SOURCE: “Resurrection of a Woman Both Scorned and Beloved,” in Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1994, p. 4.

In the following review, Eder offers a mixed assessment of Rage and Fire.

Francine du Plessix Gray begins her resurrection of Louise Colet, a minor 19th-Century French writer now known mainly as Flaubert's lover and literary correspondent, with two dramatic scenes.

The first describes their last meeting. Colet furiously berates Flaubert for infidelity, kicking him rhythmically in the shins to make her points, while he fantasizes about braining her with a fireplace log.

In the second scene, toward the end of his life, he burns great batches of correspondence. One packet of letters contains a slipper, a rose and a lace handkerchief; Flaubert kisses them sorrowfully before consigning them to the flames.

Each scene has its source. The first is a friend's account of what Flaubert told him; the second, a memoir by...