The Temptation of St. Antony by Gustave Flaubert

The Temptation of St. Antony Reviews

• 
  BlackOxford

  The Creation of Literary Space
  
  Mahler’s last symphony is about the history of European music - if it is about anything at all. Velasquez’s painting Las Meninas is not primarily about the Infanta princess but about the life of an artist in the royal Spanish court of the 17th century. And Flaubert’s Temptation is only incidentally about the Egyptian saint; it’s real subject is books and the way they affect our human existence. All these works expand what constitutes artistic endeavour. They create new genres by commenting upon and exploiting previous artistic achievements.
  
  Flaubert called the Temptation “the work of my entire life.” That life was devoted to literature. So what else could the book be about than the books he had read, the ones he had intended to read, and even the ones he had never heard of. Books, after all, were his life just as music was Mahler’s and painting Velasquez’s. Temptation is an autobiography masquerading as a religious myth. Not unlike Evelyn Waugh’s novel Helena a century later, Temptation is a masque, that is to say, Flaubert’s most deeply considered persona, his best self-assessment. It took him three decades to write. Perhaps, therefore, the book was his own form of psycho-therapy.
  
  The introduction by Michel Foucault in my edition is really essential to Flaubert’s text. In it, Foucault points out the inspiration for Temptation in Breughel’s eponymous painting. Flaubert’s interpretation of that painting is profoundly insightful. As Anthony sits assiduously reading the Bible in his desert cave, he is surrounded by elegant ladies and grotesque demons. These are obviously hallucinatory embodiments of his temptations and he is apparently warding them off through his bible-study. What is not immediately obvious is that these beings have emerged from his reading, from the Bible itself. Or, perhaps more accurately, these strange creatures erupt from the written word of the holiest of books through Anthony’s imagination. Advancing through his creativity from the Bible, the temptations then fill his world with alluring delights and horrid spectres. Paradoxically, therefore, the comfort Anthony seeks is the precisely the source of his need for comfort.
  
  This interpretation might seem unwarranted at first. The Bible creating distractions from contemplation of the Word of God appears as a contradiction. And it is just that, a contradiction embedded in the Christian doctrine with which Flaubert was very familiar. It is a contradiction articulated explicitly by the chief architect of the Christian religion, St. Paul. Among the many contradictions taught by Paul, that of the inherent danger of Scripture is most disconcerting for the believer. Flaubert clearly took Paul seriously.
  
  In the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul says clearly, “If there were no law, sin would not have power.” The law he is referring to of course is that of the Torah, the first five books of the Judaic and Christian Bible in which not only the Ten Commandments but also the other 411 divine ordinances are contained. In Paul’s mind, the Torah didn’t just define evil, it promoted it, in a sense, by publicising it. Flaubert transforms this still-controversial Pauline insight into an equally radical thesis about his own life.
  
  Both St. Paul and Flaubert undermine a common presumption, namely that we as users of words, books, and language in general, have control over words, books and language. Of course, we do not. These things, we like to think, simply inform, inspire, or develop our unique intellects. But their principal function is in fact to shape us, to ensure that we conform to conventional norms, not just of vocabulary and grammar and appropriate usage, but also of the categories and processes by which we think. Our conceits about words, books and language ‘representing’ reality and stating ‘truth,’ about either the world or ourselves, are unfounded. We are created utterly by what we read and hear. We do not choose what we read and hear; it chooses us; and creates the illusion that what we next randomly hear and read is somehow a matter of choice.
  
  So Flaubert’s Temptation is a unique biography, not of Anthony who is but one of the people, places and things Flaubert has read and heard about. It is a biography composed of books, allusions to which permeate his entire text. These are the books which have influenced him and established his unique personality. They are he. Or rather he is they. Certainly it is his native gifts which have processed these books, and which perhaps promoted his receptivity to them. But it is the books themselves which have filled the space afforded by those gifts.
  
  For the rest of us, as Foucault says, Flaubert showed us what this new literary space is. The Temptation is a sort of statement of discovery of that space, as significant a discovery as made by any explorer. And we all can participate in it. The Bible never mentions the creation of space by God. Undoubtedly the ancient writers considered it as ‘no-thing.’ Perhaps, on the other hand, this is because this grand creative function was reserved by God for human beings, particularly human beings like Mahler, Velasquez, and Flaubert.
• 
  Manny

  
  
  At age 24, Flaubert saw Bruegel's painting, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and decided he would turn it into a play. Like all his literary projects, he took it very seriously. He wanted to describe a third century hermit sitting on a mountain top in the Egyptian desert and being tempted by the Devil, and he spent most of the rest of his life writing and rewriting it; the final version came out nearly thirty years later, only a few years before his death.
  
  It's a poetic dream, and it's one of the weirdest things I've ever read. It took me a while to get into it. At first, I think I was expecting it to make sense in an obvious way, which it doesn't. About halfway through, I found that just reading it, appreciating the sound and the images, was enjoyable. Flaubert succeeds in capturing the logic of a dream, and I also started believing in his picture of Anthony's mind. When you're a saint, you spend most of your time thinking about God and trying to get closer to Him. But you also think about many other things, and often you aren't sure what brings you closer to God, and what is just pride and lust in disguise.
  
  It's natural to compare with T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, which could have been partially inspired by Flaubert's book. In Eliot's version, it's usually pretty clear when Thomas is being tempted. In Flaubert, it often isn't clear at all. Several times, he believed, and I believed too, that Jesus was speaking to him, and then it turned out to be the Devil in one of his many subtle forms. And these were really good temptations. Sex keeps coming up, and the sexy bits are very sexy. When the Devil starts pointing out all the mistakes and inconsistencies in Holy Writ, he doesn't pull his punches. You can feel Anthony's pain as he wonders how to reconcile this with his faith that the Bible is God's word. The Devil explains a host of enticing heresies, and they are so enticing that even commentators who have spent years thinking about this book aren't sure. There's a passage which explains the mystical nature of the Word, and one commentator calls it "deep poetic truth"; another says it's clever but not serious. I think that's absolutely right. Anthony is meant to be confused, and we're meant to be confused with him.
  
  I do not myself believe in God, but I was moved by this portrayal of the religious world-view from the inside. Right now, religion is being cheapened by people who cynically use it to achieve their worldly ends. Gustave Flaubert, thank you for reminding me that there's more to it than the Christian Right, and for trying to show us the beauty and terror of God's true form. It's an impossible task, but I think you got as close as any mortal is likely to come.
• 
  Adam Dalva

  Brilliant and maddening...maddening and brilliant. I have not and will never read anything quite like it - a work of pure literary imagination, in the shape of a play, as St. Anthony suffers innumerable temptations that swirl across the text like visions from a nightmare. Flaubert worked on this for thirty years, but it has the immediacy of stream-of-consciousness, with certain sequences (a long death of the Roman Gods; a tour of distorted humans) especially standing out. The central force of the book is undeniable, but it is, as you might have guessed, something of a slog at points, as I felt that the text was engulfing me, and that I was sinking other. More brilliant than good, but perhaps more than a curiosity.
• 
  Leonard Gaya

  Ce livre aurait bien pu finir dans les flammes, si Flaubert avait suivi l’avis de ses amis après la lecture qu’il leur fit de son manuscrit. Fort heureusement pour nous, l’auteur n'en fit rien et, bien au contraire, retravailla son œuvre continument, si bien qu'elle devint, selon ses propres termes, l’œuvre de toute sa vie (il en existe d'ailleurs plusieurs versions).
  
  Le Saint Antoine de Flaubert tirerait ses influences littéraires aussi bien du
  Cain a Mystery de Byron, du
  Faust de Goethe, que du
  Ahasuerus d’Edgar Quinet (on peut sans aucun doute ajouter
  La Divine Comédie de Dante). Une deuxième source d’inspiration serait le théâtre de rue, dans la tradition des mystères médiévaux. Enfin (et peut-être surtout), il s'agit d’un livre inspiré par la peinture : une Tentation de Breughel contemplée par Flaubert lors d’un voyage en Italie (ci-dessous), mais sans doute aussi l’immense corpus de la peinture du Nord qu’a inspiré la légende du saint anachorète (Bosch, Grünewald, Huys, Hals, Craesbeeck, parmi bien d'autres ; plus près de nous, Ernst, Dali...) :
  
  
  
  Et curieusement, le Saint Antoine de Flaubert se présente d’abord comme une pièce de théâtre ou comme un livret d’opéra : répliques de chaque personnage, longues didascalies descriptives, entrées et sorties de divers acteurs. Pourtant, il devient très vite évident que si cette œuvre est une pièce, elle est pratiquement inmontable, au vu de la diversité des situations fantastiques qui y sont décrites (le cinéma ou le jeu vidéo pourrait toutefois être envisagé aujourd’hui).
  
  Tour à tour apparaissent devant la cabane du saint : la reine de Saba, Hilarion le guide et tentateur, différents hérésiarques de l'histoire de l’Église chrétienne, des vieillards, des jeunes, Damis et Apollonius de Tyane, le Bouddha, la Grande Diane d’Éphèse, la déesse Isis, tout le panthéon romain, le Diable de la science, la Mort décharnée, la Luxure appétissante, un bestiaire, une tératologie, bref tout un pandémonium pétri d’érudition...
  
  Malgré tout, tout ceci reste statique : ce sont des hallucinations successives qui passent devant Antoine, mais ne suscitent guère de récit ou de changement. Ce qui semble avoir été la principale préoccupation de Flaubert, ce sont les descriptions baroques, lyriques, fiévreuses, délirantes, parfois sublimes qui composent son livre, véritablement comme s’il s’agissait de la description poétique d’une vaste fresque imaginaire. En somme, un formidable exercice de style.
• 
  Czarny Pies

  The Temptation of Saint Anthony is a work of stunning literary as opposed to theological erudition. Flaubert carefully reviews the pagan religious systems of Greece, Rome and Egypt and touches on seemingly every significant Christian heresy active during the life time of Saint Anthony. Among the ones that I could recognize were Apollinarism, Montanism, Gnosticism, Docetism, Melchisedechism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism and Donatism. He may well discuss many more that I cannot recognize. Finally, Flaubert examines other Eastern religions such as Mithraism, Zoroastrism, and Mazdism that arrived in Rome roughly at the same time as Christianity.
  
  When Flaubert confronted Saint Anthony with Buddha I assumed he had committed an anachronism. However, when I checked on the Web, I learned that Buddhism had in fact been written about in various Gnostic texts. In other words, I am snookered. However faulty Flaubert' s erudition may be it is clearly vastly superior to mine.
  
  At the time Flaubert was writing none of his sources would have been translated from the original latin. Flaubert was obviously very proficient in this language. He does not at any point however strike the reader as being a trained theologian.
  
  This book is extremely difficult. One needs a very strong background in the religious life of Roman Egypt in the the 3rd Century AD to make sense of what Flaubert is trying to say. Everyone can understand that Saint Anthony endured great physical deprivations. In Flaubert's view, St. Anthony suffered most of all from guilt for having considered many of the heretical doctrines that were rampant in his era.
• 
  Yann

  
  
  Antoine est un anachorète égyptien des débuts du christianisme, dont la vie nous a été relaté par Anathase (
  Vie de saint Antoine). D'après cet auteur, il aurait été embêté par des démons venus pour le tenter d'abandonner sa rude et difficile retraite, en lui faisant miroiter tous les plaisirs qu'il abandonnait par sa décision. Il s'agissait de glorifier la résolution d'Antoine qui, loin d'accorder la moindre chance à ces fantômes, les chassait avec vigueur, raffermi par sa foi inébranlable.
  
  Le sujet a inspiré de nombreux tableaux, dont un qui marqua particulièrement Flaubert lors d'un voyage en Italie. Il en forma le projet d'en faire une pièce de théâtre, mais il mit des années et des années avant de lui donner forme. C'est que pour parvenir au bout de son dessein, il lui fallait s'imprégner de son sujet d'une manière tout à fait admirable, en étudiant à fond les religions de l'antiquité orientale: toute la pièce repose en effet sur le fait que dans cet ouvrage, les démons ne sont autre que la myriade de sectes qui pullulait dans les temps anciens, et qui exposent leurs doctrines un par un.
  
  L'effet est saisissant, surtout si on a soi-même commencé à creuser ce vaste sujet. Flaubert prend un malin plaisir à faire tourner en bourrique ce malheureux Antoine en le mettant aux prises avec la diversité presque infinie des croyances anciennes, et dont le synoptique qu'il offre est remarquable. L'ouvrage contient la liste impressionnante des livres que l'auteur a compulsé pour être à même de rendre une œuvre qui se tienne. Moi qui n'avait jamais été impressionné par Flaubert, cet ouvrage est une révélation qui le remonte très nettement dans mon estime.
• 
  Gabrielle Dubois

  The temptation of Saint Anthony is Flaubert's entire life’s work. He had had the first idea of it in 1845, in Genoa, Italy, by watching a painting by Breughel, The Temptations of Saint Anthony. Besides, in the descriptions of the book, we find many of Breughel's paintings.
  Since that time, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it.
  In 1846, Flaubert launched into immense readings, without any apparent goal, but all of which gravitated more or less around the Greco-Latin antiquity and led by infinite detours on this terrible subject: Saint Anthony.
  Flaubert works on his Saint-Antoine, episodically, all his life long. He wants to "get into the skin of Saint Anthony ... This is also a book that mustn’t fail to write. I know what's missing now, but it takes time, time ... "
  In 1869, Flaubert starts again working on his Saint Anthony. He devours ecclesiastical memoirs, and the Fathers of the Church. He wants to find a logical link between the various hallucinations of the Saint. This extravagant environment pleases him.
  But happen the death of his friend Louis Bouilhet and the Franco-German war of 1870. Flaubert is morally depressed. He can no more read and write.
  Then he gets used to "what is the natural state of man, that is to say, to misfortune" and he works once more in his Saint Anthony.
  In April 1872, Flaubert's mother died. Saint Antoine bothers its author like life itself. "I'd need enthusiasm to finish it," he writes.
  In June, The Temptation of Saint Anthony is finally ended.
  "... I'm done with this work that has been my job for twenty-five years!"
  Flaubert’s work is slated by criticism in the press.
  Personally, it was not easy for me to read The Temptation of Saint Anthony. To truly appreciate it, one must probably be as erudite as Flaubert in matters of religion, religions, history of Greco-Roman antiquity ... and I am not.
  But what does it matter if, just like this poor Saint Anthony, sometimes I lost myself in this fantastic tohubohu of ideas and images. For Flaubert made me suffer like the holy man; I made his dreams, I suffered his nightmares, I lived his hallucinations.
  
  But I also met the temptress Queen of Sheba:
  « I am not a woman: I am a world! My cloak has only to fall in order that thou mayest discover a succession of mysteries. »
  She offers Saint Anthony all she has (and the list is long! 😊).
  « Do you want the shield of Dgian-ben-Dgian, who built the pyramids? There it is! Upon one side are represented all the wars that have taken place since the invention of weapons; and upon the other, all the wars that will take place until the end of the world. »
  The whole world in a woman, all the wars of the world on a shield ...
  … Aren’t these sentences simple, perfect, a jewel of thought ?
  
  But the holy man is strong :
  Hilarion says to him : « All the Capital Sins came hither. But their wretched snares can avail nothing against such a Saint as you. » And he adds :
  "Hypocrite! burying thyself in solitude only in order the more fully to abandon thyself to the indulgence of thy envious desires! What if thou dost deprive thyself of meats, of wine, of warmth, of bath, of slaves, or honours?—dost thou not permit thy imagination to offer thee banquets, perfumes, women, and the applause of multitudes? Thy chastity is but a more subtle form of corruption, and thy contempt of this world is but the impotence of thy hatred against it! Either this it is that makes such as thyself so lugubrious, or else 'tis doubt. The possession of truth giveth joy. Was Jesus sad? Did he not travel in the company of friends, repose beneath the shade of olive trees, enter the house of the publican, drink many cups of wine, pardon the sinning woman, and assuage all sorrows? Thou!—thou hast no pity save for thine own misery! It is like a remorse that gnaws thee, a savage madness that impels thee to repel the caress of a dog or to frown upon the smile of a child."
  I quite agree with Hilarion…
  
  There are so many interesting thoughts, like this one :
  "Is not the word of God confirmed for us by miracles? Nevertheless the magicians of Pharaoh performed miracles; other imposters can perform them; one may be thereby deceived. What then is a miracle? An event which seems to us outside of nature. But do we indeed know all of Nature's powers; and because a common occurrence causes us no astonishment, does it therefore follow that we understand it. »
  
  Or this one :
  Tertullien thinks that "Jesus’ face was wild and repulsive; forasmuch as he had burthened himself with all the crimes, all the woes, all the deformities of mankind."
  But Saint Anthony replies : "Oh! no, no! I imagine, on the contrary, that his entire person must have been glorious with a beauty greater than the beauty of man!"
  And you ? what do you think ?
  
  Finally :
  "... What is the purpose of all this? Antoine asks.
  "There is no goal," the devil answers. "Things happen to you only through your mind. Like a concave mirror, it deforms objects, and you lack all means to verify their accuracy. You’ll never know the universe in its full extent; therefore, you cannot get an idea of its cause, have a fair notion of God, or even say that the universe is infinite. The form is perhaps an error of your senses, the substance an imagination of your thought. Unless, the world being a perpetual flow of things, the appearance, on the contrary, is all that is most true; the illusion, the only reality! "
• 
  Brodolomi

  Bodler je „Iskušenje Svetog Antonija” nazvao ulaskom u „tajnu odaju Floberovog uma”. Doduše, Bodler nije mogao da zna delo u celosti, već samo u vidu odlomaka objavljenih u časopisu, jer je Flober na „Iskušenju” radio 25 godina, te su mnogi, poput Bodlera, preminuli čekajući da esteta, poznat po tome što se noćima prevrtao po krevetu tragajući za „pravom” rečju, konačno objavi svoje zaveštanje. Čitava zavrzlama oko dvodecenijskog glačanja zvuči još zabavnija ako se zna da sve sačuvane verzije ukazuju da ne postoji u njima pravi razvoj ideja i da je konačna verzija po sadržaju vrlo slična onoj prvoj, a da je Flober manično dve i po decenije „samo” rešavao pitanje formi – Flober moj omiljeni manijak.
  
  Forma je totalna – objedinjena je epika, lirika i drama u jednom – zaplet je fantastičan, okvir je načelno pozajmljen iz hrišćanskog „bestselera” žitija Sv. Antonija, a teme su filozofske i teološke date kroz Antonijevo haluciniranje u pustinji. Delo ne pripada realističkoj struji i načelno nije sličan romanima „Gospođa Bovari” ili „Sentimentalno vaspitanje”, već se nadovezuje na tradiciju „a la Faust”, s time da je ovde romantizam već u svojim dubokim agonijama perverznosti, i to ne samo spolja po tome što je lirizam u njemu lapidarno parnasovski, niti samo po tome što je ovde imagunarijum, sa svom tom egzotikom, mirisima, draguljima, himerama, sado-mazo nasiljem, jasna najava fin de siecle dekadencije, već i iznutra po toj Floberovoj ironiji, za koju uvek osećamo da ju je sa dozom ravnodušnog patosa usmerio prema samom sebi, što omogućava da njega i sve njegove glavne junake uvek doživim kao najmiliju braću i sestre.
  
  Načelno ovo je enciklopedijski roman, te pri njegovom čitanju pomaže neko osnovno znanje iz oblasti istorije ranog hrišćanstva, gnosticizma i kasnog antičkog sveta (Hvala knjigama Elen Pejgles), a opet, kao i sva druga istorijska fikcija, i „Iskušenje Sv. Antonija” još više komunuicira sa opsesivnim idejama iz vremena autorovog života; u ovom slučaju sa nizom romantičarskih ideja datih u paradoksima bez razrešenja. Ipak, ovo nije jedan od onih filozofskih romana gde imamo likove koji dijaloški „razmenjuju” svoje ideje, naprotiv, ovo je jedan histeričan vašar cike i buke, koji koliko god da je idejno bogat, on je još bogatiji u svojim grotesknim predstava. Tako se šetnjom po halucinogenom vašaru, između ostalih, mogu sresti: Simorg kako se gnezdi na glavi kraljice od Sabe, lavovi sa ljudskim licem, psoglavci, neimenovana bića koja su spreda lav a pozadi mrav, goli adamovci, mesalinci što se valjaju po podu i viču da je rad greh, Gimnozofisti na lomači, seksanje po grobovima, uštrojavanje kurčeva, samoubistvo boginje Dijane skokom u sopstvenu vaginu, troglavi bog u čašici lotosa koji je izniklo iz pupka usnulog boga, kurve Boginje Ištar, depresivni Buda, vožnja na đavolovim rogovima uz vođenu turu po svemiru uz Spinozine ideje i svašta nešto što se krilo u „tajnoj odaji Floberovog uma”.
• 
  Aravindakshan Narasimhan

  I read Flaubert took 30 years to finish this. It shows. He has gone as far as to mention the dasavathar of vishnu, duality, detailing the image of lord padmanaba (a form of vishnu), ganesha, karthikeya (muruga) and lord buddha. For a westerner of that time, these would have been obscure cults from the world of men who were naked and bathed in the ashes of cow dung.
  
  Interestingly, even for the people at the time of flaubert, the gods and cults of greco Roman empires; Egyptian deserts; the religions which were at conflict with early christianity; philosophies within christianity which were at odds at each other; numerous cults and religions of east; mythical animals and flora,and numerous others that I lost count of, would have been foreign --- unless the person had been informed or had studied the history of religion - right from Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt and till india.
  
  I think flaubert couldn't lay his hands on Chinese gods and cults.
  Also I am just wondering about the anthropological developments of his time, which would have deeply enriched in adding volumes to his work if he had read them too.
  
  
  For a reader who isn't interested in these obscure gods and cults, and philosophies,he or she can enjoy the sheer beauty of imagery - amply provided by the cults themselves - and the surrealist bent of things that flicks past st.anthony eyes.
  
  Oh! And flaubert has flouted the usual norms of finishing the book with an extended period of grace!
  
  Though he did finish --- as we all would expect --- with the image of christ, but it is a just a sentence or two, like a muttering, for a book that goes in pain in mentioning and describing all imaginable cults of st.antony's time.
  
  What I mean is, for a long period of torment st.antony is subjected, one would expect the book would end with a grace of truth (of one true god,the jesus) falling on him, stressed strongly, by the help of dramaturgy.
  
  That would have been the convention. But that wasn't the case.
  
  This is my first Flaubert and I know this may not be the ideal choice. But never the less I did enjoy!
• 
  Paul

  I shamefacedly admit that I don't read a lot of work that wasn't originally written in English. The reason being that I almost always feel like something is lost in translation and that bugs the shit out of me. For some authors, though, one has to make an exception.
  
  As far as I can tell, from my admittedly embarrassing monolingual viewpoint, this is a good translation. It reads fluidly and naturally and, from what I've read about Flaubert's writing style, seems to be true to the author's methodology.
  
  While this novel doesn't really have what modern readers would consider to be a conventional narrative; the titular protagonist is essentially a passive observer throughout and his only real action is to actively choose not to act; one can't help but be swept up in the wonderful kalaedoscope of supernatural imagery Flaubert conjures up. The descriptions are concise yet stylistically perfect. You can visualise all the otherworldly goings on extremely vividly and there can be no doubt Flaubert is a masterful craftsman.
  
  Why only three stars then?
  
  Well, not to use the old 'it's not you, it's me' excuse but Antony's plight just failed to connect with me on an emotional or intellectual level. It's probably because the conflict in this book is a crisis of religious faith and that is not something I've ever experienced. I wasn't raised to be religious in any way and my interest in religion is therefore an entirely anthropological one. One's religious faith can't be tested if you've never had any in the first place, which leaves me entirely unable to empathise with Antony.
  
  Flaubert also lost points with me for asserting that science is the work of the devil. That's just a step too far in the direction of wilful ignorance for me to swallow with a smile.
  
  Still, all this aside, this is still well worth a read for Flaubert's writing chops alone.
• 
  Fionnuala

  
  Le monde est l'oeuvre d'un Dieu en délire.
  
  Oh! heureux temps de Saint-Antoine, où êtes-vous? J'écrivais là avec mon moi tout entier!
  From a letter dated January 1853
• 
  Katelis Viglas

  If one tries to read this novel when he is young, probably he will fail to see its significance. It is an excelent representation and dramatization of Saint Antoine's life. It is certain that Saint Athanasius, the first biographer of the famous Saint, wasn't so much informed and erudite as regards matters of heresis. Of cours it is about fantasy and fiction, but it is exactly beacause of writer's poetic licence and deep erudition that the person of Saint Antoine is enlightened; we can see it behind his temptations, which are not only those of the flesh. They are religious temptations mostly, and temptations of knowledge and faith. In his abysse of mind and soul the saint is purified by the divine grace.
  The dark night of Saint Antoine, the night of his soul, is full of flashes of lighting. The history of the church, the ancient history and religion, ancient terrors from depths of East, are there, present for a little time to torture his mind.
  The strange and the bizzare intend not only to please the reader, but also to remind the difficult course of the Western civilization in order to make humans not only more humans but also divine. The struggle of historical battles is transferred inside to the heart of man.
• 
  Justin Evans

  This is a pretty damn weird book, in the best possible way. You always hear about Flaubert as a realist, Flaubert as wanting to write a novel about nothing, Flaubert as being obsessed with form and so on. Well, this was published 17 years after Madame Bovary, and is... not exactly a realist novel. It's more like a medieval passion play with historical people rather than personifications. First Antony is tempted by biblical characters (the Queen of Sheba, Nebuchadnezzar), then he confronted by heretics and theologians (Marcion, various Gnostics, Origen and pretty much everyone else), and finally he's given a vision of most of the gods anyone could be acquainted with by the 19th century.
  
  I don't really know who to recommend this to, except a friend of mine who is writing a dissertation on someone who was obsessed with gnosticism, and another who's a junkie for church history. On the other hand, it's fascinating and moving. And everyone should read it, especially if you're into books which really don't have many precedents (Faust aside.)
• 
  amapola

  Mille tentazioni non fanno un'obiezione.
• 
  Mala

  3.5 stars.
  My head is still hurting! It's said that Flaubert had read nearly 1500 books for Bouvard and Pécuchet, I wouldn't be surprised if he read just as many for this one!
• 
  Lucas Sierra

  Ser devorado por los mitos (Reseña, 2020)
  
  El sábado teníamos una conversación. Nos preguntamos en qué momento las historias de una religión pasan a ser consideradas socialmente literatura. Hay mucho de torpe en la formulación, lo sé, hay mucho de amañado en preguntárselo. El caso puntual se refería a la tradición griega dentro del imperio católico de occidente. Cómo ocurre ese cambio, cómo dejan de ser perseguidos los adoradores de Apolo para considerar al flechador un detalle curioso de una mitología, un personaje dentro de una ficción. Claro, hablamos de Nicea, y de los procesos de simbiosis en los cultos, y del aprendizaje del griego y el latín dentro de la pedagogía, y de lo inofensivo que era utilizar las historias de Zeus para practicar gramática. Pero en todas esas respuestas siempre la duda: cuándo una verdad revelada deviene mito, que debe ocurrir no sólo con la sociedad sino con el lector. Porque en el fondo es un cambio de lectura, eso está más o menos claro. En el fondo los ojos que leen son los que darán o no testimonio de la verdad de la ficción.
  
  En ese aspecto bien nos habría servido leer juntes esta novela de Flaubert. Las tentaciones de San Antonio es un ejercicio de inventario donde las tradiciones paganas aparecen como posibilidades de fe ante el ermitaño que se resiste a ellas, demostrando su falsedad, su cualidad de historias ficticias, ante la realidad, ante la verdad del evangelio. Una historia llega para declararse verdadera y entonces todas las otras deben ser, por tanto, falsas. Ese es el principio de la fe, al menos de la fe del eremita, del que se sumerge en el desierto para colisionar la certeza de su espejismo contra los espejismos soñados por otras mentes. Ante el santo desfilan herejías recientes, largos cultos olvidados, criaturas que la tradición de los cuentos ha sembrado por el mundo, misterios que la fe en la ciencia postula y revuelve. Ante el santo aparecen todas esas historias como prólogo a la duda, a la pregunta inevitable de si acaso su certeza, su verdad, no es una más entre una larga lista, una larga cadena que luego, también será negada por la más reciente, la más verdadera, la más actual forma de entender el misterio del corazón humano.
  
  Ah, qué delicia es leer a este San Antonio confuso, delirante, arrebatado por las visiones y la necesidad de negarlas pero tentado, sí, llamado a oírlas, a relatarlas, a hacerlas parte de sí. Porque la gran tentación es reconocer lo absoluto en cada une de nosotres, rendirnos ante el delirio de sabernos múltiples, henchido el pecho de paradojas, de contradicciones. Y dejar vagar la mirada en nubes pobladas de ángeles y de dragones, saludar en casa a los diablos del polvo y a los espíritus de los antepasados, sostener conversaciones con las ánimas del purgatorio mientras suena la música de un venado con cabeza de toro a quien el viento encara desde el norte. Ah, qué delicia entregarse a esa existencia múltiple de la fe en la ficción, de la certeza construida en las historias, de la abdicación de una defensa de cualquier verdad absoluta ante el abrazo de la multiplicidad de las formas del misterio que en la palabra toma forma, se hace cuerpo (verbo, adjetivo, sustantivo) y llena nuestras vidas con su presencia.
  
  Porque lo que San Antonio defiende, su sufrimiento, tiene que ver con el libro único en su choza de paja y barro, con que sólo a ese libro le da la categoría de sagrado. Y nosotres, desde la distancia, ejerciendo una de las herejías que por el otro libro desfilan, no podemos sino sentir ternura hacia sus dudas, hacia su dolor, y acariciarle la cabeza diciéndole que todo estará bien, que no es sino el personaje de un libro, de otro libro, y que por eso es sagrado. Porque todo libro lo es. Porque toda historia lo es. Porque nos leemos en los rostros múltiples que el verbo leer nos ha concedido. Que el verbo crear nos ha permitido imaginar. Desde los siglos de los siglos, para los siglos de los siglos. Flaubert.
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  miledi

  Quando si dice il pregiudizio...
  
  Madame Bovary non mi è piaciuto per niente. Così per molto tempo mi sono tenuta alla larga da Flaubert. Poi negli ultimi due mesi mi è capitato di leggere prima Salambò e adesso (ultima lettura del 2018) questo sant'Antonio, e Flaubert con questi due romanzi è riuscito finalmente a conquistarmi.
  
  Breve e intenso; visionario come il Trittico delle Tentazioni di Sant'Antonio di Hieronymus Bosch
  
  
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  Michael Perkins

  This is a very strange book. I read the Penguin edition, which has a +50 page introduction. I learned that Flaubert worked on this book, on and off, for 25 years and wrote several different versions before arriving at this one.
  
  The intro explained that the Antony in this book is the polar opposite to the one portrayed by the Church Fathers. The former is portrayed as a genuine saint, the latter as a perpetrator of The Seven Deadly Sins.
  
  Flaubert considered this his best book, even more than Madame Bovary or Sentimental Education. This reminded me how Mark Twain considered his very odd book, Joan of Arc, his best book.
  
  These authors seemed to have had a loose connection, vaguely spiritual, to the books that were so special to them.
  
  This book had a profound influence on Cormac McCarthy, especially on Suttree and Blood Meridian. (The latter is one of my favorite novels)
  
  I learned this from the following book about McCarthy's work.
  
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
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  Navid Taghavi

  هیلاریون : مزور است آن که خلوت اختیار می کند تا بهتر خود را در اختیار غیلان امیالش قرار دهد! تو خود را از گوشت و شراب و حمام و غلام و نام محروم می کنی؛ اما به تخلیت فرجه می دهی تا برایت بزم و عطر و زنان برهنه و جماعتی را تجسم کند که کف می زنند و تمجیدت می کنند! عصمت تو چیزی نیست مگر شکل ظریف تری از فساد، و این که دنیا را حقیر می شماری نشانگر این است که نفرتت از آن چندان توانمند نیست! این همان مطلبی است که همسانانت را چنین حزین کرده است، یا شاید هم حزنشان بدین سبب است که گرفتار شک اند. اشراف به حق شعف به همراه دارد
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  Laura

  Title: The Temptation of St. Anthony
  
  Author: Gustave Flaubert
  
  Release Date: June 4, 2016 [eBook #52225]
  
  Language: English
  
  E-text prepared by Laura N.R. and Marc D'Hooghe (
  http://www.freeliterature.org) from page images generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (
  http://books.google.com)
  and illustrations generously made available by Bibliothèque nationale de France (
  http://gallica.bnf.fr)
  
  Free download available at
  Project Gutenberg.
  
  Gustave Flaubert, best known for his masterpiece Madame Bovary, spent nearly thirty years working on a surreal and largely ‘unreadable’ retelling of the temptation of Saint Anthony. Colin Dickey explores how it was only in the dark and compelling illustrations of Odilon Redon, made years later, that Flaubert’s strangest work finally came to life.
  
  Read online at
  The Public Domain Review.
  
  
  “Anthony: What Is the Point of All This? The Devil: There Is No Point!”, by Odilon Redon from his “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” series
  
  I am proofreading this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.
  
  The original files are provided by
  Internet Archive.
  
  And they are also available at
  HathiTrust.
  
  Page 18:
  It was in 1845 that an old picture by Breughel, seen at Genoa, first inspired Flaubert to attempt the story of St. Anthony. He sought out an engraving of this conception of Peter the Younger (surnamed "Hell-Breughel" for his fondness for such subjects), hung it on his walls at Croisset, and after three years of brooding upon it began, May 24, 1848, La Tentation de St. Antoine.
  
  Page 19:
  "In its primitive and legendary state the temptation of St. Anthony was nothing more than the story of a recluse tempted by the Devil through the flesh, by all the artifices at the Devil's disposal. In the,
  definite thought of Flaubert the temptation of St. Anthony has become man's soul tempted by all the illusions of human thought and imagination. St. Anthony to the eyes of the first naive hagiologists is a second Adam, seduced by woman, who was inspired by Satan. St. Anthony conceived by Flaubert is
  a more thoughtful Faust; a Faust incapable of irony, not a Faust who could play with illusions and with himself--secretly persuaded that he could withdraw when he chose to give himself the trouble to do so--rather a Faust who approached, accosted, caressed all possible forms of universal illusions."
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  Erik Graff

  Having read about the excesses of the desert fathers and being long interested in literary representations of religious figures and the religious/mystical consciousness, I picked up my grandmother's old copy of Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony during a break from college and read it with some enjoyment. For his time, Flaubert was scandalous.
  
  Some familiarity with early Church history allows for a greater appreciation of this text.
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  mohamad jelvani

  ادبیات زهد و عزلت در فرهنگ و ادبیات کلاسیک مسیحی جایگاه ویژه ای دارد. خوانش مدرن آن هم برای افراد درون گرا می تواند جالب باشد.هنوز نفهمیده ام درون گرا هستم یا برون گرا اما در مجموع این نمایشنامه به دلم نشست هر چند کاملاً مجذوبم نکرد. به نظرم فضای آن شبیه فضای داستان پدر سرگیوس تولستوی است اما تا حدودی یکنواخت تر.
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  Catherine Vamianaki

  Κάποτε ο Φλωμπερ ειδε ενα πίνακα σε ενα παλάτι στην Γένοβα. Ηταν η πηγή έμπνευσης για το έργο αυτο. Πέρασαν 25 χρόνια μέχρι να το ολοκληρώσει διοτι εκανε συνεχως διοθωσεις. Ο ίδιος θεωρούσε ως το καλύτερο του Εργο. Δεν είναι εύκολο βιβλίο. Όμως αξίζει να διαβαστεί.
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  Laginestra

  Una scrittura allucinata per un tesoro nascosto tra le opere flaubertiane. Molto amato.
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  Catachresis

  Fabulous prose, pure lexical honey studded with diamonds.
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  Islam Beiet

  إن جميع التصورات الصادرة من الخيال المحموم للقديس أنطونيوس من الثمار الأصيلة لقراءات فلوبير الواسعة النطاق في المصادر( الغربية بصفة خاصة ) عما في الشرق من أديان وفنون حربية وطقوس ومجتمعات.
  إدوارد سعيد
  الاستشراق
  والحق أن القديس أنطونيوس ليس سوى رجل لا يزيد الواقع في نظره عن سلسلة من الكتب، والمشاهد، والمناظر الخلابة، التي تتكشف في غواية أمام عينيه وعلى مبعدة منه. والنطاق الهائل للعمل الذي اكتسبه فلوبير مبني في صورة تشبه - بتعبير ميشيل فوكوه البالغ الدلالة- مكتبة مسرحية خيالية تستعرضها عين الناسك الشاخصة وهو يصاب بالهذيان حتى يتمكن من رؤية الحياة وهي تولد أمامه ، وهو المشهد الذي كان فلوبير نفسه يشعر بالعجز إزاءه أثناء إقامته في الشرق. لكنه ما دام أنطونيوس يهذي، فالكاتب يقصد أن يقيم الموقف على مفارقة ساخرة، إذ يقتصر ما يناله في النهاية على الرغبة في أن يصبح مادة، أن يصبح حياة، لكنها لا تتعدى في أفضل حالاتها كونها رغبة. ونحن لا نستطيع أن نعرف إن كانت في حقيقتها قابلة للإشباع أم لا.
  وفي مصاحبة أنطونيوس لهيلاريون لاحت أمامي ذكرى "الكوميديا الإلهية" لدانتي وثنائية أليجيري وفيرجيل في الجحيم والمطهر. ولا أدري إن كان التشابه في الطريقة السردية واقع في طبيعة العملين- فقط فيما يخص الجزء المذكور -، أم أن الترجمات هي ما لاشت بين الحدود وماهت بين الملامح الخاصة بكل عمل.
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  Kim

  This book was interesting to me knowing that there really was a Saint Anthony who lived in the third century A.D. Anthony's parents were wealthy landowners and when they died all their wealth went to Anthony, and he was left with a sister to provide for. However, he decided to follow the words of Jesus, who had said: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me", Matt. 19:21. He then gave away all his property except what he and his sister needed to live on. Soon after that he gave away everything else, entrusted his sister to a convent, and went outside the village to live a life of praying, fasting, and laboring. Eventually he moved into the desert and attempting to live completely cut off from all civilization.
  
  Anthony is said to have faced a series of supernatural temptations during his pilgrimage to the desert. Flaubert was inspired by a painting, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, which he saw at the Balbi Palace in Genoa, and because of this painting he decided he would write a novel or perhaps a "play" would be a better word about the temptations St. Anthony went through. He spent 30 years writing and re-writing it before it was published.
  
  Now the dream begins, and there are all kinds of strange things or "temptations" in the dream. The Queen of Sheba, King Nebuchadnezzar, the devil, and any pagan or false god that I ever remember hearing about and alot that I never heard of make apperances. We have monsters and two ladies called "lust" and "death". Just about any strange thing you could think of. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had more knowledge of who or what all these monsters and gods are, but I've never studied them. Still an interesting book though.
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  Thomas

  A voluptuous meditation on the dark underside of asceticism by a master of literary realism. Apparently Flaubert worked on this off and on throughout his life after his friends initially told him he should throw it in the fire. I'm glad he didn't, though it's easy to see why they cautioned restraint in his future endeavors. James Joyce, no admirer of restraint, was so touched by it that he modeled the Circe episode of Ulysses on it.
  
  Lafcadio Hearn's translation is so lyrical that I was sure he was taking liberties, because Flaubert is not supposed to sound like this. But this is not typical Flaubert.
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  Courtney

  Trippy! Dizzying amounts of obscure references and Biblical names/stories/themes - Flaubert was a mad genius, and besides the nearly indescribable excellence of his writing, this work (play? novel?) is humbling in its encapsulation of one man's obsession with learning.
  
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  Nathan Rostron

  I have this awesome illustrated copy with naked ladies and stuff. I'm sure it was Flaubert's intention, the randy sot.