I had heard it said - in a lecture by Liza Knapp - that this work is Flaubert's best. I see where she is coming from, and I most certainly am not going to say that this isn't an excellent book; but it took me quite some stamina to get through. You don't want to rush this read or hope it cuts to the chase at some point (although the end comes quite suddenly!). It's not that nothing happens, but there are long sumtuous descriptions of nothing much happening. Flaubert most assuredly knows how to write... we all know how painstakingly he composed his works and there is no doubt about it, every sentence is worth savouring; although maybe more so in the original French? I'll never know. However.... if you have not read many works from the 19th century, and notably by French authors, I recommend you read up on the time in which it has been set, or grab a plot summary whenever you get stuck to encourage you to get through the political bits (which are very specific in places, if merely indirectly relevant, although not entirely uninteresting for some alternative views on the limitations of democracy...). Keep a character list at hand for the first half or you'll get confused! You will need all the help you can get to keep track of the endless meandering from salon to brothel to mistress (no.1,2,3, 4...) to mother and back and around again. I promise you it will be a memorable read and a great step up to all that follows this benchmark Realist. Nearly every great novelist will refer back to Flaubert somehow! It simultaneously gives you a very vibrant account of the type of chaos you only ever find in Paris. Furthermore, there is nothing really old fashioned about the problematic relationships between men and women either. You find many contemporary novels echoing Flaubertian encounters where their communications are ambiguous and men still feel tricked half the time while women get themselves trapped. I did think to myself, though, that this has to be read as a man's book, written by a man for other men like himself. These would be the rebels without a cause who oppose all things bourgeois and nurture the fantasy to be left wild and free. When they get bored of satisfying their appetite with *** they pour their testosterone into politics. For the rest they sulk a lot at not understanding the fairer *** better. Despite it all boiling down to *** and power (politics), and all the women in the book are eigher fairly silly geese or controlling dragons, while the men are ruled by either lust or the urge to revolt, there are some intimate and tender moments (generally outside the city limits). For the rest, before, during and more so after the revolution (No.3) it seems to be predominantly about money, status, and elitist opinion and for Frederick, too, there is no escaping this. Trying to find somebody to share your most heartfelt feelings with prooves very hard. Perhaps, because the hearts of our main characters are not very well emotionally developed to begin with? Society hardly encourages it, either. That's the middle of the 19th century for you. But things are stirring on that front as personal accountability is growing. But only slowly. There is an awfully cold scene towards the end, where the protagonist is pretty much disgusted by his own (illegitimate, hence akward) baby and this infant's death is turned into a satirical interlude around the painting of its post-mortem portrait. This episode ought to convince us that the relationships the insecure and obsessive Frederick seeks out are extremely self-indulgent and meant to boost his poor (immature) self-confidence. The final recollections, later in life, leave us in no doubt that this is an anti-Bildungs Roman (even travel fails to make Frederick grow up). We live and we barely learn, stuck on wanting things we cannot have. Or more specifically: there is no point trying to change a man? Be warned never to try and tie him down? Is it a tentative confession of a life wasted, from a man who is begining to realise how miserable his own non-realistic hankering after women has made him feel? This is a novel you will have to reread once you find yourself with enough time on your hands and appreciate there is nobody who does it better than Flaubert when it comes to the Realism style.