Three points need to be made. One is that the writer chooses - as far as he can - the extent of what you call his involvement in life: despite his reputation, Flaubert occupied a half-and-half position. 'It isn't the drunkard who writes the drinking song': he knew that. On the other hand, it isn't the teetotaller either. He put it best, perhaps, when he said that the writer must wade into life as into the sea,but only up to the navel.

Secondly, when readers complain about the lives of writers - why didn't he do this; why didn't he complain to the newspapers about that; why wasn't he more involved in life? - aren't they really asking a simpler, and vainer, question: why isn't he more like us? But if a writer were more like a reader, he'd be a reader, not a writer: it's as uncomplicated as that.

Thirdly, what is the thrust of the complaint as far as the books are concerned? Presumably the regret that Flaubert wasn't more involved in life isn't just a philantropic wish for him: if only old Gustave had a wife and kiddies, he wouldn't have been so glum about the whole shooting match?..... For myself, I cannot think that, for instance, the portrait of provincial manners in Madame Bovary is lacking in some particular aspect which would have been remedied had its author clinked tankards of cider every evening with some gouty Norman bergere.