| Title | : | Salammbo |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140443282 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140443288 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 1862 |
Salammbo Reviews
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Salammbô = Salammbo, Gustave Flaubert
Salammbô (1862) is a historical novel by Gustave Flaubert. It is set in Carthage during the 3rd century BC, immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt which took place shortly after the First Punic War.
After the First Punic War, Carthage is unable to fulfill promises made to its army of mercenaries, and finds itself under attack. The fictional title character, a priestess and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, the foremost Carthaginian general, is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries.
With the help of the scheming freed slave, Spendius, Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil draped about the statue of the goddess Tanit in the sanctum sanctorum of her temple: the veil is the city's guardian and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator.
Chapter 1. "The Feast". “It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar.” The novel opens on a feast organized to celebrate the victory of the battle of Eryx, won against Rome. During the libations, the mercenaries ransack the place, spurred on by Hamilcar’s absence, and the memories of the unkind and unfair way Carthage treated them throughout the war.
Chapter 2. "At Sicca". Two days, later, after much pleading and promises of payment, the mercenaries agree to leave the city. They walk for 7 days and reach the holy city of Sicca. On the way there, a line of crucified lions creates a sense of unease.
Chapter 3. "Salammbô". By a moonlit night, Salammbô appears on a palace terrace. She invokes Tanit, the goddess of the moon and the city’s tutelary deity, whose moods and phases greatly influence her. Raised within the limits of the palace and destined to a political alliance, Salammbô knows little, but as a priestess of Tanit, she wants to see the statue erected in the temple,
Chapter 4. "Beneath the Walls of Carthage". The mercenaries besiege Carthage; Matho and Spendius penetrate via the aqueduct.
Chapter 5. "Tanit". Matho and Spendius steal the Zaïmph. Because Matho is caught while breaking into Salammbô's bedroom to see her again, she falls under suspicion of complicity.
Chapter 6. "Hanno". The mercenaries leave Carthage and split into two groups, attacking Utica and Hippo-Zarytus. Hanno surprises Spendius at Utica, and occupies the city, but flees when Matho arrives and routs his troops.
Chapter 7. "Hamilcar Barca". The hero returns and an attempt is made to blame him for Hanno's losses. He defends himself before the Council and defends the mercenaries, but turns against the barbarians when he sees the damage they have done to his property.
Chapter 8. "The Battle of the Macar". Hamilcar defeats Spendius at the bridge of the Macar, three miles from Utica.
Chapter 9. "In the Field". Hamilcar's troops are trapped by the mercenaries.
Chapter 10. "The Serpent". Schahabarim sends Salammbô in disguise to retrieve the Zaïmph.
Chapter 11. "In the Tent". Salammbô reaches Matho in his tent at the encampment. Believing each other to be divine apparitions, they make love. The mercenaries are attacked and dispersed by Hamilcar's troops. She takes away the Zaïmph, and on meeting her father, Hamilcar has her betrothed to Narr' Havas, a mercenary who has changed sides.
Chapter 12. "The Aqueduct". The Carthaginians return to their city with the mercenaries in pursuit. Spendius cuts off the water supply to Carthage.
Chapter 13. "Moloch". Carthaginian children are sacrificed to Moloch. Hamilcar disguises a slave-child as his son Hannibal and sends him to die in his son's place.
Chapter 14. "The Defile of the Axe". The drought is broken and aid comes. Hamilcar drives the mercenaries away from their encampments. Later, thousands of mercenaries are trapped in a defile and slowly starve (the Battle of "The Saw"). Deaths of Hanno and Spendius, both by crucifixion.
Chapter 15. "Matho". Victory celebrations at Carthage. Matho is tortured before his execution; Salammbô, witnessing this, dies of shock. The Zaïmph has brought death upon those who touched it.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آوریل سال1985میلادی
عنوان: سالامبو؛ نویسنده: گوستاو فلوبر؛ مترجم: احمد سمیعی گیلانی؛ تهران، امیرکبیر، سال1347؛ در487ص؛ تهران، آوا، سال1363؛ در486ص؛ تهران، خوارزمی، سال1363؛ در532ص؛ چاپ دیگر سال1374؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده 19م
سالامبو دختر پادشاه «کارتاژ» است؛ «کارتاژ» در جنگ از بربرها یاری میگیرد، و به پیروزیهایی دست مییابد، اما قادر به پرداختن مزد آنها نیست، و همین امر سبب ایجاد اختلاف بین آنها میشود، پادشاه «کارتاژ» در فکر استفاده از دختر خود، در این نبرد است ....؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/091399هجری خورشیدی؛ 18/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی -
A little human sacrifice, a touch of cannibalism, some slaughter of both soldiers and civilians, one or two crucifixions, there you have it, the mercenaries revolt against Carthage in 240 B.C. Yes I am being facetious, a great amount in all these categories in fact occurred, people played rough then, if you can stomach this , a splendid book to read... The novel will take you to a delicious place that fictional writers would be afraid to make.. The strange thing is this contains ....
mostly the horrible truth, history is stranger than fiction. The rich merchants of ancient Carthage, cared more about their wealth and keeping the fabulous toys, they worked hard for, than the city and its Empire. The result as every school student knows... the eventual disastrous outcome of the three Punic wars with mighty Rome. Flaubert's book Salammbo is more like War and Peace than Anna Karenina, an epic struggle for survival and dominance in the lands surrounding the prosperous territories of the Mediterranean Sea, the Republic of Carthage ,with its port the most important, but first a slight hiccup. Those pesky barbarians want their money they were promised... Imagine the outrage of not keeping a solemn oath, breaking it in actuality , and outsiders dying for a hated city, nobody likes , still since winning a conflict , didn't ensue, the first Punic War 264 to 241 B. C. makes people very ungenerous to losers...
However 20,000 of them exist, this is a big problem. The good citizens of Carthage are too well- off to fight their own battles...you can feel how upset the foreigners are, not getting their promised coins. Nevertheless the city will soon discover to its bloody regret, greed can be bad, as many will perish in the unbelievable siege of Carthage, the inhabitants from the walls, look down at now 300,000 angry barbarians at the gate, all the oppressed are marching, the lagoons have a strange color, most shudder. Salammbo ( real name unknown) is a high priestess, a beautiful virgin in a weird religious cult, daughter of Carthage's best general, a person she hardly knows, a genius in outsmarting his enemies, Hamilcar, the father of the great Hannibal, now you know how the famous soldier, learned the trade. To make it interesting the leader of the rebels bold Matho, a Libyan fighter falls in love with the exquisite Salammbo, complications follow you can guess. The vast armies on both sides butcher each other in hand -to - hand combat, no quarter given. The fields are soaked in blood, bodies pile up, parts hit the mud including horses , elephants and the soldiers red flesh...yet after one terrible battle where 45,000 die...
All continue swinging their lethal weapons , to hack each other to pieces . In the shadows figures on trees mysteriously appear, as liquid slowly drips to the ground, low moans are heard by those near the walls of the giant city. ...A terrific show about ancient times and the creepy customs which humans believed in once, too horrible for modern audiences or are they? -
I'd not intended to read Salammbô, Flaubert's close-to-unknown second novel, but I was at the end of Madame Bovary and saw a yellowing 1922 edition in the 1 Franc pile at the Geneva flea market's book stall. How could I resist? It's a strange book, and at first I had trouble getting into it. I'd expected it to be like Madame Bovary, and it really isn't. Instead of the tedium of French provincial life and the brilliant character development, we have a wide-screen historical epic set around Carthage, shortly after the end of the first Punic War. There is no character development to speak of, and the story is a non-stop thrill ride featuring, among other things, mass gladiatorial combat, cannibalism, parades of crucified lions, war-elephants with scythes strapped to their trunks, and magic rites involving nude women and pythons. For the first few chapters I wondered if Flaubert had gone mad, or was at best having a really serious off-day.
As I got further into Salammbô, though, I began to like it more, and by the time I was half-way through I couldn't put it down. You have to hand it to Flaubert. With Madame Bovary, he created the modern psychological novel; most authors would have been content to do it again for the rest of their careers. Flaubert thought he'd try something different, and created another, less respectable type of book, the decline-and-fall blockbuster. Since then, it's been copied innumerable times, and is particularly popular in the SF/fantasy genre: Salammbô reminded me rather strongly of Foundation, Dune, Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars, to name just a few. I immediately recognised the decadent, overcivilized Empire, the uncouth but virile barbarians, the sexy virgin priestess, the twisty, double-crossing intrigues and the graphic battle scenes. They've become standard ingredients that any author can take down from the shelf and stir into a plot that needs a little livening-up. But the 20th century imitations I'd come across had mostly been written by hacks; it was weird to see it all presented in Flaubert's beautiful, ornate French.
It's a remarkably modern story. Carthage is playing host to a large army of mercenaries, who are waiting to be paid for their services in the recently concluded war; the greedy council are reluctant to part with their gold; negotiations turn sour; soon the merceneries have started an insurgency that lays the country waste. As the war becomes more and more savage, the polytheistic Carthaginians lose faith in the benevolent Tanit, goddess of the Moon and fertility, and come under the sway of the dreadful Moloch, god of fire and destruction. The scene where the children are sacrificed in the belly of the bronze Moloch-idol is the most horrifying thing I have read this year.
If the novel had came out today, I would have believed I saw references to current events. We are turning away from Tanit, and towards Moloch. It'd make a good movie: I can already see the poster, with Gerard Butler as Mâtho, the hunky leader of the Mercenaries, Emmy Rossum as Salammbô, the beautiful priestess of the Temple of Tanit, and Sean Penn as General Hamilcar, her father. If you happen to be in the movie business and you're looking for ideas, consider asking a hungry young screenwriter to put together a draft script.
Oh yes, and here's the oddest thing: I looked it up on Wikipedia, and pretty much the whole story is true. That really made me think.
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Ah... I was saying it was surprisingly modern, and would make a great movie. Having done a little googling, I've discovered that there is indeed a bad and completely forgotten 1960 movie. More interestingly, there's a video game! Here's a picture of the title character:
I don't think they've taken the costume directly from the book (at least, I don't recall her wearing this precise outfit), but it's true to the spirit of the thing. Salammbô is a hot chick and dresses to display her assets to best advantage.
I'm still stunned by the idea that one of Flaubert's novels exists in game form. What other classics have been given this treatment?
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After some more googling, I find that there's a moderately famous painting by Gaston Bussière featuring the aforementioned scene with the magic rites and the python. Given this site's strict no-nudity policy, I'd better not include the picture itself. But you can see most of it on the cover of the edition I'm reviewing here. -
As a former student of history, specifically the Second Punic War, I had only cast a distant eye on Flaubert's novel. Finally, however, I decided to read it during my vacation. And we can say that I was not disappointed.
We soak up the African atmosphere, which is well-documented, pleasant to read, and lively.
Despite some length—we have lost the habit of these seventeenth-century descriptions—Flaubert's prose takes us from page to page towards an end that we know is inevitable. The protagonists' violence and rage challenge politicians' immobility and priests' mysticism. This epic is rich and masterfully organized. The rhythm varies in intensity without ever getting bored.
The central character is not very present at the end, but the appearance of salammbô sounds like a dream, which is perhaps why this novel is an oriental reverie. -
You pass beneath the intimidating portcullis and enter the museum called Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert. It is an awesome edifice and you are duly awed. So ornate, so steeped in olden times and ancient ways, so stylish in its baroque Orientalism. The first gallery amazes you. It describes a feast for barbarians in the halcyon days of old Carthage. Such a feast, such sights to behold! A feast for the senses: your mind comes alive to witness the wonders there, the luscious imagery, the dreamy atmosphere, the foreboding and the mystery, all of the tiny, exquisite details. It feels so lush, so decadent. You imagine yourself there, in Carthage, eavesdropping on the magnetic barbarians and the dissolute Carthaginians, guessing at the troubles that will come, noting the tensions between that virile, unwashed horde and their greedy, sinister employers... they shall not be allies for long. There is war on the horizon! You see the virgin priestess Salammbô of Carthage and the men who are the architects of that great battle - the wily slave Spendius and the lovestruck commander Mathos. You will surely be enchanted by this museum and the many tales it has to tell.
At first, the pleasures remain. The details! The fabulous lushness of it all! But slowly, gradually... your opinions change. You find your enthusiasm waning, you become circumspect when considering this museum. Gallery after gallery details battle after battle. Atrocity after atrocity. You can scarcely take it all in. Names upon names, nations upon nations, weaponry and couture and religious ceremonies, the details, the details. Lists upon lists. You love lists but you find yourself losing focus. There is no human anchor there to keep you entranced; the priestess, the barbarians, the Carthaginians, all - save the Greek slave Spendius and the Carthaginian general Hamilcar - are frustratingly flimsy creations. Perhaps "flimsy" is not the right word... they are operatic creations but they are hollow, all gesture and bombast with no shading, no mystery. They are cartoonish figures. And so what you are left with are the lists of battles, of movements in the field. You are left with atrocities beyond belief, to men and to women alike. To children: oh, such a slaughter of children. To animals: mutilated elephants, crucified lions, the dog of a blind woman casually slain. The museum is an Ode to Atrocity, elaborate and winding, a new atrocity at every turn, atrocities that you have never imagined, vividly described, atrocities that no doubt took place many times in the annals of history. Can atrocity become boring? The lists, the atrocities... they begin to inspire fatigue.
You leave the museum with some relief. There is much to admire there, you do acknowledge that. It is an impressive achievement! But, eventually, a tedious one as well. -
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree...
Whenever I come across the opening phrase of Coleridge's famous poem, the cadences transport me into his exotic creation instantly. The fabled general, Kubla Khan, appears before me sumptuously enthroned in his pleasure palace - and because I've read enough nineteenth century writers who've travelled a little to know they automatically associate the exotic with the erotic, I'm never surprised when a few lines later, Coleridge introduces an Abyssinian maid, a damsel with a dulcimer, the memory of whom remains with the poet long after both she and her song have disappeared.
C'était à Mégara faubourg de Carthage dans les jardins d'Hamilcar...
The opening line of
Salammbô reminded me of Coleridge immediately - there's a similar sonority and cadence. I had no sooner read that first line than I was imagining Hamilcar's palace in Mégara as a splendiferous pleasure dome, and I was well primed for the arrival of a damsel with a dulcimer to the great military feast that is taking place in the pleasure gardens of the palace. As it turns out, the maid who promptly appears is Phoenician rather than Abyssinian, but Salammbô, daughter of General Hamilcar, is the embodiment of the erotic:
She advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her pass. Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open pomegranate. On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their variegation imitating the scales of the murena. Her arms were adorned with diamonds, and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was starred with red flowers on a perfectly black ground. Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large dark purple mantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her, making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her...No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led a retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her in the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that had made her so pale, and there was something from the gods that enveloped her like a subtle vapour. Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial space. She bent her head as she walked, and in her right hand she carried a little ebony lyre...
Salammbô's story is set in the third century BC, in the city of Carthage, which is today a suburb of Tunis on the Mediterranean coast. The feast that is taking place in the opening scene has been arranged by the Carthaginians as a reward for the mercenary soldiers who aided the city in the Punic wars against the Romans. However, the mercenaries need to be paid for their services as well as fêted with food and drink, and the failure of Carthage to pay them results in the mercenaries besieging the city. The seige is complicated by the fact that one of the mercenary leaders became entranced with Salammbô as she walked among them at the feast. The memory of the maid remains with him long after she and her lyre have disappeared from his sight.
Flaubert had visited Tunis and read Polybius' Histories as well as everything else he could find about the Punic wars, so the bones of this story are true and accurate; there really was a conflict between the mercenaries and the city, and it was long and bloody. What Flaubert does is to dramatise it in his own sumptuous style. His language is very visual, and like Coleridge, it sometimes seems as if he might have been under the influence of some powerful opiate while composing the episodes of the story. I imagined him writing this book in his isolated study in Normandy - a modern-day Saint Anthony in the desert, constantly beset by tortured and exotic visions. It wasn't hard to imagine him as Saint Anthony because Flaubert's first adult work was a dramatization of the temptations visited on the third century hermit in which the young author listed every imaginable vision that the unfortunate saint might have dreamt up - and there are definite parallels between the two books, especially in the detail of the descriptions. Flaubert writes as if he were an orientalist painter such as Ingres or Chassériau - his words convey the same heady atmosphere as their paintings. But I wasn't tempted to find images to match his descriptions - as I was while reading
L'éducation sentimentale. In fact, I've looked at several paintings depicting Salammbô, including the one on the cover of the French edition, but none of them match the image I have of her from reading Flaubert's words. I'm finally convinced of what Flaubert himself maintained: the words should be enough.
I'd like to have included more of his words in this review but I can't because half way through reading
Salammbô, I mislaid it. I read the second half in English on an ereader - I couldn't find an electronic version in French. I was grateful to have been able to finish the book but at the same time, I regretted the switch of language - I much preferred reading Flaubert in French. His long sentences, full of successions of clauses, have a rhythm that must be a huge challenge for a translator. But it's also true that the second half of this book, mostly relating the series of battles between the Carthaginians and the mercenaries, is much more of a page turner than the first half so that it matters less to read it in another language. Just as the Carthaginians finally overpower the mercenaries, the plot finally overpowers the style. By the end, I was glad to have done with this very violent story, but sorry to have done with Flaubert. Now that I've finished
Salammbô, I've nothing left to read but his letters. -
الرواية أتعبتني وأرهقتني كثيرًا رغم الوصف الباذخ في اللغة الذي يتمتع بها الكاتب، لكن هذه الرواية مليئة بالسادية والقتل والوحشية في وصف القتال وأكل لحوم البشر، قرقعة العظام وتهشيم الرؤوس، والأمراض الفتاكة الخ الخ .. لا أحب هذه النوعية من الروايات.
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Carthage holds a certain fascination for me, as a classics scholar, in that it was an empire of power, influence, and grand personalities--and yet the legacy Carthage has left to us, her history, her culture were deliberately erased, burned to the ground with nary a trace remaining, and then replaced with the politicized fictions of Rome, who destroyed her, followed in her footsteps, and replaced her. The shadow of Carthage looms large across the ancient world, but she is always a shadow: dark, unknowable, menacing, cloaked in rumor. Her real presence, her real character still remain unknown to us.
Some things we do know: that she was a colony of Phoenicians who became a power in their own right, the figures of Hanno the navigator, Hannibal the general, and some other greats, mostly sprung from the grand Barca line. Yet our knowledge is always filtered through Roman eyes, Roman words--to the point that the great Roman cultural epic, Virgil's Aeneid, personifies Carthage in the figure of Dido: the angry, jilted lover intent on preventing Rome's ever being born. In the end, warmongering Cato's oft-repeated line Carthago delenda est--'Carthage must be destroyed'--was followed to the letter.
In preparation for this book, the follow-up to his acknowledged masterpiece of psychological Realism, Madame Bovary, Flaubert spent months researching, burying himself in ancient histories, trying to recover the lost empire--even visiting its former site. One can see the fruits of his labors in the book's mostly delightful details--which at their best evoke the poetic list-making of Ovid or Milton--while at other times, they run to the banal, as a certain lengthy explanation of the difference between the catapult and the ballista.
There is definitely a sense that Flaubert is working more in the milieu of history here, not melodrama--which is unfortunate, because the story cries out to be told with pathos and character, to be sung. We're never allowed into the characters, psychologically--instead of seeing their thoughts develop toward the moment of decision, Flaubert sticks us with mere descriptions of what has happened. What a Shakespearean performance this might have been--full of contentious dialogues, arguments, coercions, seductions--I longed to see these grand figures strutting the stage, demonstrating their mastery, their force of personality, their depth of emotion. It's no wonder that luminaries like Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff tried to craft operas from the tale.
Without these passionate struggles, these subtle turns and manipulations, the entire melodrama grows ever more flat, preconceived, inevitable. Yet, as the author, himself
wrote:
"I would give the demi-ream of notes I've written during the last five months and the ninety-eight volumes I've read, to be, for only three seconds, really moved by the passion of my heroes."
Sometimes, alas, the work simply does not come together as we wish it might--as indeed we know that it can, for that is what draws an artist to the project in the first place: his sure knowledge that there is a story here worth telling, and the reader surely comes away with that same impression, that there is fertile ground here.
The bloody anecdotes--especially an early one about the crucifixion of a full-grown lion--are rife with opportunity for symbolism, for multilayered writing, if only it had all come together. If only. They do not work as pure history--Flaubert lacks that scholarly depth and breadth, for all his researches--but neither can he quite turn them to an artistic purpose.
In the end, the most interesting way to view the work--and indeed, likely the reason it failed--is as a grand piece of
Orientalism. We do not quite get Carthage-as-Carthage, but neither do we get Carthage-as-France. Instead, we get a distancing, a view of Carthage as unknowable, as impossible to sympathize with--that same distance that the Orientalist stance was constructed to produce.
It is either fitting or ironic that we end up here, since in many ways, Carthage-by-way-of-Rome is the original example of the Orientalist posture: the foreign power is destroyed, conquered, converted, and then rewritten by the conqueror as self-justification. The voice of Carthage, its power and influence was so great that Rome had to reduce it, to transform it into something less threatening--even as Rome dutifully copied both the technology and the methods which Carthage established as the necessities of the first true maritime trade empire to dominate the Mediterranean.
Aeneas is not merely a snub to Carthage, after all--but also an attempt by Rome to rewrite Persian greatness into their empire, which was always more Cult of the God King than
Rhetoric of the Demos--then, in the wake of the Renaissance and the Reconquista, the European powers once again take on the Roman cause and identity, intent on making an abused lover of Islam, which had so long dominated and loomed over them. For France, Algeria became the colonial site where
they most fully explored the perverse decadence that is the ruler's right--at the same time blaming the natives for whatever was inflicted upon them, through the standard process of Orientalist distancing--a process we still use to this day, insisting that any group who cannot prevent themselves from being dominated must, in some way, be asking to be so dominated.
The most extreme example of alienation and vilification crafted by the Romans against the Carthaginians is the Tophet--a site where, it was claimed, infants were sacrificed to the brutal gods as offerings to stave off defeat, disease, and blight. Flaubert repeats this accusation in the most florid and merciless way, as the blood-mad crowd gives up child after child to the mechanized maw of their titanic idol. Recent archaeological study suggests that the Tophet was used for interring the numerous stillbirths and victims of high infant mortality in the ancient world.
Though clearly influential on adventure writers like Haggard, Kipling, and Mundy, Flaubert does not quite achieve the rollicking pace that make those stories enjoyable. Neither can he deliver upon the wild personalities which might have carried the tale as a proper melodrama--the required psychological distance between himself as a French citizen and the necessarily depraved East is too vast a gulf for authorial sympathies to bridge. Neither can it quite be called a history--it is rather too close and personal, too invested in the blood and depravity for its own sake to maintain more objective judgment.
Perhaps Melville--if anyone--could have melded these disparate types of story, through extended symbolism and precisely-constructed moments into a tale that managed, ultimately, to hang together and surpass the mere sum of assembled parts. In the end Flaubert, despite his particular skills and the time he invested, could not. -
Just as it's hard to believe that the Rod Stewart who gave us the classic Every Picture Tells a Story is also responsible for "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?", it's baffling that Flaubert wrote Salammbô right after his more famous effort.
This is a historical novel about a revolt against Carthage by unpaid mercenaries following the First Punic War. It hasn't aged nearly as gracefully as Madame Bovary, and I consider it to be quite a difficult book. The first two thirds are just endlessly thick description, mostly of exotic settings and people's crazy outfits, punctuated by outrageously violent acts. While slogging through this, one might think, "Well, this would be a lot easier if it had any interesting characters with psychological depth, but maybe they just had not invented those yet in 1862." But then one might recall that in fact they -- specifically, Gustave Flaubert -- in fact had invented just that thing, and one might wish he'd incorporated these innovations into the present work.
But, the thing is that Salammbô is just not that type of book, and while it definitely provides rewards for one's hard work, they're not those of nuanced and realistic psychological portraits. The first big payoff comes on page 38, when the Barbarian mercenaries come across (hahaha) this:
A sickening stench struck their nostrils, and on top of a carob tree they seemed to see something extraordinary: a lion's head rose above the leaves. They ran to it. It was a lion, its limbs fastened to a cross like a criminal. Its huge muzzle drooped on to its chest, and its two forepaws, half concealed under its luxuriant mane, were widely separated like the wings of a bird. Its ribs stuck out, one by one, beneath the taut skin; its hind legs, nailed one on top of the other, rose a little; and black blood, flowing through the hair, had collected in stalactites at the bottom of its tail, which hung straight down along the cross. The soldiers stood round amusing themselves; they called it consul and Roman citizen and threw stones at its eyes to drive away the flies.
A hundred yards further on they saw two more, then there suddenly appeared a whole line of crosses with lions hanging on them. Some had been dead for so long that nothing remained on the wood but the remnants of their skeletons; others half eaten away had their faces contorted in hideous grimaces; some of them were enormous, the trees of the cross bent beneath them and they swayed in the wind, while flocks of crows wheeled ceaselessly above their heads. Such was the vengeance of Carthaginian peasants when they caught a wild beast; they hoped to terrify the others by such examples. The Barbarians stopped laughing and for a long time were seized by amazement. "What sort of people are these," they thought, "who amuse themselves by crucifying lions!"
Yes, what sort of people indeed. The crucified lions are only the first in a series of scenes of horrific sadism and cruelty that I might normally call "indescribable," except that Flaubert describes them all. Torture, maiming, starvation, child sacrifice, elephant tramplings, leper crucifixion, battlefield vampirism, and pretty much every sicko way of killing a person that Flaubert could think of is depicted here, with as much loving detail as he uses to evoke his lush and sensuous exotic world. This is one of the most over-the-top violent books I think I've ever read. Actually, though, the narrative picked up a lot in the last third -- including many thrilling battle scenes and an intense, highly sexy bodice-ripping romance -- and I wound up more or less enjoying this book, despite a slow start. And it's not all brutality and violence -- there's a beautiful naked woman dancing with her pet snake, some incredible food writing, and more dramatic sets and costume changes than any Hollywood studio could ever hope to replicate. I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to -- maybe fans of extreme graphic violence and historical epics, who don't feel Mel Gibson's Jesus movie went nearly far enough? -- but I'm not sorry I read this bizarre piece of dated gross-out Orientalism. -
Es una novela que me encantó aunque algunas cosas hacen que no sea de mi total agrado. No sabía que la obra en realidad era una novela histórica, pues los acontecimientos narrados a lo largo de la obra tienen bastantes referencias reales.
Luego de leer a "Madame Bovary" quería conocer a otro Flaubert, porque la verdad a pesar de la antipatía por la simplona historia de Emma y su pandilla no quería creer que ahí moría el intelecto de este escritor por la gran admiración que siempre ha concitado. Y luego de escribir "Madame Bovary" parece que a Flaubert se le dio por buscar o escribir una historia ya no deprimente ni mundana sino una grandilocuente y esplendorosa. Es en realidad luego de leerla una obra casi romántica pues dista mucho de analizar el valor moral de los actos, los pensamientos, la mecánica psicológica de los personajes sino más bien opta no sólo por el recuerdo del pasado típico del Romanticismo sino también por su elocuencia, su exaltación de las sensaciones, las descripciones detalladas y esplendorosas, de las pasiones consumiendo al ser humano.
La novela narra de forma muy romántica un episodio real histórico: "La Guerra de los mercenarios" que se realizó en Cartago entre esta ciudad y los mercenarios que al servicio siempre de Cartago y constituyendo su principal núcleo del ejército se subleva contra los fenicios, punis o cartagineses y tratan de apoderarse de la gran ciudad. La hija del célebre Amílcar Barca, Salammbô es la que debería ser el personaje principal que para mí no lo es y si lo fuera resulta débil para el papel en la obra. Las huestes rebeldes están dirigidas por Mâtho, el libio, Spendius, el griego y otros más. En el lado de Cártago resaltan Hannon y luego Amílcar Barca, gran y terrible líder de los fenicios.
En realidad me encantó bastante porque lejos de ser un triángulo amoroso o una relación amorosa de dos, "Salammbô" es mucho más que eso, es la descripción exacta y ensordecedora del Cartago antiguo, con sus elefantes acorazados triturando hombres, sus dioses terribles que ansían sacrificios humanos, de joyas ricas y de un brillo enceguecedor que sólo en África pueden encontrarse, de la crueldad y sadismo de los bárbaros, de la belleza embriagadora de las fenicias, del respeto y temor a lo mágico, del color fulgurante del ámbar o del aroma dulce de algunas pociones. Flaubert logra una descripción muy erudita pero que no suena aburrida ni difícil de descifrar, tal vez los primeros capítulos pueden marear un poco pero tan pronto como te adentras en la lectura ya te puedes familiarizar con los términos y tener esa sensación (que pocas obras en mí pueden lograr) de vivir dentro de la historia y pasar todos los acontecimientos como un pasaje de tu vida; todo esto sería imposible de crear si Flaubert no se hubiera dedicado de lleno a leer como luego leí cientos de libros de historia de Cártago para poder hacerla tan real.
Sí por supuesto hay cosas que me han desagradado: la primera y más grave la ausencia de una real importancia de la personalidad de Salammbô en la novela (si leen la historia real estarán menos decepcionados), es bella y sensual como describe la obra pero hay algo que hace que no logre cumplir con el objetivo del personaje, de no tener tanta fuerza ni relevancia, y mucho menos pensar que el título se deba a ella misma, la relación amorosa que se crea en la historia tampoco tiene a mi parecer suficiente peso, demasiado escueta y aunque se puede entender algunas inclinaciones "fantásticas" o "románticas" de amor oscuro o mágico, más allá de dos personas que puedan quererse de verdad, sino como dos entes atraídos por la fatalidad, queda este término demasiado grande para la historia de amor que se habla en la novela. Y siendo estos aspectos, en cualquier otra obra para mí muy importantes en una historia tal, me sorprende que no sean lo suficiente malos como para no olvidarlos cuando recuerdo a Amílcar dirigiendo sus huestes, a los bárbaros campeones un día y al otro, hombres llevados por la desesperación más terrible y acobardados, los caballos con las orejas cercenadas y con marfiles para asemejarlos a rinocerontes, las torturas a los esclavos y todo el sentimiento místico de los pobladores de Cartago.
Y es que justamente estos desajustes a mi modo de ver, el hecho de casi no simpatizar con ningún personaje ni Salammbô, ni Mâtho, ni incluso Amílcar y aún así gustar de la novela por su descripción histórica y bélica que tantas cosas me ha aportado habla de mi valoración positiva de la obra. -
Printre picături, mai citesc un capitol din Salammbô, la fel de dezamăgit. Am ajuns, iată, la bătălia de la Macar, adică pe la mijlocul romanului. Naratorul face risipă de pietre prețioase, de exotism oriental:
„Femeile nomazilor îşi fluturau pînă la călcîie rochiile lor ţesute în pătrăţele din păr roşcat de cămilă; cîntăreţele din Cyrenaica, înfăşurate în văluri viorii, cu sprîncenele încondeiate, îşi mlădiau glasul încrucişîndu-şi picioarele pe rogojini; negresele, cu sînii atîrnîndu-le, strîngeau baligă pentru foc şi o uscau la soare; femeile din Siracusa purtau în păr spelci de aur; lusitanele, salbe de scoici; femeile galilor îşi acopereau cu piei de lup pieptul lor alb”.
Majoritatea comparațiilor sînt perfect banale, cînd nu sînt stridente sau inadecvate. Salammbô este cel mai precar dintre romanele lui Flaubert. Impresie persistentă de artificiu. Pe linia asta (care e o fundătură) a mers doar Huysmans în À rebours (1884). Totul este exagerat, nefiresc. Cît despre temperamentele personajelor (Salammbô, Mâtho, Hamilcar) cel mai blînd lucru este să constați că sînt neverosimile, țipătoare. În romanul lui Flaubert, găsim, ca într-un manual, toate defectele romantismului... -
Readers who know Gustave Flaubert only for Madame Bovary, his meticulous dissection of a provincial marriage, may be surprised by Salammbo. I certainly was. But for Good and bad reasons though. Instead of the contemporary setting of the M Bovary, Flaubert offers every exotic extreme he can imagine, painting a savage age and culture in fierce, vivid colours. There are rich descriptions of the burning rocks of a harsh wilderness, of ornate temple decorations, of high ceremony with crowd scenes. The novel drips in violence and cruelty, with bloody slaughters, army ambushes, and child sacrifices. But Salammbo still offers a romantic story of sorts, a doomed love set between the first two Punic Wars. An ardent Libyan youth called Matho, falls in love with Salammbo, priestess and daughter of the city's leader, Hamilcar Barca. Matho's daring theft of the sacred veil of the goddess Tanit opens a new phase of conflict, both between the warring forces, and within the soul of Salammbo. Not surprisingly we don't find a happy ending here. Anyone who loves carnage and bloodshed from the days when bloodshed really did mean bloodshed will probably like this a lot more than me. It was just all too much. Still well written though, so that's a plus. -
I had already read Salammbo a decade ago ... or more! I remembered it like a dream or a nightmare. And by rereading it, this story is a dream and a nightmare all at once.
The apparitions of Salammbo don’t seem real. Flaubert himself says in a letter to Sainte-Beuve, "I’m not sure of her reality; for neither I, nor you, nor any person, elder or modern, can know the Oriental woman, for the reason that it’s impossible to approach her, to go out with her. "
"Matho prowls like a crazy man around Carthage." Crazy is the right word. Wasn’t love conceived by the ancients as a madness, a curse, an illness, sent by the gods? Flaubert reminds us that Voltaire was already talking about the violence of passions in Africa, in his book Candide: "It's fire, vitriol ..."
You want to live this dream, this nightmare? Then immerse yourself in Flaubert's studied prose; relive this great story with him who has so conscientiously studied it. Flaubert, on the advice of his great friend Théophile Gautier, went as far as Carthage to visit, with his giant’s long legs, the places of his story, smell the spices, feel the heat of the wind and see the color of the stones of Carthage’s ruins.
Perhaps you will be a little lost among all these peoples speaking each one their own language: "One could hear, beside the heavy Dorian patois, resound the noisy Celtic syllables like battle tanks, and the Ionian words’ endings collided with the desert consonants, harsh as jackal cries."
Not being at all a connoisseur of the 3rd century BCE’s wars, I admit I was a little lost! But no matter: a traveler who doesn’t get lost a little, loses a little of the flavor of his trip. Not bad, that sentence, is it? It’s mine! 😊
I confess I have half read some bloody passages that would have made me have some nightmares, but maybe I'm a little too sensitive on this subject?
Never mind, if you think that I always give 5 stars, but ... it's Gustave, the great Flaubert! -
Vrând-nevrând, am ajuns și eu la concluzia că toate drumurile duc la clasici. Ultima oară când am avut impresia asta, de preaplin literar, că tot ce urmează în materie de literatură e nivelat deja și nu se poate ceva mai complex, a fost la „Infernul” lui Dante.
Am citit multe romane istorice (e genul meu preferat), și dintre cele „mari”, și dintre cele comerciale, dar un roman atât de bine documentat rar mi-a fost dat să întâlnesc. Pentru a scrie „Salammbô” și a expune epoca în care se petrece (Cartagina și revolta mercenarilor de după Primul Război Punic), una dintre cele mai necunoscute ale istorice antice, Flaubert s-a dus să vadă ruinele Cartaginei, a citit istoriile lui Herodot, Pliniu, Xenofon, Polybius, Michelet, Eusebiu, Diodor, Amiannus Marcelinus și nenumărate alte tratate și studii din toate domeniile, de la geologie și arheologie, până la religie și rituri păgâne. (Iar asta în 1862, să nu uităm.) Rezultatul este pe măsura documentării, istorie vie.
Lectura n-a fost una ușoară (nici măcar cu adevărat plăcută), cel puțin pentru mine, a trebuit să cântăresc și să aranjez cantitatea de informație încontinuu, subiectul fiindu-mi complet necunoscut, iar între imagini a trebuit de multe ori să răsuflu adânc (are cam de toate, măceluri, carnagii, crucificări, torturi, sacrificii etc.). Dar asta n-o face nicidecum mai puțin impresionantă ca valoare. E un roman care trebuie citit; dacă nu pentru altceva, măcar pentru a ne lămuri cum stă treaba cu bazele literaturii moderne. Care baze nu se clatină deloc. -
Not much to say about the story except that, of course, she has to have a pet snake. Like she can't be a femme fatale without it. And, of course, artists got off on this scene *huge eye roll*
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Many GR members having noted with approval the lust and kinky sex in this novel set during the era of the Punic Wars praised Salammbô as an excellent novel of the Decadent school. As decadence it did not thrill me as the two main protagonists were dull beyond belief. Nonentheless, I still think that Salammbô is worth reading for anyone determined to investigate the Flaubert catalog thoroughly.
By chance I read the novel within a month of having finished the "Histories" of Polybius which Flaubert identified as his principal source. Polybius argued that Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars for three reasons: (1) The Romans had a citizen rather than a mercenary army; (2) the Romans had superior political institutions; and (3) the Romans were a more virtuous people. Flaubert's novel certainly supports the thesis of Polybius. Salammbô is well worth reading for anyone likes to learn about history through literature rather than true historical writing. -
به نام او
این دومین اثری ��ود که از گوستاو فلوبر خواندم. بعد از مادام بوواری
فلوبر از نویسندگان مورد علاقه من نیست، ولی نمیتوانم از قدرت داستان نویسیش دم نزنم هم مادام بوواری و هم سالامبو نشان میدهد که با این نویسنده بزرگ و ساختارگرا طرف هستیم که برای سطر به سطر داستانش برنامه دارد. شاید یکی از چیزهایی هم که سبب می شود که من فلوبر را آنچنان دوست نداشته باشم همین ساختارگرایی تا حدودی افراطی ست. به عبارتی کم پیش میآید در این دو رمان نشانه هایی ازشکوفایی نبوغ نویسنده ببینیم اگر نبوغی هم باشد کنترل شده و کانال بندی شده است. به هر رو خواندن آثار فلوبر بسیار آموزنده و راهگشاست و حداقل به کسانی که دست به قلم هستند توصیه می شود. نکته دیگری که در مورد سالامبو می توانم بگویم ترجمه این اثر یک شاهکار ادبی ست برای ارتقا زبان فارسیتان هم که شده این کتاب را بخوانید. -
George Steiner brought me here που λέμε και στο χωριό, όταν αναλύοντας το φαντασιακό του 19ου αιώνα στη Δύση ανέφερε την Σαλαμπώ ως παράδειγμα της φρίκης και του θανάτου που λάνθανε κάτω από την ευμάρεια και την αισιοδοξία που τα τεχνολογικά επιτεύγματα έφεραν στον ευρωπαϊκό χώρο εκείνη τη περίοδο.
Και πράγματι το αίμα ρέει άφθονο σε αυτό το ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα του Φλωμπέρ, προϊόν κοπιώδους μελέτης και συγγραφής. Στρατιωτικοί ελιγμοί, φονικές μάχες, δολοπλοκίες και στο βάθος ένας τραγικός έρωτας συνθέτουν το πλαίσιο του βιβλίου με τη γραφή του Φλωμπέρ να κάνει την αφήγηση κινηματογραφική.
Ο Μαρτιν πρέπει να το χει διαβάσει και 10 φορές :) -
After reading Madame Bovary I didn't expect this at all. It actually feels like a modern fantasy novel full of striking imagery of a decadent culture and outrageous battles.
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Historical exoticism at its finest, and that’s definitely not my bag. A book so richly descriptive and detailed you want to eat the damn thing. What could be bad about that?
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Salambò è stata una sorpresa per me, lettrice affezionata di Flaubert. Il romanzo si discosta totalmente dalle altre opere da lui scritte per contenuti e toni. Si tratta di un romanzo epico, in cui sono narrate le gesta belliche tra i Cartaginesi, guidati dall’astuto genio militare di Amilcare Barca, e i Barbari, guerrieri mercenari provenienti dalle più svariate parti del mondo allora conosciuto, dai Greci ai Galli, dai Lusitani ai Libici, privi di un’organizzazione militare stabile ma coraggiosi e temerari lottatori guidati dal colosso libico Matho. Mentre leggevo ho sempre avuto la sensazione di trovarmi di fronte a un kolossal, con scene grandiose di accampamenti di soldati che tengono sotto assedio le città della costa nordafricana, battaglie in pianure sterminate con duelli corpo a corpo tra guerrieri risolti all’ultimo dall’uso dei mastodontici elefanti trasformati in macchine da guerra, che distruggono ciò che incontrano sul cammino, il tutto descritto con un’attenzione quasi morbosa per i particolari macabri: il sangue scorre a fiumi e tinge ovunque gli uomini, la terra ed il mare. In ogni capitolo, come in una serie di quadri, ci sono scene truculente in cui viene sottolineata la crudeltà ferina che uomini dimostrano contro altri esseri umani, in un mondo cruento dove domina la violenza. Sullo sfondo una storia d’amore in nuce, un amore impossibile quello tra Matho e Salambò, figlia di Amilcare Barca, sensuale e bellissima fanciulla i cui sensi vengono risvegliati dall’incontro con il libico, un tocco di dolcezza e passione nel mondo bestiale che gli fa da cornice.
Il tutto descritto da Flaubert, quale osservatore esterno, quasi come un archeologo che riporti in vita da un lontanissimo passato scene di vita, con la solita dovizia di dettagli: arredi ed abiti sontuosi sono descritti con ricchezza di colori, suoni e profumi riempiono di esotismo gli ambienti.
Un romanzo storico, che va oltre la ricostruzione d’epoca, pone l’uomo di fronte agli oscuri sotterranei della crudeltà e della violenza, aprendo la strada agli studi psicoanalitici del secolo successivo. -
"Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it. give birth to it."
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A lesson from a great master in how not to write historical fiction. Flaubert is a writer’s writer, as Spenser is called a poet’s poet, so I can say that for a review.
It’s as outrageously bloody as Ross Leckie’s Hannibal – of course, with a lot more class. As exotic as... I don’t know what. The past was never this exotic: not exotic to itself. Flaubert believed in the writer being like God, everywhere present but invisible. It isn’t my school (nor his other, that a writer observes the world but has no right to comment), in spite of which I want to tell him that a collection of exotics is no way to airbrush out his hand. These are easy criticisms and have been made a hundred times. What isn’t easy is to assess what he’s doing, in the dodgy public domain translation I read. I swear to look into this again with the Krailsheimer – which I suppose is the only recent option?
In Salammbo herself he tried to portray an ancient type of woman without internal workings. I mean, he seemed to believe people of antiquity needn’t have our inner lives. It’s interesting, as is what he wants to say about religion. Because I feel I can’t get near this in a quick read of the free ebook, I’m going to give him five stars for effort and abstain on the achievement. I’ll return... since Flaubert is the original Slow Writer, who broke his back over a comma. I respect that. -
Well that was painful. I can't understand why this hasn't been turned into a campy opera yet.
I've read two other books by Flaubert (
Madame Bovary and
Sentimental Education) and I've really enjoyed his writing style in both. Unfortunately for me, the writing in this couldn't be more different. It's like an hallucination with the drums of the barbarian horde in the background.
While the writing didn't work well for me, and the history part was less than accurate (unless living sphinxes existed), I couldn't quite bring myself to give this one star. I didn't like the book, which would typically make it one star. But I feel like the author set out to do something very different here and accomplished exactly what he intended. The writing also suits the subject matter very well. I can see where people would love it but it was really not for me. Even though I've enjoyed the author before and I love history... It makes no sense.
I liked this line because it represents the story and writing so well: Carthage was full of joy - deep, universal, boundless, frenetic joy -
Drugi Floberov roman postavljen je na neobično mesto i u neobično vreme. Kartaginjani su najčešće "oni tamo preko", nekakvi divljaci za koje Katon u svojim govorima insistira da treba da budu uni��teni.
Salambo priča o pobuni vojnika najamnika za vreme Prvog punskog rata. Započinje sjajnim opisom gozbe u kući Hamilkara (oca Hanibala Barke, koji se kao desetogodišnji dečak jedva i pojavi), ali nastavlja se... onako.
Taman kad pomisliš da je ovo najbolje predstavljena antička civilizacija u romanu, Flober krene sa pasusima i pasusima opisa brežuljaka, drveća, flore i faune Severne Afrike. Čitam tako te opise, ali nekako ne mogu to da zamislim toliko živo koliko pisac očekuje od mene. Ili nemam mašte ili volje da bih se potrudio da tačno takav breg prizovem u misli.
Nekome može da smeta i nasilje - meni nije toliko, pretpostavljam da su takve bile tadašnje bitke, trebalo je prići onom čoveku ispred, nekako mu odgurnuti štit i prosuti mu utrobu. -
I LOVE this book.
It's set during the Punic Wars and is... wait for it... TOTALLY KICK ASS. It's super fast paced and bloody and sexy, and is the only time where Flaubert's love of the Marquis de Sade comes out. It's also my favorite novel of Flaubert's even though everyone seems to think it sucks. So so so so so cool. -
Matching Soundtrack / Musique au kiosque :
Samson et Dalila, Bacchanale - Camille Saint-Saëns. -
The unerring desire of possession can drive one to the extremities of human passion. The nauseous affliction its imprinting in the mind wildly displaces reason with the abject principle of resolute blindness that moves the beholder from the clear insights of logic to the sheer antipode form of its utmost extremity as the evil eye can turn the radiance of love into the most violent ray of hate, or of wanting to preserve life and its beauty into the bleakness of its own sudden death and of divine faith into the fanaticism of its own diabolical devotion, a point in fact that somehow crosses the irrational threshold in the behavior of man against himself and against his environment, elucidating the barbarity of his actions and his war against the luminescence of peace.
These polarities that exist are antecedent in unveiling the human drama of life, a summation of man's tribulations in all of history as it appears blatantly expedient in exterior form somewhat illogical in its senselessness, yet illustrates the veritable foundation of the evolving constitution of man. Gustave Flaubert is somewhat deftly inveighing upon this as a thematic setting of his historical novel that tells the story of Salammbô and of Matho, of his love and their brutal war as told in a seeming lyrical prose that captures the grandeur of Ancient Carthage amid the barbarity of their crusade written in a style of a truly Homeric epic.
Flaubert's approach in retelling the story of the Punic War is extensive in spite of the deemed shortness of the novel, packed with meticulously research materials on the onset and infused with the sophistication of Flaubert's verbatim arrangement, it visually relieves in vividness the grandeur of Ancient Carthage as it is embroiled with the vicious barbarity of the times. The narrative is engaging in its sweeping form, though at times it appears difficult to read especially without the guidance of some annotations and footnotes as background, which somehow contributes in hampering the reader's attention from the flow of the plot that appears even more challenging for those not familiar with the history of the antiquities.
This had actually necessitated me to pause and slowly read some passages several times to get to the clarity of visual needed to understand what Flaubert was meticulously describing, providing me more than an ample time to consult my Kindle's dictionary to check on some words no longer in usage, which somehow slowed down the process of my reading to a considerable degree, yet at the same time riveted with Flaubert's near perfect strokes of a narrative.
The narrative in its complex precision has the same tone of earthly obsession that emanates from the novel's characters as each is somehow thrown into their own pit of fervent passions, whether be it in love, war, or domination, depicting as if Flaubert himself, the writer and creator, shares this same intensity of passion that spills into his style like a blood thirsty mad man gone out of his wits, splitting this sensual obsession of man into its two categorical faces as a harbinger of something calamitous and an inspiration to the most perfect art form there is---as all woes of man are indeed to become its sheer source of enlightenment. ☾☯ -
Un autre chef-d’œuvre de Flaubert, amour, histoire et aventures, j'ai adoré ce livre.
