French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Postel, Flaubert's Autumn
Novel and Narrative Prose
ALEXANDRE POSTEL
Flaubert's Autumn
Blanche Collection, Gallimard
Published: 03-01-2020
144 p. — ISBN: 9782072850202
“1875: at fifty-three, Gustave Flaubert considers himself a finished man. Threatened with financial ruin, overwhelmed by grief, unable to write, he wishes he were dead.
He decides to spend the autumn in Concarneau, where a scientist friend of his runs the marine biology station. There, for two months, Flaubert takes sea baths, walks along the coast, gorges himself on lobster, observes the fishermen, and watches his friend dissect mollusks and fish.
One day, in his small hotel room, he begins to write a medieval tale of great ferocity—just to see, he says, if he is still capable of fashioning a sentence...
Based on these established facts, I have imagined the novel of his idleness, the dream of his reverie, the legend of his recovery. It could have been called: Gustave Slaying the Dragon of Melancholy.” — Alexandre Postel
Alexandre Postel positions his narrative within the rich tradition of biographical fiction, a genre that blends historical documentation with imaginative reconstruction to explore the inner lives of canonical writers. By focusing on a fragile turning point in Gustave Flaubert's maturity, the text engages with enduring questions surrounding creative exhaustion, melancholia and the arduous psychological conditions of artistic production. This work will particularly appeal to readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature, the creative process, and the ways in which historical figures can be vividly reimagined through contemporary prose.
The book finds its immediate context in the late-career crisis of the author of Madame Bovary, offering a nuanced portrait of a literary master confronting personal adversity in a remote Breton coastal setting. Rather than presenting a traditional biography, Postel captures a fleeting moment of idleness and observation among marine biologists and fishermen, which ultimately paved the way for the composition of the legendary tale The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller. It serves as a thoughtful reflection on resilience and the persistence of the artistic impulse against the threat of despair.