Left unfinished at Flaubert's death in 1880, Bouvard et Pécuchet was published the following year to lukewarm reviews: critics failed to appreciate both its message and its structural devices.

Disgusted with the world in general, Bouvard and Pécuchet ultimately decide to "return to copying as before" (copier comme autrefois), giving up their intellectual blundering.

[3] This was originally intended to be followed by a large sample of what they copy out: possibly a sottisier (anthology of stupid quotations), the Dictionary of Received Ideas (encyclopedia of commonplace notions), or a combination of both.

Because Bouvard and Pécuchet rarely persevere with any subject beyond their first disappointments, they are perpetually rank beginners: the lack of real achievement and the constant forward movement through time (as shown through the rapid political changes from 1848 to 1851) create a strong sense of tension in the work.

The worldview that emerges from the work, one of human beings proceeding relentlessly forward without comprehending the results of their actions or the processes of the world around them, does not seem an optimistic one.

But given that Bouvard and Pécuchet do gain some comprehension of humanity's ignorant state (as demonstrated by their composition of the Dictionary of Received Ideas), it could be argued that Flaubert allows for the possibility of relative enlightenment.

In Bouvard et Pécuchet, Gustave Flaubert made fun of 18th- and 19th-century attempts to catalogue, classify, list, and record all of scientific and historical knowledge.

[4] Julian Barnes said that it "requires a stubborn reader, one willing to suspend normal expectations and able to confront both repetitious effects and a vomitorium of pre-digested book learning.