Bouvard and Pécuchet

In "Bouvard and Pécuchet," Gustave Flaubert masterfully examines the folly of human ambition through the lives of two clerks who, after a stroke of fortune, embark on a fervent pursuit of knowledge across various disciplines. Flaubert employs a satirical narrative style, blending realism with a sharp critique of the 19th-century French intellectual milieu, as he chronicles the protagonists' relentless yet misguided experiments in fields such as medicine, literature, and agriculture. This novel ...