Gustave Flaubert, Jerry Seinfeld, and the death of Michael Jackson

'What I should like to write' [Flaubert explained in 1852] 'is a book about nothing, a book dependent upon nothing external, which would be held together by the strength of its style...a book which would have almost no subject...style in itself being an absolute manner of seeing all things.'

in The Culture of Interpretation - Christian Faith and the Postmodern World, Roger Lundin, 62

In the progress of certain kinds of literary theory, the movement from content to style is absolute.  Flaubert's description of what he would like to accomplish - pure style - has in a way found its conclusion in the contemporary world.  And Flaubert (like Jackson) did not begin with "mere style".  Flaubert authored Madame Bovary and The Sentimental Education.

In Madame Bovary, which many regard as Flaubert's greatest work and one of the finest examples of novel in world literature, the character of Emma Bovary tries to fly from her essentially boring and meaningless life through adultery and living a high life of monetary excess.