Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) is among the most demanding writers who ever lived — demanding first of all of himself. His correspondence, particularly the letters written to Louise Colet during the composition of Madame Bovary (1851–57), constitutes one of the most revealing accounts of literary labour ever set down: page after page describing the agonies of a single paragraph, the search for the word that would be simultaneously true, musical, and necessary. The letter of 16 January 1852 contains a passage that has since become essential to any understanding of his method: he describes the necessity that a sentence should have "the sound of truth and the appearance of ease," however much effort lies behind it. The appearance of ease — the concealment of work — was not vanity but an aesthetic conviction. Art that showed its seams was, for Flaubert, failed art.
Madame Bovary was five years in the writing and scandalised its first readers with its moral indifference and formal perfection. Flaubert spent the rest of his career pursuing the same standard of prose — in L'Éducation sentimentale, in Salammbô, in the late masterpiece Trois contes — and the quote on this mug is the most concise expression of his credo: that the hardest task in writing is to produce something that appears to have cost nothing.
Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.
