Follow the two copyists through the second half of their quest for universal understanding, deeper into error and closer to the inevitable conclusion. Read the complete second volume online for free.
The second volume of Bouvard and Pécuchet finds our heroes chastened but undeterred. Their agricultural experiments have failed. Their chemical investigations have nearly killed them. Their archaeological excavations have yielded only confusion. But the human mind, Flaubert suggests, is not deterred by evidence; it is energized by contradiction. Bouvard and Pécuchet press on.
They turn to history. They read Michelet, Thierry, Guizot. They attempt to reconstruct the past, to understand the causes of revolutions, to trace the progress of civilization. They discover that historians disagree. They discover that documents are unreliable. They discover that the past is not a stable object but a construction, dependent on the perspective of the historian. They are not consoled by this discovery; they are defeated.
They turn to spirituality. They read the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads. They attempt to construct a coherent theology, a system of beliefs that will satisfy both their reason and their longing for transcendence. They fail. The contradictions of religious doctrine are, if anything, more intractable than the contradictions of secular knowledge. They attempt to become Catholics. They attempt to become pagans. They attempt to become pantheists. They remain, obstinately, bewildered.
They turn to education. They adopt two orphans, Victor and Victorine, and attempt to shape their minds according to the best pedagogical principles. The children resist. They are dirty, disobedient, apparently incapable of learning. Bouvard and Pécuchet try Rousseau’s methods; the children run wild. They try Condillac’s methods; the children become automatons. They give up. The children remain what they were: unformed, uneducable, human.
And then, at the end of the volume, Bouvard and Pécuchet make their decision. They will return to their original occupation. They will build a double desk, purchase fresh paper, sharpen their pens. They will copy. This is not defeat; it is acceptance. They have failed to master knowledge, but they have not failed to serve it. The copyist is the guardian of the text, the preserver of the word. Bouvard and Pécuchet will spend their remaining years transcribing the very books that have defeated them. They will become, in Flaubert’s vision, the saints of stupidity, the martyrs of incomprehension.
On this page, you can experience the conclusion of Flaubert’s unfinished masterpiece. We offer the complete text of Volume 2 for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Bouvard and Pécuchet, Volume 2 |
| Author | Gustave Flaubert |
| Year of Publication | 1881 (posthumous) |
| Genre | Novel, Satire, Philosophical Fiction |
| Language | English Translation (Original: French) |
| Legal Status | Public Domain Worldwide |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read Bouvard and Pécuchet Volume 2 Online
Watch the historians contradict each other and the theologians cancel each other out. Begin the second half of this encyclopedic masterpiece by re-entering the Norman farmhouse interactively below.
This preview introduces the study of history and its discontents. However, the full, accumulating narrative of intellectual defeat—the spiritual experiments, the educational disasters, the final reckoning with the impossibility of knowledge, and the serene return to the copying desk—is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
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About the Novel Bouvard and Pécuchet
Because the two volumes constitute a single work, the analytical section is presented here as a unified essay covering the entire novel.
The Project
Bouvard and Pécuchet is structured as a sequence of intellectual adventures, each corresponding to a branch of human knowledge. Agriculture, chemistry, medicine, geology, archaeology, history, literature, aesthetics, politics, love, spirituality, education—the list is exhaustive and exhausting. Flaubert read more than fifteen hundred books to prepare his satire of book-learning. He did not merely parody his characters’ errors; he documented them, catalogued them, arranged them in escalating order of absurdity. The novel is a museum of human stupidity, and Flaubert is its curator.
The Protagonists
Bouvard and Pécuchet are not individuals; they are a composite. They share thoughts, finish each other’s sentences, proceed through identical cycles of enthusiasm and disillusionment. Flaubert rarely distinguishes between them. They are a two-headed organism, a single consciousness distributed across two bodies. This is not a flaw in characterization but a deliberate strategy. Bouvard and Pécuchet are not two men; they are humanity.
The Comedy of Error
The novel is very funny. Flaubert’s prose, so controlled, so precise, becomes an instrument of deadpan comedy. He reports the most absurd events—Bouvard attempting to resuscitate a dead fish, Pécuchet diagnosing himself with a disease he has just invented—with the same grave formality he might have used to describe Emma Bovary’s death. The disparity between tone and content is the source of the humor. Flaubert never winks. He never nudges. He simply records, and the absurdity accumulates.
The Tragedy of Effort
But the novel is also profoundly sad. Bouvard and Pécuchet are not fools; they are seekers. They genuinely want to understand the world, to find coherence in the chaos of phenomena, to live meaningful lives. Their failure is not a failure of effort; they work harder than anyone in literature. It is a failure of epistemology. The world does not yield to inquiry. Knowledge is not cumulative. The more they learn, the less they know. This is not their fault; it is the condition of being human.
Flaubert’s Identification
Flaubert identified deeply with his protagonists. He, too, had spent his life researching subjects he would never master, accumulating books he would never fully absorb, pursuing an ideal of knowledge that receded with every advance. “Bouvard and Pécuchet,” he wrote, “are myself.” The novel is not a satire of stupidity from a position of superior intelligence; it is a confession of shared inadequacy. Flaubert was as lost in the labyrinth as his copyists.
The Unfinished State
Flaubert died before completing the novel. He had finished the main narrative but not the appendix—the “Dictionary of Received Ideas” that Bouvard and Pécuchet were to compile in their final years. The published version includes Flaubert’s notes for this dictionary, a savage catalogue of bourgeois platitudes. It is, in some ways, the perfect conclusion: the copyists, having failed to produce original knowledge, turn to the reproduction of received opinion. They become, at the end, what they were at the beginning: copyists.
Why Read the Novel Bouvard and Pécuchet Today?
Because it is the most honest book ever written about the limits of human intelligence. We live in an age of information, of search engines and artificial intelligences, of knowledge instantly available and instantly forgotten. Bouvard and Pécuchet are our ancestors, drowning in data, starving for wisdom. Their failure is our condition. Their persistence is our hope.
FAQ
Is this novel difficult to read?
It is demanding. Flaubert assumes a certain level of cultural literacy; many of the jokes require familiarity with the intellectual debates of nineteenth-century France. But the basic structure—enthusiasm, experiment, failure, repeat—is accessible to any reader. When in doubt, simply enjoy the accumulating absurdity.
Why are there two volumes?
The division is editorial, not authorial. Flaubert conceived the novel as a single work. We present it in two volumes for reading convenience.
Do I need to read them in order?
Yes. The narrative is cumulative; the failures of Volume 1 inform the failures of Volume 2. Read Volume 1 first, or read the unified edition.
Is this Flaubert’s best novel?
That depends on your criteria. Madame Bovary is more perfect; Sentimental Education is more profound. But Bouvard and Pécuchet is more radical, more experimental, more personal. It is the novel Flaubert needed to write, the summation of his lifelong war against stupidity.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes, but slowly. This is not a novel to consume; it is a novel to digest. Read a chapter, put the phone down, reflect. The next disaster will wait.