The Family Idiot

Book excerpt: "The Family Idiot is a masterwork by one of the greatest intellects of the twentieth century. Published in three massive volumes in French between 1971 and 1972, and five volumes in English translation between 1981 and 1993, Jean-Paul Sartre's classic study of Gustave Flaubert is now available to readers in English for the first time in a more digestible abridged edition. For Sartre, understanding how Flaubert became Flaubert-how he came to be the person who penned Madame Bovary-helps us understand the very nature of the modern self. Sartre devoted a decade at the end of his life to crafting this exhaustive work and it serves as a summary of his committed philosophy. Compiled by renowned Sartre scholar Joseph S. Catalano, this abridgment retains the brilliance of the sprawling original and reveals how we are still haunted by the nihilism of the imaginary that was beautifully captured by Sartre"--