Historical perspectives; Flaubert was here!

For the Philosopher’s Wives Book Club this month, I read Flaubert in Egypt. Apart from acquiring very detailed information on his sexual enterprises during his travels, I also found the notes from Flaubert’s visits to various monuments, places we only recently admired, interesting. The book gave me a perspective on time which I previously had not reflected upon. When studying with the boys, I find that history tends to get very theoretical; you don’t tend to view the phenomena of interest, eg. the pharaos, from a large enough perspective, hence you don’t really realize how amazingly long the pyramids have actually existed in that very same place. Flaubert traveled in a seemingly very different time from ours, the 19th century – it sounds like a long time ago, doesn’t it? They didn’t even have cars! – but when you think about how long before that the pyramids where built, it’s inconceivable.

We really do currently live in the very heart of the history of human kind!