Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

When I began to read Sentimental Education of Flaubert it seemed very interesting to me and very affluent in the text. Nevertheless, the excessive amount of details did not amuse me, yet I do understand that this is a characteristic of realism. I do understand that at that time these details were necessary for the writers so they can create a photograph in the reader’s mind. As we examined the realism article, in this literary movement the author must be faithful to realism and to nature in there text. But please too much description can cause the reader to lose interest in the text. In Henry James’s The Art of Fiction states that “The characters, the situation, which strike one as real will be those that touch and interest one most, but the measure of reality is very difficult to fix (James 43).” I have to agree with James’s observation because it is really very complicated to measure reality since authenticity can be different for each person.