Par les champs et par les grèves, posthumous work, relates travels
Flaubert made in Britain with
Maxime Du Camp. Du Camp specified in his
Souvenirs littéraires that the choice actually came to Britain because it was a rather far distant country, still out of civilization by his
language and by his way of life. The book contains a distant irony which is typical of Flaubert who loves to mix different levels, writing about the visit of a monument and in the same time quoting his readings of travel.
This book is a learning tale, of sensations, of the wild and primal beauty of nature, and also a learning of britain people who has such peculiar standards. With this book, Flaubert experiments with the descriptive narration and adjusts his technique (portaits, urban and outsides lanscapes). Par les champs et par les grèves is also a quest tale, the one of a writer "in the making", who runs in the step of one his stylistic masters, Chateaubriand. There is something really touching when Flaubert visits the grave still empty of Chateaubriand at the Grand Bé island, or when he pays a nervous visit to Combourg where the great author grew up.
The book already indicates the Flaubert's touch and his predilection for all-embracing themes and motives, any material suitable for future novels. Nothing strange so that Proust was inspired by Par les champs et les grèves, his reading coincides with the redaction of Jean Santeuil and the sequence dedicated to Beg-Meil.
Source : http://www.crlv.org/outils/encyclopedie/afficher.php?encyclopedie_id=562
Currently at the librairie Loliee:
- Par les Champs et les grèves, Paris, Charpentier, 1886, in-8, binding by Yseult. Original Edition.
- Par les Champs et les grèves, Paris, Carteret, 1924, binding by Noulhac. Edition illustrated by 53 etchings of Henri Jourdain.
