My 3rd reading of this masterpiece written with irony and finesse. The eternal story of Emma Bovary and her broken dreams is heartbreaking every time.

The narration is actually quite modern in that the perspective changes quite often from a mysterious first person in the beginning (a schoolmate of Charles Bovary?) to the interior monologues of Charles, Emma, Léon, and Rodolphe. The descriptions of the various locations in the book are always surprising with tiny references to the principle characters. It may surprise you to know that this book, which is essentially a tragedy, also is full of humor and sarcasm. For example, when Léon and Emma have a rendez-vous in the Cathedral of Rouen, the Swiss guard who tries to give them a tour of the church while Léon is freaking out and wants to get out of there while Emma pretends to be interested because she is not quite sold on the seduction is pure genius. In a similar, if more romantic vein, the whispered conversation of Rodolphe and Emma in the lodge as the vice-Prefect gives the world's most boring speech (his boss couldn't be bothered to come) was extraordinary. Every word in Flaubert is measured and perfectly weighted to each situation, the original French is absolutely splendid - whether he is describing the pretentious conversation of M. Homais or the various season and their impact on the moods of the characters and tone of the novel. The only criticism that I can bring is that the denouement is a bit long - that being said, there is another fantastic ironic payoff in the last sentence.

This book from 1856 is of course a product of the Romantic period in culture but it surpasses most of its contemporaries by its precise psychology - both of men and women, its irony, its subtle criticism of the "petit bourgeois" and French society, and the meticulous observation of detail. Even 161 years later, it remains a monument of literature and a summit of free expression (Flaubert was pursued in court and beat the censors.)

Prozatorul francez a început să redacteze Madame Bovary în seara zilei de 19 septembrie 1851. A terminat romanul în aprilie 1856. În 31 mai, i-a trimis manuscrisul prietenului său Maxime Du Camp. A lucrat cîte 10 ore pe zi, fără întreruperi semnificative.

În Papagalul lui Flaubert, Julian Barnes a observat o ciudată ezitare a autorului, cînd vine vorba de ochii doamnei Bovary. Flaubert dă impresia că nu s-a hotărît de-a lungul celor 5 ani în care a lucrat la roman ce culoare ar trebui să aibă ochii Emmei. Am recitit de curînd romanul și am căutat pasajele în care naratorul descrie legendarii ochi.

Iată la ce rezultate uimitoare am ajuns:
1. „O vedea în oglindă… Ochii ei negri păreau şi mai negri” (I: 8).
2. „Noianul de gînduri triste întuneca ochii ei albaştri” (III: 1).
3. „Văzuţi de aproape, ochii ei păreau măriţi, mai ales cînd, trezindu-se, clipea de mai multe ori; negri la umbră şi albastru-închis în plină zi, aveau parcă straturi de culori succesive, care, mai întunecate la fund, se limpezeau din ce în ce spre suprafaţa emailului. Ochiul [lui Charles, n. m.] se pierdea în aceste adâncimi” (I: 5).
4. „Ceea ce [Emma] avea frumos erau ochii; deşi căprui, păreau negri din cauza genelor” (I: 2).

Așadar: ochii doamnei Bovary sînt:
- negri,
- albaștri,
- albastru închis spre negru,
- căprui spre negru...

Oare ce culoare să aleg? Dați-mi un sfat...

P. S. De fapt, nu Julian Barnes a observat nehotărîrea lui Flaubert, ci o cercetătoare engleză malițioasă (care făcea parte, firește, dintr-un grup de...).

welcome to...MADAME BOVUARY!

you know what time it is — it's a title / month pun, i'm picking up an ill-advised classic, and i'm going to be as attention seeking about it as possible. IT'S ANOTHER PROJECT LONG CLASSIC INSTALLMENT.

except this time i'm doing it at the end of one month into the start of another, the book is not that long, and i'm kind of proud of the terrible pun. because it works with both months. inasmuch as it works with anything.

let's get into it!


PART 1, CHAPTER 1
i primarily bought this book because i'm addicted to penguin clothbound classics, and secondarily bought it because the description is "Emma is beautiful and bored" and that's my life story.

this book is not long, but there are 35 chapters and i'm trying to be More Chill about my reading, so a chapter a day it is!


PART 1, CHAPTER 2
so far, so weird.


PART 1, CHAPTER 3
thus far it's been a lot of exposition-y chapters, which makes sense, but they are so oddly written as to be more confusing than enlightening. whatever! onto the actual story.


PART 1, CHAPTER 4
wedding scene!!!! this sounded fun. good chapter. i approve.

i don't have a lot to say about this book thus far, if you couldn't tell.


PART 1, CHAPTER 5
i do actually love the description in this. so pretty and clear.


PART 1, CHAPTER 6
hello and welcome to our first catch-up day. a three-chapter situation. everyone say thank you, gustave for making these chapters so short.

emma is addicted to novels...once again she is just like me fr.


PART 1, CHAPTER 7
in a twist that will surprise absolutely no one, i like the unlikable pretty protagonist who hates her life and charms everyone.


PART 1, CHAPTER 8
i do feel bad for charles, though.


PART 1, CHAPTER 9
she's sooooo difficult...i stan


PART 2, CHAPTER 1
a fun lil Get To Know The Villagers chapter.


PART 2, CHAPTER 2
suddenly, just as i settled into the comfort of the idea that this would be a Description Book, here we are in Dialogue City. what a change!


PART 2, CHAPTER 3
i really do feel like classics will cover the local politics of a small village for 75 pages, and marriage / birth / death are fully covered in a paragraph or two.


PART 2, CHAPTER 4
happy three chapter day to all who celebrate.

my copy of this is used (part of my How To Afford Collecting Penguin Clothbounds strategy) and there has been nary a mark inside until now. the last line of this chapter is underlined, and i agree: it rules.


PART 2, CHAPTER 5
accidentally got enraptured and forgot to write about individual chapters. this is the REAL problem with three chapter days.


PART 2, CHAPTER 6
yearning!!!


PART 2, CHAPTER 7
emma has to stop reading novels??? good god...a fate worse than death....


PART 2, CHAPTER 8
something fun that this chapter did is make me feel the same existential boredom, but for the sweet relief of bantery dialogue, that our dear emma suffers from every day.

because it was very boring.

CONTROVERSY ARRIVES.


PART 2, CHAPTER 9
a recipe for disaster is unfolding before us.


PART 2, CHAPTER 10
emma, girl...stand up...


PART 2, CHAPTER 11
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

let's spend it reading four chapters of existential ennui. and apparently extensive descriptions of club foot.


PART 2, CHAPTER 12
i do love that being a hater and a trickster is making emma turn hot again. that's my entire skincare routine and life philosophy summed up.


PART 2, CHAPTER 13
you hate to see a man win a situation...women are so much better at deception and deviousness...it looks odd on a man.


PART 2, CHAPTER 14
2-14 on 2/14...pretty cute.

there is no romantic connection or eternal tie quite like the correlation between something bad happening and life-altering illness in classic books. if you had a bad day as a protagonist in 1809...welcome to a life of Consumption.


PART 2, CHAPTER 15
emma has a ROSTER. what an achievement.


PART 3, CHAPTER 1
there is a 5 chapter day in my future...and today is not that day.

i do love the drama of it all. everything emma does seems to be for maximum theatricality and that is a life's purpose i can get behind.


PART 3, CHAPTER 2
hi mtv and welcome to my attempt at a catch-up day.

honestly i would love to be charles bovary. no thoughts, head empty, zero suspicions, getting through life on vibes alone.


PART 3, CHAPTER 3
it's remarkable — this book has no tension at all. one of the most tense things in the world is happening (repeated marital affairs! will someone discover it? will they be able to love openly? none of these questions come to mind) and it's like. no stakes. crazy. this chapter appears to be attempting a cliffhanger and the crowd went silent.


PART 3, CHAPTER 4
these chapters are so wonderfully short. it's like they were written with me being days behind on a made-up project in mind.


PART 3, CHAPTER 5
"From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of lies, in which she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it. It was a want, a mania, a pleasure carried to such an extent that if she said she had the day before walked on the right side of a road, one might know she had taken the left." this duplicitous little devil...i love her.


PART 3, CHAPTER 6
too much math in the last chapter. debt is boring. give me something more interesting.

jinxed myself. this was even longer and even mathier.


PART 3, CHAPTER 7
super jarring to have a passage of dialogue here from two women just...witnessing emma emma-ing it up. you forget how Improper all this sh*t is until suddenly some lady is like "whip her in the streets."


PART 3, CHAPTER 8
WHAT.

but we have three chapters left!


PART 3, CHAPTER 9
who cares anymore...what's even the point...if i weren't so goddamn close to finishing this i'd take a day off and catch up later...

this is the coolest charles has ever been. low bar, but still.


PART 3, CHAPTER 10
you hate to see an adult mom / overly fond son duo...


PART 3, CHAPTER 11
well, today is the final day and i have literally no idea what i think about this book, so...pretty high stakes for this single chapter here.


OVERALL
generally, i think if you have the free time, the patience, and the refined taste, you can skip this completely, go for anna karenina, and pretend you read both.

but if you're pressed for time or into melodrama, this one is good too.
rating: 3.5

C'EST MOI


Meravigliosa come sempre, semplicemente perfetta, Isabelle Huppert nell’adattamento del 1991 firmato da Claude Chabrol.

Letto un paio di volte e sempre amato. Uno dei massimi capolavori della letteratura, secondo me.
Flaubert è uno dei sommi: me lo immagino di notte, solo nella sua casa di Rouen, che sono ovviamente stato a visitare, al lume di candela, che 'recita' le parole scritte, ancora e ancora, urlandole, cancellando, limando, riscrivendo, fino a trovare la formula giusta, quella perfetta. Le mot juste.
Perché, lui è con la perfezione che si misurava.
E alla perfezione si è avvicinato, e, secondo me, la perfezione ha raggiunto.



Realistico, il romanzo certamente lo è: non contiene nulla che non sia esistito nella vita reale (e facilissimo da riscontrare attraverso sopralluoghi e testimonianze); e anche se sbuffa ogni tanto "nulla in questa storia è tratto dalla vita, è totalmente inventata", non c'è dubbio che questo autore ha seguito con scrupolo il precetto dello 'scrivere solo di ciò che si conosce'.



Però dopo aver scritto la scena di seduzione nel bosco, nella Corrispondenza si trova: Che delizia scrivere! Non essere più se stessi, ma spaziare per l'universo che si descrive! Oggi, per esempio, mi sentivo uomo e donna, amante e amata, cavalcavo per una foresta in un pomeriggio d'autunno sotto le foglie gialle, e io ero i cavalli, le foglie, il vento, le parole dette da lui e da lei, e il sole scarlatto sopra le loro palpebre semichiuse, gonfie per la passione....
Alberto Arbasino: Certi romanzi, pp 131-132

One can read this novel as many times as one likes. Each time I find new 'things' in it. Since so much has been written about this book that I re-read it again. I reflect on what I have read, feel mesmerized, and intrigued by the text. Of course, I take other writers' critique of this book seriously.

There is this whole body of work that rests on Flaubert's writing. I have read less of Flaubert, but I read a lot about him. It seems like one cannot talk about writing without talking about him. Some of these writings on him are exemplary because they read like literature. Flaubert himself has written reams of his own grueling struggles with the written word, his endless endeavors to get 'it' right – a word, a line, a paragraph– went on for days.

If I remember right, he said somewhere that he wants to write a book about 'nothing' – a great ambition, indeed. He supposedly intended to write something, so that form and content merge fully and produce an effect one only gets from the purest form of music. All these exquisite pursuits of Flaubert do get reflected in Madame Bovary.

However, if I leave out what he has achieved in his writings, and just focus on his characters, I find it hard not to question certain aspects of MB. Since the reputation of this book is so formidable, one hesitates to say what one Really thinks about this book. For instance, right in the first chapter, we see Charles on his first day at school. He acts in a ludicrous manner and attracts negative attention from his teacher and classmates. A few pages later, we see him married and practicing his profession. He marries a woman older than himself, anything but for love.

Charles becomes even more irritating when one sees him visiting Emma's house to treat her father. These visits are taken so often and with such passionate urgencies that I find it hard to believe that it is the same man whom I saw as a boy on his first day at school. Here, with Emma, he seems more like a character from 'Lawrence.' He mildly exudes something of 'Vronsky' from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Emma, on the other hand, at least in the beginning, could be someone from George Eliot: a farmer's daughter, simple, hardworking, and responsible. And as we know her more, especially after marrying Charles, she is completely transformed. The farmer's daughter now has airs of someone from Jane Austen. As the novel unfolds, toward the second half of the book, she becomes full-fledged Anna Karenina of Tolstoy except that Anna in the hands of Tolstoy always remains Anna from the start till she dies, just like Vronksy remains Vronsky till the end.

As we see more and more of Emma, we see Charles almost receding, and again resembling the boy that we saw on his first day at school. Now it is not the Charles who married his first wife for practical purposes, it is not the same Charles who almost seduced Emma and took her as his wife after the death of his first wife. Going through all this requires certain qualities (or a certain slyness), a certain character that hardly matches with his post-marriage life with Emma. He was absolutely oblivious to Emma's manipulations, to her cheating.

Half through the book, I felt like I am in another country. The early Emma has gone, the early Charles transformed. Am I reading the same book?

Some situations are so difficult to believe because they appear contrived. Emma repeatedly gets beguiled by men who, in one way or the other, resemble the super attractive heroes of literature– let us say all these charmers, who chase Emma in MB, remind, to varying degrees, Vronsky of Anna Karenina. However, in Flaubert, the stylistic features take over the characterization.

The only way in which I have enjoyed MB is to read it for its lines and paragraphs. One must not think about who is doing what, who is saying what, and asking oneself if this is real. How can this be? Why cannot Emma do this? How can the doctor Charles be so foolish? One has to avoid all that to enjoy the book. Maybe that was what Flaubert set out to achieve in the first place. He wanted us to notice him, only Him. And we did.

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT : «Η Μαντάμ Μποβαρύ είμαι εγώ»...


Υπάρχει κάτι το γοητευτικά παράξενο
και αξιοσημείωτο σε αυτό το βιβλίο.
Θεωρώ πως η Έμμα Μποβαρύ,η ηρωίδα με τα μοιραία πάθη και τους πόνους απο τα λάθη,
είναι ένας χαρακτήρας λογοτεχνικά αξέχαστος,
διαχρονικά μισητός και θλιβερά αγαπητός.
Σκανδαλιστικός και μαγικός.

Μια προσωπικότητα την οποία ο καθένας αντιλαμβάνεται και κρίνει τελείως διαφορετικά,σύμφωνα με την ηλικία,το φύλο και οπωσδήποτε τις εμπειρίες του.

Εκεί κρύβεται το μαγικό του χαρακτήρα της μοιραίας πρωταγωνίστριας. Ο συγγραφέας βασανιστικά αργά χτίζει τη μαντάμ Μποβαρύ και μας καλεί όλοι μας να δούμε τον εαυτό μας σε αυτήν. Μέσα απο αυτήν.

Εύκολα και ίσως επιφανειακά κρίνουμε αρνητικά την ηρωίδα και την καίμε στην πυρά με έφλεκτα υλικά τον λυρισμό και την χυδαιότητα. Υλικά που μας προμηθεύει ο συγγραφέας σε μεγάλες ποσότητες.

Αργά και βασανιστικά ο Φλομπέρ παρουσιάζει τον «κακό» χαρακτήρα της ηρωίδας σε πλήρη αντίθεση με τον «καλό» χαρακτήρα του συζύγου της.

Αφενός,η πλοκή σκανδαλιστικά μας φέρνει αντιμέτωπους με μια παθιασμένη και ακόλαστη γυναίκα.

Μια σκιά έντονης προσωπικότητας που παραπαίει ανάμεσα στην κομψότητα,τον ρομαντισμό,την ονειροπόληση-για πολυτέλεια,ηδονές,ανομολόγητους πόθους-και την παράλογη απαιτητικότητα.
Μια γυναίκα ζηλιάρα,επιφανειακή,ματαιόδοξη,αδίστακτη,εμμονική και εγωπαθή. Ψυχρή,οργισμένη,κυκλοθυμική και ανισόρροπη.

Ελπίζει και εκστασιάζεται πριν το γάμο της. Απογοητεύεται και αλλάζει ερωτικές αγκαλιές μετά.
Ο ερχομός του παιδιού της δεν καταφέρνει να την ανταμείψει με το μεγαλείο της μητρότητας.

Η αγάπη του ήπιου,αγαθού και ταπεινού συζύγου της είναι μάλλον πατρική για εκείνη.
Μέσα της παλεύει η θρησκευτική ψευτοηθική της εποχής και η ματαίωση των προσδοκιών της.
Πολύ γρήγορα νικούν οι προσδοκίες και παραδίνεται σε ερωτικούς πειρασμούς.

Αφετέρου,η ίδια αυτή πλοκή μας φέρνει δίπλα και πολύ κοντά σε ένα δυστυχισμένο πλάσμα που αξίζει τη συμπόνοια μας.
Η Έμμα είναι μια ενήλικη που στερείται σχεδόν τα πάντα απο παιδί. Μεγαλώνει και ζει ταπεινά κοντά στον πατέρα της έχοντας περάσει πολλά χρόνια εσώκλειστη σε μοναστήρι. Η θρησκευτική αγωγή της στέρησης δεν ταιριάζει στην ψυχή της.
Δεν πήρε αγάπη ποτέ. Δεν αγαπήθηκε βαθιά και ανιδιοτελώς απο κάποιον,επομένως είναι ανίκανη να αγαπήσει. Η συναισθηματική της νοημοσύνη αρχίζει και τελειώνει σε έναν κόσμο προβολής,εξιδανίκευσης και ατομικών απολαύσεων.

Ζώντας απομονωμένη σε έναν στενόμυαλα ανδρικό κόσμο συμβιβάζεται αρχικά και παντρεύεται για να αποδράσει και να αγαπηθεί.
Απογοητεύεται απο τη νέα κατάσταση και αρχίζουν οι τάσεις φυγής.

Θλίβεται έντονα,αντιδρά,επαναστατεί,πιστεύει πως αξίζει μια ασυμβίβαστη και πολυτελή ζωή.
Αρχίζει να μάχεται για ικανοποίηση παντός είδους και ανεξαρτησία.
Είναι τρυφερή και γενναιόδωρη με τους εραστές της επειδή παλεύει να αγαπηθεί,για να αισθανθεί ασφάλεια καταντάει εμμονική,άρρωστη,κουραστική.
Πνίγεται,ρισκάρει,βασανίζεται,προδίδεται και καταρρέει.
Είναι αφελής και ευάλωτη. Θεωρεί το κύρος και την υψηλή κοινωνία λύτρωση. Διαψεύδεται.
Ενδίδει με περισσή ανωριμότητα σε πειρασμούς για να οδηγηθεί στην ευτυχία.
Η αποτυχία της είναι μεγαλειώδης και επισύρει αισθήματα οίκτου και οργής.

Καταστρέφει τη ζωή της και την οικογένεια της.


«GUSTAVE FLAUBERT» : «Η Μαντάμ Μποβαρί είμαι εγώ»...

Χυδαία μαντάμ Μποβαρύ ή Έμμα σε αέναη αναζήτηση αγάπης;


Καλή ανάγνωση!
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!

Emma es una joven y soñadora campesina, la cual contrae matrimonio con Charles Bovary, el médico del pueblo. No obstante, su cotidiana vida conyugal, junto con las recurrentes ausencias del marido, la harán desprenderse de la persona a quien aceptó en el altar, ya que él no logrará brindarle las tan intensas pasiones y las suspironas emociones que ella anhela experimentar cuando lee sus muy preciadas novelas románticas. Y así es como poco a poco comenzará a dejarse llevar por aquellas fantasías, hasta que, eventualmente, se le presente alguna oportunidad de poder llevarlas a cabo, sin importarle el costo o los daños a causar, para por fin vivir un romance como el que demanda la literatura de su interés.
Ella es la señora Bovary, la protagonista de este título que, hace un par de siglos atrás, escandalizó en cierta medida a la iglesia como institución. Pero ¿qué tan espantoso es lo que nos puede deparar esta novela? ¿Hasta qué punto es realidad o exageración la aparente fama tan polémica y hereje de esta obra? Justamente esa es mi principal motivación e intención con Madame Bovary: leerla desde esa premisa.

Y bueno, debido a que superé el límite de caracteres que hay permitidos en Goodreads por más del doble, no puedo subir la reseña de forma íntegra; lo cual me restringe a solamente incluir la sinopsis. Qué asco de plataforma, la verdad... Pero ¿qué es lo que se puede hacer en estos casos? Buscar soluciones, y precisamente ideé la siguiente: así que, para que no tengan que leer esta reseña de forma mutilada en los comentarios, mejor lo hagan a través de un enlace directo a un Drive que les proporcionaré con la reseña en PDF, el cual me esmeré en realizar.

En cuanto a la reseña como tal, realmente les recomiendo que la lean, ya que ostenta una alta profundidad y análisis, además de ahondar en diferentes temas y aspectos de la obra, también analizo a los personajes, con especial énfasis en la protagonista de esta historia y como suele ser costumbre, hay una sección en donde cito una selección de las frases y comentarios que fueron de mi interés y agrado.
Ya les he dado varias razones para que lean esta reseña, aunque tampoco quiero pecar de ser autorreferente e insistente, pero creo que es este uno de mis mejores trabajos que he realizado en Goodreads, por algo superé por tanto el límite de caracteres.
También es cierto que esta es una reseña demasiado extensa, pero vale la pena su lectura, lo cual hace que eso solo sea un reto para valientes. De todas maneras, espero que esta sea la única vez en que tenga que subir algo de esta forma.

En el siguiente enlace podrán encontrar mi reseña que nuevamente espero que lean, ya que tuvo una realización bastante exhaustiva y rigurosa: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gd1f...

Para otras reseñas que superen el límite de caracteres permitidos de Goodreads, por tener un enfoque más profundo, minucioso y analítico:

•tMadame Bovary, de Gustave Flaubert
•tViaje al centro de la Tierra, de Julio Verne: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
•tLas crónicas de Narnia: El caballo y el muchacho, de C.S. Lewis: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Now that I'm over 40, my memory loss has afforded me the opportunity to discover previously read novels in a new, though dimmer light. Every thing old IS new again!

Twenty years ago, this was a solid four stars for me. Today, it's worthy of five. Why? Because Emma Bovary's still there, just as she was back in 1857, and she's as inane and complicated as ever. Iconic, in fact. And she's so very worthy of your discussion, your judgement, and your time.

Flaubert's writing is lush and decadent, and reading it again made me crave what these nineteenth century writers contributed. Too much modern writing pales in comparison.

And, to think, twenty years from now, I'll read it for the first time all over again.

“Before her marriage she had believed herself to be in love; but since the happiness which should have resulted from this love had not come to her, she felt that she must have been mistaken. And she tried to find out exactly what was meant in life by the words ‘bliss,’ ‘passion’ and ‘rapture,’ which had seemed so beautiful to her in books”

Emma Bovary constantly lived in a web of perpetual illusion, a luminous world which she had engendered through her penchant for reading vivid romantic books, and through her unremitting rumination upon her vague idea of ultimate bliss. Times she spent in the convent had added a holy, heavenly garb to her notion of being happy; the words like "betrothed", "spouse", “heavenly lover” and “eternal lover” uttered by the priests had made a deep impression on her, as if it was engraved on her heart by molten coal. The inordinate longing for this- vague- exalted bliss made her present reality riddled with ennui. Boredom was her singular trait; she always had a pensive air about her- a deep, hapless longing for ‘Something’. She spent each day in such wanton longing that the meeting with Charles was like a propitious coincidence, as if angels of bliss smilingly colluded into materializing this fortunate stroke of serendipity. She wouldn't know the least what to expect of this chance-meeting or what ultimate bliss feels like; she simply followed her infantile instincts and waited eagerly for the clinching of that ‘eternal bliss’, the desire for which inundated her ardent yet too stubborn heart with irrepressible longing. This excessive longing, at some point, is sure to be met with a cataclysmic disillusionment, like a streak of lightning is sure to be followed by a hollow peal of thunder- the crystal palace of her illusive world crumbles under the coarse, brutish force of reality that shatters the former with one powerful sweep. Slipping into a marriage with the conceited motive of attaining the ‘bliss’, with no inkling about the groom or his disposition, and relying solely on the heavenly collusion which she had had often read in her fiery romantic novels, Emma was about to receive the first blow, hefty still, on her egotistical self. A paragraph, which I highlighted as soon as I read it, shows her disposition in a generalized way:

”She had to be able to extract some kind of personal benefit from things, and she rejected as useless anything which did not contribute to the immediate gratification of her heart, for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic and she sought emotion, not landscapes.”

As soon as Emma got married, she scrabbled her nuptial life seeking to grope the ‘exalted bliss’ which she was sure of catching hold of. She reconnoitered her feelings and life post-marriage, like a hunter scouring the thickets of forest for his game. All she was able to comprehend was a tangible feeling of calmness, which rendered little to quell her ravenous thirst for the nebulous bliss. She, in her egotistical best, negated this serene calmness as it didn't look like the ‘happiness’ she wanted, which she so deliriously longed for. Her restless mind, palpitating in the disconsolate vibrations of her longings, couldn’t settle in the cool shade of calmness, for which multitudes of souls fervently pray for each day. She aimlessly wandered on the stranded, even lands of marriage for ‘something’, like a delirious woman seeking an ocean in the midst of a desert. The ‘something’ which she longed for didn’t obviously gave her a concrete picture as to what it is or how it may transpire a change in her life; but she knew that that ‘something’ should come in the garb of a man, a man who is her husband, the progenitor of her bliss. Charles, due to his inability to inspire in her that sort of exalted bliss, soon became an irritable thread in her eyes, making them water in anguish and despair. He, Charles, was an ordinary man with modest virtues and a golden heart. He loved Emma like an idol. He, being a common man, couldn’t comprehend the tumultuous, convoluted heart of his partner, which was smoldering in demoniac rage at his failing to make her ‘happy’. All this sincere indifference and selfless devotion irritated her like lice on her hair.

“But shouldn’t a man know everything, excel in all sorts of activities, initiate you into the turbulence of passion, the refinements and mysteries of life?”
“She was exasperated by Charles’s apparent unawareness of her ordeal. His conviction that he was making her happy seemed to her an idiotic insult, and his placid confidence about it struck her as ingratitude. For whom was she being virtuous? Was he not the obstacle to any kind of happiness, the cause of all her misery, the sharp-pointed tongue in the buckle of the strap that wound around her, binding her on all sides?”

Emma, who was beginning to see her husband as a bolus of hindrance in her ambitions and dreams, began furtively devising schemes to avenge herself for her lost bliss. Charles was scorned upon; he was too deplorable for her to even look at him with calm eyes. Her egotistical proclivities, her selfish quest for exalted bliss, all accrued to her slipping into the adulterous ways. She betook herself to this nerve-tickling idea of adultery with celerity. A new horizon of bliss loomed over her vision as she ruminated upon this exhilarating prospect with temerity. But the idea of bliss still remained recondite in her restless heart, but she wasted no time for any sort of introspection.

“The drabness of her daily life made her dream of luxury, her husband’s conjugal affection drove her to adulterous desires. She wished he would beat her so that she could feel more justified in hating him and taking vengeance on him.”

She, in an amorous proclivity, began seeking adulterous love. In her search, two men caught her fancy : Leon and Rodolphe. The sensual pleasure was accentuated by her double pleasure of deceiving her husband. This vengeance soon paved way to an unusual bliss, and the trysts soon became a part of her being as she longed again and again to get drenched in those waters of passion and poetic bliss. She begins writing love poems for her lovers and becomes a lying machine in-order to get away with her mad desires.

Conclusion: Everything has a breaking point, beyond which boredom and repentance takes the reign of the realm of your senses. Emma Bovary, finding at last that the amorous rope which she yanked so hard to her life was a slippery one, began descending into delirium and despair as she abruptly comprehended that her amorous expeditions has destroyed everything in its wake- destroyed her property, family and herself. At the death bed, in the serene and immaculate ambiance of dazzling candle lights and lulling prayers, the truth might have been dawned on her like one final revelation. But the truth of the truth is left by the author for our reasoning with conjectures that might resonate with our sense of judiciousness.

“Why was life so unsatisfying? Why did everything she leaned on instantly crumble into dust? […] nothing was worth seeking – everything was a lie! Each smile hid a yawn of boredom, each joy a curse, each pleasure its own disgust; and the sweetest kisses only left on one’s lips a hopeless longing for a higher ecstasy”

n  Oh Emma…n

Writing style:

According to me, this is a sublimely written book. The prose laps onto our minds like the effervescent tides soothingly bathe our feet. His prose is so impeccable, so entrancing, so satiating that one gets on with a sweet soporific effect; there is a stuffy air of elegiac quality as well in his writing which again adds to the beauty.The details are not at all extraneous, and they add so much depth and beauty to the entirety of the novel. This is indubitably one of my favorite novels, and it thus entered into my top ten list. Highest possible recommendation.

I cannot refrain from adding this wonderful passage:

“The truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

A brief note on translation:

Lowell Bair had done a masterful job in bringing a musical finish to the overall translation. I thoroughly enjoyed this version and I wouldn’t even try to look for other translations. I might as well read this translation again in distant future if a propitious time proffers itself to me.

5 shining stars on 5!
-gautam

”Before her marriage, she had believed that what she was experiencing was love; but since the happiness that should have resulted from that love had not come, she thought she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to find out just what was meant, in life, by the words bliss, passion, and intoxication, which had seemed so beautiful to her in books.”

n  n
Mia Wasikowska plays Madame Bovary in the 2015 movie.

Before she is Madame Bovary, Emma is keeping house for her father on a remote farm. I wonder what would have happened to her if Doctor Charles Bovary had not been summoned to set her father’s broken leg? It is inconceivable to think of her married to a farmer or a tradesman or being swept away by a travelling peddler. She is beautiful enough to be a duchess or a marquise, a pretty bobble for the dance floor, or an elegant adornment for the dinner table, and certainly, the perfect fine drapery for a night at the theatre.

Charles just expects her to be a wife. A woman to manage his household. A woman to uplift him and give him confidence to keep trying to better himself. He is successful in a dull and conservative way, and whenever he tries to raise himself up further, perhaps in an attempt to win the respect of his pretty wife, he is met with utter failure. There is nothing romantic about him. He is steady and completely devoted to her. Whenever he tries to express grand passions, somehow these attempts lack the ability to ignite the flames of desire or evoke the effervescent emotions that her novels tell her are the indications of true love.

Her frustrations, once contained in a heavy ball beneath her heart, begin to unravel like many hissing snakes, and her docile nature becomes viperous. n  ”She no longer hid her scorn for anything, or anyone, and she would sometimes express singular opinions, condemning what was generally approved, and commending perverse or immoral things: which made her husband stare at her wide-eyed.”n

Other men desire her, even Charles’s father, who is a retired army officer and a man of the world, who will take any opportunity to pull her to him in a deserted hallway or tug her into a dark alcove for a reasonably platonic cuddle. Men can sense her dissatisfaction behind the cute dimple of her smile and the twinkling stars in her eyes. She is ripe for the plucking. Being a man well experienced with the betraying beguilement of beauty, I would like to think that I would be impervious to her charms. I would only have to clutch the slenderness of my wallet to realize that a woman of her insatiable need for material things would only lead me to disaster and ruin. Of course, there is this: n  ”And she was ravishing to look at, a tear trembling in her eye like water from a rainstorm in the blue chalice of a flower.”n

Most men will meet many beautiful women in their lifetimes, but of course, the crux of the matter with a woman like Madame Bovary is knowing that with a little effort she can be yours...at least for a time. Two men are led into catastrophic affairs with Emma. These indiscretions prove even more disastrous for her. n  ”There are souls who endure endless torment? They are driven now to dream, not to take action, to experience the purest passions, then the most extreme joys, and so they hurl themselves into every sort of fantasy, every sort of folly.”n Recklessness can prove too exhilarating, even intoxicating, but rarely does it lead to long term happiness.

The other problem that Madame Bovary has is a lack of funds. Her husband makes a good living, but he can not even begin to keep up with her need to possess fine things, or to conduct a lifestyle better suited to an aristocratic pocketbook. This is a theme of particular interest to Gustave Flaubert. In fact, he wrote a whole book called Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, condemning the very worst detrimental aspects of having too much money and not enough curiosity. n  ”What he despised, really, was a certain type of bourgeois attitude. It included traits such as intellectual and spiritual superficiality, raw ambition, shallow culture, a love of material things, greed, and above all a mindless parroting of sentiments and beliefs.”n

An immoral, grubbing moneylender sinks his talons into Emma’s soft pale skin like a blood sucking leech. He takes advantage of her naivete concerning the truth worth of hard currency and plays upon her covetous nature for decadent things. She is so close, with an extended line of credit, to living a life of frivolous fun, buoyed by a series of passionate, heart fluttering affairs, that she can almost see it, almost taste it, and almost believe she can obtain the life she has only read about. As Vladimir Nabokov says, n  ”The ironic and the pathetic are beautifully intertwined.”n

Emma’s mother-in-law believes the books she has been reading are the reason for the faults in her daughter-in-law’s character. n  ”Wouldn’t one have the right to alert the police if, despite this, the bookseller persisted in his business as purveyor of poison?”n I have to admit I laughed out loud. As much as booksellers would like to claim to have diabolical control over readers, we have to defer to the writers. In fact, Flaubert had to defend himself in court for charges of immorality regarding the publication of Madame Bovary. Nothing drives book sales like a court of law trying to deem a book too scandalous for people to be trusted to read it. To me, this book encourages morality and fiscal responsibility. I don’t see how, given the tragic nature of the book, someone would read this book and want to emulate Madame Bovary.

However, I do understand the feeling that some women have of being trapped in a cage, even if it is a gilded one. The responsibilities of life can make one feel the itch to be reckless, unfettered, and pine for romantic assignations that will awaken youthful desires. Maybe this book is more of a how-to manual on how not to conduct oneself with torrid affairs and fiscal carelessness.

This novel is considered the first example of realistic fiction. This translation is 311 pages long. Flaubert had over 4500 pages of rough drafts that this relatively slender volume emerged from. The lyrical nature of the writing attests to the stringent diligence that Flaubert insisted upon to craft each page of this novel.

I couldn’t help, of course, but think of Anna Karenina as I read this book. I read and reviewed Tolstoy’s masterpiece earlier this year. It is easy to condemn both of these women, but who among us has not had destructive desires which we have either indulged in or at least coveted? Both women are fully drawn characters, completely exposed to our critical judging eye, and at the end of the day, deserving of our pity. Either woman would have made a wonderful heroine for a Shakespearean drama. I can hear the gasps from a 17th century audience.

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It has been a while since I have wanted to reread this iconic novel. Lately I decided to tack it onto two other, also iconic novels, Anna Karenina and The Portrait of a Lady, and form my own trilogy of Notorious-Nineteenth Century-Literary-Ladies.

Of Madame Bovary I will always remember a University lecture in which the professor warned us not be deluded by Flaubert’s magic in his creation of a fictional world, and that even if the novel was perceived during its time (1856) as a model of naturalism – and its realism precisely appalled the moralists of the epoch – that we were expected to read it with greater shrewdness. His example was the famous cab ride and the incongruity of the path followed by the carriage and the time it was supposed to last. Rereading this section, I felt a strong urge to go to Rouen and walk the itinerary with the novel in hand.

Rereads are fun because one can concentrate on other elements apart from the story. For one, I pondered with greater sympathy at Emma’s character. Her soul is just possessed by longing – very common really, but greatly recreated by Flaubert. The scenes “costumbrismo” or “peinture des moeurs”, with the country wedding and the country fair, are passages that could be framed on their own right.

Lately it is the most disagreeable characters in the novels that I am reading that appeal to me most.  for example 'Mara Castorelli' in Caro Michele . The pharmacien Homais received my greatest prize. This man who names his child Napoléon and ‘who couldn’t help but get close to the famous people’ (Il ne pouvait, par tempérament, se séparer des gens célèbres), is a grisly and atrocious parody of a hero. Unforgettably grotesque. And this makes one wonder about what was crossing Flaubert’s mind when he wrote this. There is such a cruelty in his sharp depictions that at times I felt embarrassed for his characters, for being exposed so. Wicked Flaubert, and humorous too.

In this revisit I also paid greater attention to cultural references. My edition is rich in footnotes – too rich, since they offer more archival than elucidating material, so these did not always provide the clarification I would have desired. But I was drawn by the fact that the night at the Rouen theatre, the opera performed was Lucia de Lammermoor (1835), and how both Emma and Léon project their own ideals onto the Lucie on the stage. Léon showing off his knowledge of music, naming personalities such as Rubini, Tamburini etc… reminded me of a recent read The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture.

Another reference that sparkled under my eyes was the mentioning of the painting of Putiphar by Schopin. The note indicated that Henri-Frédéric Schopin (1804-1888) was a painter and brother of Frédéric Chopin. I found this very interesting and went on a search but found to my disappointment that this must have been an error. There is no connection between the painter and the musician. I will now always remember this not very well known Schopin, although this painting from 1843 hangs in the Wallace Collection.



I don’t discount that I shall read this again. I have just begun to read Nabokov’s lecture from his Lectures on Literature and he presents a very close analysis of Flaubert’s technical devices, tracing, for example the use of literary counterpoint and the way he transitions from one to the next theme.

But next in my trilogy-reread is Anna.

I first read this as a teenager and then reread it as an undergrad and remember liking it rather than loving it. But this time I flew through it and appreciated the complexity of what Flaubert has done. It's common knowledge that this was a scathing indictment of the bourgeois: small-minded, materialistic, stultifyingly conventional, parroting cliches and concerned with outward appearances, social approval and propriety. But Flaubert also recognized his own bourgeois status and perhaps that duality is what feeds into the creation of Emma Bovary who is the epitome of a foolish, flawed character but one to whom I wished I could reach into the book in order to rescue her!

This novel cries out for Marxist analysis as Emma is trapped by her class, her gender (she is uneducated and goes from helping her farmer father to marrying the local doctor), and the capitalist narratives that tell her what she should aspire to in order to find happiness. There's also a sub-story about the way Emma is taught about romantic love from novels - and published storytelling is shown as another technology of capitalist culture. Even so, Emma's unpoliced sexuality is her only form of rebellion and liberation from the stifling morality of provincial life, though her passion is only reciprocated in measured ways so that she ends up being used and manipulated by men who perform 'love' but who are far more concerned about their social status and relative position in the bourgeois hierarchy.

Flaubert's style here is pared back and austere to match the paucity of imaginative or creative spirit in this world: there are few examples of similes and metaphors and it's noticeable how everything in the story is costed to the penny - even the debts that start to mount up and promissory notes are detailed exactly showing us how this world is regulated by debt and credit. There is no authorial exposition or judgement: this is not a morality tale, one of the reasons it scandalized nineteenth century France on first publication.

Emma's end is inevitable - and it's not fate as Charles bemoans with unthinking conventionality but the constructed system in which she lives. Emma is uneducated, fed with romantic dreams of love underpinned by material aspirations for the sort of lavish lifestyle she experiences at the ball - she may be foolish but I have so much empathy for her and her struggles to free herself from her stifling, claustrophobic world which pins her in her place and her search for something more meaningful: as Flaubert may not have actually said, Emma Bovary, c'est moi.