Flaubert, Balzac and Champfleury, or The Illusion of Transparency

To what extent do modern writers portray reality without distorting it?

To ensure maximum neutrality, authors of this generation attempted absence, non-intervention and impersonalisation. It was as if the narrative structure, the characters as well as their destinies were ruled by an implacable, external logic, rather than the imaginative fantasy of their creators.

Les Essentiels