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in today's discussion group prof. grobstein did something that from the perspective of a humanist is very, very odd: he compared scientist ernst mayr to novelist gustave flaubert, saying that they both describe. mayr describes the development of understandings about evolution and flaubert describes people, plants, building, clothes, everything imaginable in incredible detail.

is this just? it's a true claim, but let's look closer. flaubert lived in search of "le mot juste" or "the right word." he actually spent hours on single sentences to make sure all the words were right. "madame bovary" is a scathing and incredibly insightful critique on bourgeois culture in the country (this differs from the slightly richer haute bourgeoisie in paris though the bourgeois are somewhat richer than america's middle class) but what is less known is that it's also a philsophical meditation on ennui, longing and desire.

flaubert's long descriptions are intended to provide insight and they are particular to him, so i would consider them interpretations (which is, supposedly, more like dennett, though i think it flatters dennett too much to compare them...). he does not impose a moral narrative or telos on the story. a moral theme would be a telos because the story would progress until it would reach the theme, the correct state of the characters, but "madame bovary" ends in emma's suicide and charles' ruin, so flaubert's story, and part of its greatness, is that it is non-teleological.

at the same time, flaubert is not entirely unbiased, and was actually taken to court because his story showed sympathy for an adultress. (he got acquitted because he got his defense attorney, antoine-marie-jules senard, to lie about the book and use emotionally manipulative tacatics like, "i've been friends with his father for years, and achille flaubert is an upstanding doctor. nice little gustave used to play with his toys on my carpet and i can assure you he has always been a nice boy." that sort of thing.) so flaubert often shows his opinion of people's conduct through seemingly neutral description.

for example, he goes at great length to describe the water and crust around the eyes of emma's infant daughter, berthe, and then emma says, "she's so ugly" so clearly flaubert has built up sympathy for berthe which then makes emma look terrible. no character is exempt from blame -- every character is blamed for something, and he interprets their conduct to blame them. so flaubert's descriptions are not tedious, the beauty of them is that they do more than describe.