Intro
Set around the 1848 Revolution in Paris, this novel is a lesson on what literature does with history. If any novel proves the Marxist theory that ideology distorts reality, this is it. Just think: the Communist Manifesto was written just before these events, but what does the hero do? Join the revolution? Join the counter-revolution? Or just chase after a married woman, get drunk, and sleep with a courtesan?
Take a wild guess.
Quote
"Oh, the upper classes!" sneered the Socialist. "To begin with there aren't any upper classes; only the heart ennobles. It isn't charity we want, you see, it's equality, and a just division of material goods."
What he asked for was that the worker should be able to become a capitalist, just as the private soldier could become a colonel.
Analysis
For Marxists, politics is the answer. For Flaubert, politics was as ineffective as art.
Here the Socialist (a form of pre-Communist, before the big political parties of the 20th century) is both reasonable and absurd. He reasonably wants justice, but he ridiculously thinks of it as a free promotion for everyone. Now, how exactly would that work?
Here is literature's revenge on politics: the novel is way much more flexible than the short speeches and pamphlets that politics uses to communicate.
Marxist critics try to have the best of both worlds. They work hard to maintain their political angle, but they also try to do that with the same subtlety as the literature they analyze. Maybe that's why Fredric James uses such long words?