Flaubert study, which he characterized as “a novel which is true” (un
roman vrai), can be read as a work of art in this sense. The “lie”
comprises hypotheses about Flaubert’s infancy, inner states, and the like,
as well as that imaginative reconstruction, the “novel” itself, which
Sartre has built from these fragments (ex pede Herculem). The truth to
be exhibited is what we can know about a man nowadays. So the writing
ofL’Idiot, far from constituting the aesthetic “flight from reality” which
some have taken it to be, can itself be read as apolitical act. As he assures
his “Maoist” friends, it is a matter of consciousness-raising, of revealing
the implicit hatred of man that grounds bothl’art pour l’artand the
bourgeois humanism that feeds, and feeds upon, it – standard themes of
the politicized Sartre.
Perhaps the main conclusion about Flaubert to be drawn fromL’Idiot
that mirrors Sartre’s thought across its various categories, is theambiva-
lenceshared by these three authors toward the real/unreal. The unreal
(specifically theirrealor imaginary) is both an escape and a weapon for
each. As with a theatrical piece, literary artwork must be sufficiently
other than the real (which Sartre sees as truth, utility)^71 to provide a
genuine alternative, yet real enough to be taken seriously (believed).
Sartre underscores “that curious relation between imagination and truth,
affirmed a hundred times since [Flaubert’s] youth, that truth reveals
itself only to imaginary beings as the meaning (sens) of their derealiza-
tion.”^72 The meaning of Flaubert’s derealization (consummated at
Pont-l’E ́veˆque) is that he is forever barred from the essence of man
(praxis), but that this verye ́checis the necessary condition for great art.
For Sartre’s Flaubert,l’homme imaginaire from inception to term is
l’homme-e ́chec. Again, “loser wins.”
Or does he? The imaginary is always the derealization of some reality,
which takes ontological priority. In the present case, it triumphs in the end.
Flaubert’s disgust at the powerlessness of the imaginary after the Prussian
victory is echoed by a similar conclusion in Sartre’s autobiography: “For a
long time, I took my pen for a sword: now I know we are powerless.”^73
(^71) SeeBN 320 ;EN 384.
(^72) FIv: 505 ;FIIII: 543.
(^73) Words 212 ;F 159.
408 Existential biography: Flaubert and others