- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classic; Reprint edition (Sep 27 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0140443282
- ISBN-13: 978-0140443288
- Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 13.1 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 240 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #468,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
An epic story of lust, cruelty, and sensuality, this historical novel is set in Carthage in the days following the First Punic War with Rome.
About the Author
Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821. After illness interrupted a career in law, he retired to live with his widowed mother and devote himself to writing. He achieved limited success in his own lifetime, but his fame and reputation grew steadily after his death in 1880.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in Hamilcar's gardens. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in Hamilcar's gardens. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A blood bath with little feeling.,
By Neri "Neri" (Himeji, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Penguin Classics Salammbo (Paperback)
Death, mayhem, blood, torture, and no sympathetic characters; except, perhaps, the poor. The characters are petty, dishonest, conniving, and superstitious. The forward suggested that Flaubert had something that he needed to get out of his system, with this writing, in order to move on to better things; and I think that is true. But the book is probably more representative of the nature of most wars than say the Lord of the Rings, or such. No one is really fighting, here, for a value system or such and war is hell as Flaubert enthusiastically depicts; no glory here. Although Flaubert hoped for an historical fiction, the forward claims he falls far short of it and the book should be read as a simple fiction.Salammbo didnft draw me in until the last fourth, even then it wasnft moving, but that might have been Flaubertfs intention (or the translatorfs fault); the lack of pathos or sentimentality part. The first three fourths was a bit tedious or maybe my exposure to sci-fi in my teens made it all blaze; it reminded me of bad sci-fi. The love affair(s) were undeveloped and not believable. Some of the actions of these born killers is not credible either. So maybe the two finger thing was symbolic of civilization's subtle conforming of the masses, and the priests the driving force behind taming the barbarian in all of us as well as those outside. Being part of a civiization/society was seen as a privilage until Rousseau flip flopped the whole concept and made the barbarian the noble one. Okay priviliage is based on fear and oppresion justified by religious superstition. A lot of
4.0 out of 5 stars
A stirring mixture of war and myth,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Salammbo (Paperback)
Flaubert's _Salammbo_ is an often stirring mixture and intertwining of the history of the Punic Wars and of the myths held by the people of ancient Carthage. The novel begins and ends with a banquet held in the gardens of Hamilcar, the Carthaginian leader. The mercenaries are feasting in these gardens at the beginning and a wedding feast is being held at the end, with an important leader of the Barbarians as "the special guest of honor."The book describes in great, often gory detail the horrors and the carnage of war. The gods must be appeased if there is no food or if the soldiers are dying of thirst. These rituals include children being sacrificed with, perhaps, Hamilcar's son being one of the victims. Cannibilism is an alternative In the middle of all these goings on is Hamilcar's daughter, the lovely and exotically beautiful Salammbo. Her conniving to recapture the Zaimph from Matho, the Libyan leader of the Barbarians, includes some of the most erotic passage in 19th century literature. Her pet serpent figures very prominently in these scenes. A priest advises Salammbo that without reobtaining the Zaimph, an important holy relic in their possession, Carthage is doomed to defeat. Having previously read Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_ and _Sentimental Education_, I believed them to be totally different from _Salammbo_, the former two being romantic melodramas and the latter a historic war novel. This is incorrect. All three novels focus on a major female character, who for better or for worse, forms key relationships, romantic or otherwise, with the novels' lead male characters, and which ultimately determine the shape and the final outcome of each of these books. "All is fair in love and war" may be a cliche, but in _Salammbo_ it becomes the ultimate truth.
4.0 out of 5 stars
for guys,
By A Customer
This review is from: Penguin Classics Salammbo (Paperback)
a book for guys who likes books -- a contradiction? perhaps, but it's all here: gratuitous violence and sex. forget hollywood, forget your video games, forget gansta rap, forget cutting edge alternative this and that, it's all here (flaubert's salammbo). truly, i kid not.
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