Good-bye everything.
Venus was alluding not to the Warhol of Village Wedding, nor the Breugel of
Bouvard y Peruchet nor the Caravaggio of Dictionary of Received
Ideas, but to the whole of Flaubert with these distinctive features: (a)
an orientation — introducing De Palma’s every motive to repetition; (b) a rising
action — a co-quest; (c) a climax — a serious complication
but never with a resonance (or movement); (d) a big fall — the quest is
martyred to some lewd object or, worse, an idea (e) a never-ending Venus De Brian.