeared in six instalments in the Revue de Paris which wasn't a very successful publication due mainly to those concerned being somewhat distracted by actresses.Max Bouilhet had mentioned a cheque at one point but that,I gather,was the last that was heard of it.

Flaubert would have been appalled at the idea of writing for money.He was quite rich anyway and lived a life of idle amusement.Of those few capable of reading it the females among them considered Flaubert to be a "dreadful man" him having exposed the inherently corrupt nature of women so comprehensively.
If I may quote Bouilhet-"As soon as the first chapters had appeared our subscibers rose in wrath,crying that it was scandalous,immoral.They wrote us letters of doubtful courtesy,accusing us of slandering France and disgracing it in the eyes of the world.What!Such women exist?Women who deceive their husbands,pile up debts,meet their lovers in gardens and hotels?Such creatures exist in our lovely France,in the provinces where life is so pure?Impossible!"

Then Flaubert was prosecuted for obscenity although it is generally agreed that the Revue de Paris was the main target for other reasons.Thankfully he got off but he had prepared himself for a spell in the dungeons.

He had no commercial motives.He did say later in life that if he could collect up every copy of Bovary he would burn the lot.

It's nowhere near Salammbo but still great.

All well and good, spendi - but still it is my impression GF knowingly and intentionally pandered to sensationalism with Bovary, seeking not adulation nor accolade, but notoriety. In that endeavor, he succeeded beyond his most ambitious expectation, and his later-in-life wish to gather up and burn the lot perfectly exemplifies his embarrassment and disgust with himself for having prostituted his talent and causing himself so much inconvenience through publication of the piece. Still, it remains his signature work, his masterpiece. He was not at all happy about that.

You should read his letters - paricularly those exchanged with George Sand, with Louise Colet (with whom he had what appears to have been his only serious romantic involvement), and Ivan Turgenev.

Oh, and apart from both having been born in France, and both having at one time or another, though not contemporaneously, lived in Paris, there is little to connect Faubert with Rudolf Diesel, born a decade or so after Flaubert's demise.

Many do, as do I - but I'm currently much more interested in biodiesel than I am in Flaubert.

timber-

What do you mean "little" to connect Flaubert with Deisel.Is there something?However little.

I've read all the letters and plenty else re dear Gustave.He is one of those rare birds,a small number,who swooped down from heaven and saved my life.I was heading for rack and ruin once.
I couldn't really handle women you see and that's really dangerous especially when you can't keep your hands off the blighters.And I'd really no excuse.I'd read Frank Harris at 19 and Rider Haggard but you don't read properly at such an innocent time.These eagles of mercy showed me the way forward after I read Veblen after I had more experience.I can't say I've never looked back because I'm looking back now but you dig my drift.

Proust is pretty good if you have a lazy summer to spare.If you wanted to get it fast imagine Stan Laurel's face when Oliver has just been sucked up the chimney by a rope tied on a piano to lower it out of a window.Did you ever see Dylan do that thing with the bunch of flowers and the prize he had been presented with at a big-time do somewhere up north from here.He had them quite confused.

ehBeth wrote-



I read somewhere that it gunked up the filters and that's no good if it's true.Flaubert ungunks filters.

Well you're obviously on the wrong thread then...

except of course if you were delivering a load of books....mainly Flaubert and it was cold and your truck wouldn't start because of the crappy biodiesel and you had to light a fire under the tank with some of the books....and read abit of Salammbo while you waited....for Flaming Flaubert to unfreeze the fuel.

(Phew that was close but I think I got away with it)

Well, I am interested in Biodiesel and may be developing one in Flaubert. My exposure to French literature has so far been more to Balzac, Stendhal, Maupassant, etc. I once attempted Madame Bovary but put it down about half way through. I have encountered some of Flaubert's somewhat pornographic descriptions of his travels in North Africa and the Mid East, and found them interesting, more or less in the same way that Richard Burton is also a bit interesting. I am intrigued and may try more. Spendius -- where should I star?

George-

That is not an easy query to respond to coming from a man of an age Bernie implied you are.A response to the request from a young lady would elicit a totally different reply.

Have you ever looked at a page of fine literature and then imagined it as a sheet of blank paper on which those words were then written by that particular cast of mind.This is a pointless idea when applied to the broad mass of books which are written for some selfish purpose or other and thus generally flatter the reader and confirm his/her prejudices.There are books and there are works of art.The latter are few and far between but are the only ones worth the effort and they all look from a distance just the same.One page of the Da Vinci Code was quite sufficient for me.

In order to get a handle on Flaubert I would suggest starting with the Letters and Steegmuller's book Flaubert & Madame Bovary.Your nose will guide you from there.

I suppose I ought to add,just in case and no offense intended,that these things are not consumer items to be used up.They are to be cherished and valued.Like Shakespeare and Proust and a few others.

Keep me posted.I'll allow I might be too enthused.

Flaubert wouldn't know a fuel filter if it bit him on the ass . . .

Got away with it indeed, and then some. Splendid job - congratulations.

There are other types of filters.

I think Ive missed something important in the exchange of ideas herein. I admit a "tin ear" to Flaubert like I have for Irish Music, It never shuts up. I could summarize madame d Bovary in a coupla paragraphs and keeps all the jokes intact.
Beth--I have to interject about the clogged ffuel filters. Ill wager a Tooney that those were all old trucks because biodiesel does have the habit of Ungunking the fuel systems of diesels because of all the paraffin and "lard" left in petro diesels. The biodiesel prolly made em poluunsaturated and let em flow with their encleated crap (like dirt particles) and this is what probly messed up the filters.

Changing two or three filters and having a clean fuel line is one of the benefits of biodiesel. It does have that initial drawback, at least, thats what Ive been told.

timber wrote-



Another bold assertion.Let's see you do it.EVIDENCE!!

To hell with Flaubert, it's the Irish music comment, I don't like!

(Watch it Farmer -- Spendius is serious about Gustave