In his own words, the novel is "a kind of encyclopedia made into farce . . . A book in which I shall spit out my bile." At the center of this book are Bouvard and P cuchet, two retired clerks who set out in a search for truth and knowledge with persistent optimism in light of the fact that each new attempt at learning about the world ends in disaster. In the literary tradition of Rabelais, Cervantes, and Swift, this story is told in that blend of satire and sympathy that only genius can compound, and the reader becomes genuinely fond of these two Don Quixotes of Ideas. Apart from being a new translation, this edition includes Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas.
★★★作者：福楼拜（1821-1880），法国著名现实主义作家。作品有《包法利夫人》《情感教育》《三故事》《布瓦尔与佩库歇》等。被誉为“西方现代小说的奠基者”。
★★★译者：刘方，女，1932年生，曾是第一批解放西藏的女兵。5年后转业，先学习俄文，后进入南京大学外语系学习法语。毕业后，先在中央电视台工作，1979年转到外文局《中国文学》杂志社从事翻译工作。译有大量中外长中短篇小说，如巜穆斯林的葬礼》《少年天子》《老子》及福楼拜的《圣·安东尼的诱惑》雨果的《冰岛恶魔》、巴尔扎克的小说和杂文，加嫪的《鼠疫》以及凡尔纳的《格兰特船长的儿女》，《都德小说选》和蒙田、普鲁斯特、杜拉斯等人的作品。2013年，凭借译作《布罗岱克的报告》荣获鲁迅文学奖及傅雷出版翻译奖。
