This brief but intense novel was one of the first works to be published Turgenev ... and at first, as episodes in a journal heavily censored; and for good reason!
When one starts reading this work, short, one would not expect to find them at once:
1) SATIRE Russian society of the time (like many others in the same years) that works by "caste", each to stay in his place ... and for women the only way to access " a march over "is the marriage ...
2) a summary of Romanticism in the impossible loves of the 2 main characters: Tchoulkatine and Lise; each magnet without return (... I'll let you read it and find out;)). Romanticism is also very present in this descent "into hell" of the soul when it is ground, or rather detached from everything, even life because Love is no more, or that Love BE is due to convention, or the inability to share, as is the case Tchoulkatine.
Excerpts:
"Who is it that dares to say that the only real truth is the lie is as perennial as the truth? Can be about more."
"How then to recognize what is true or false, and why, what meaning to give to each separate sensation? Anyway, all these misunderstandings, all these forebodings and these hopes were soon dispelled."
3) emergency ordered by the death that comes forward, to finally "do" something, the character knows the deadline; finally, he realizes main perhaps he conveys through his journal that only Love brand life, hers, ours can be ???
4) The different forms that can take Love, The Union: The passionate and platonic love a being, almost carnal love of nature, landscapes
I will end by leaving Flaubert conclude. Here's what he wrote in the publication of this work: "... This way both vehement and contained, this sympathy that goes down to the smallest ones and give a thought to landscapes"
