Bouvard and PecuchetAlthough unfinished during his lifetime, Bouvard and Pcuchet is now considered to be one of Flaubert's greatest masterpieces. 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 centre of this book are Bouvard and Pcuchet, two retired clerks who set out in a search for truth and knowledge with persistent optimism, despite the fact that each new attempt at learning about the world