I prefer this one of his- more so for the fact that
when I first read it I thought it was gonna be crap,
having never heard of him (and the the first line)-
but it`s now among my all time favourites- as is the
first line.
The trope strongly appeals to me for some reason,
the wonderful assumption that people know who
Flaubert was- and just the simplicity of having
something to say, then just saying it without any
bullshit.
Style
Flaubert wanted to write a novel
About nothing. It was to have no subject
And be sustained upon the style alone,
Like the Holy Ghost cruising above
The abyss, or like the little animals
In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch
That breaks, but do not fall
Till they look down. He never wrote that novel,
And neither did he write another one
That would have been called La Spirale,
Wherein the hero`s fortunes were to rise
In dreams, while his life disintegrated.
Even so, for those two books
We thank the master. They can be read,
With difficulty, in the spirit alone,
Are not so wholly lost as certain works
Burned at Alexandria, flooded at Florence,
And are never taught at universities.
Moreover, they are not deformed by style,
That fire that eats what it illuminates.
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