n  

Before marriage she thought herself in love; but the happiness that should have followed this love not having come, she must, she thought, have been mistaken. And Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by the words felicity, passion, rapture, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books.

n
You might be surprised to learn that I was mesmerized by Emma’s life story. I was mesmerized and suffered along with her as she capsized further and further into the ambushes life presented her. Yes, I felt like I was in a trance and could not escape. Oh, Emma, dear Emma, why do people hate you so? Why did you make them feel that way? I am sorry for being so blunt. You, and your seemingly shallow priorities, gave your critics plenty of ammunition. You did the unthinkable. What excuse did you have for such a selfish, impulsive and futile behavior? Did you by any chance hear Virginia Woolf say 'You cannot find peace by avoiding life.'? What did you have to dive head first before she even professed this truth? But you might have overdid it, don’t you agree with me?

n  The horror of being a woman with no choices…n

As I read on, I kept coming back to one thought: the most terrifying thing I can think of is getting caught in Emma Bovary’s life. She was not alone in her infidelity, did you know that? Not in her time, not today. What about the reason for marriage? She married to escape, I know. And she hoped for a better life. I don’t believe she loved Charles, not even in the beginning. Maybe she romanced him, what woman would not do it in her place?
n  

…sitting on the grass that she dug up with little prods of her sunshade, Emma repeated to herself, "Good heavens! Why did I marry?"

She asked herself if by some other chance combination it would have not been possible to meet another man; and she tried to imagine what would have been these unrealised events, this different life, this unknown husband. All, surely, could not be like this one. He might have been handsome, witty, distinguished, attractive, such as, no doubt, her old companions of the convent had married… But she—her life was cold as a garret whose dormer window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart.

n
And I remembered Jane Austen, who opened the door for woman to search for happiness in their marriage. Why did women marry in those times? Women married only to increase their social standing or for money, but with Austen they start to have a chance at happiness. Flaubert does something similar with Madame Bovary, I believe. He accuses the status quo, the position of women, in a circumvented way, by showing us Emma’s deep unhappiness and how her actions condemned her and society. Poor Emma. I pitied her for each time she fixed her gaze on some scheme of happiness and how her eyes led her astray.
n  

Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, and the melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering, and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for it. She was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half-open door; bewailed the velvets she had not, the happiness she had missed, her too exalted dreams, her narrow home.

n
The only pastime she could enjoy without guilt was reading. From that she built fantasies, it is true. But did she not have the right at least of her own fantasies? It seems not, as we overhear Charles and her mother in law talking:
n  

"Do you know what your wife wants?" replied Madame Bovary senior. "She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work. If she were obliged, like so many others, to earn a living, she wouldn't have these vapours, that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her head, and from idleness in which she lives."

"Yet she is always busy," said Charles.

"Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad books, works against religion, and in which they mock at priests in speeches taken from Voltaire. But all that leads you far astray, my poor child. Anyone who has no religion always ends up turning badly."

So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels.

n
As if she had the choice of earning a living, being a female. What hypocrisy! The only choice they see to avoid her turning badly is to forbid her reading her novels. One of the few pleasures she was allowed.

In a time that judged everyone by their wealth; that breathed a suffocating morality deceptively reinforced mainly by women themselves, society would be horrified by women’s pursuit of anything more than their obligations. On top of all that isn’t it understandable that Emma would pray for a son when she got pregnant?
n  

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past. A man, at least, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures. But a woman is always hampered.

n
She was so right, men at least were much more free than women. I not only comprehend her reasons, but commiserate with her. So, why look at a baby girl she knew had been born with the wrong gender! It all went against her most heartfelt dreams. Emma might have towards the end had a touch of evil brought by desperation. But who wouldn't?

n  Ambushes and pitfalls...n

Oh, she tried to renounce all her dreams through moments of fervent religious devotion. At mass on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw the gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising incense. Then she was moved… Intrigue, however, had already tempted her and kept coming her way. Why would she be invited and attend a ball in a house so out of her reality? Was it not a trap? After that, you could not help yourself but wish you had access to that fairy like life. What an ambush, when she was attempting to behave:
n  

Her journey to Vaubyessard had made a hole in her life, like one of those great crevices that a storm will sometimes make in one night in mountains. Still she was resigned. She devoutly put away her beautiful dress, down to the satin shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax of the dancing floor. Her heart was like these. In its friction against wealth something had come over it that could not be effaced.

n
Such a fortuitous event served only to stress the undesirability of her life.
n  

After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once more remained empty, and then the same series of days recommenced. So now they would thus follow one another, always the same, immovable, and bringing nothing. Other lives, however flat, had at least the chance of some event. One adventure sometimes brought with it infinite consequences and the scene changed. But nothing happened to her; God had willed it so! The future was a dark corridor, with its door at the end shut fast.

n
Another bait would present herself in the person of Monsieur Lheureux. He began cajoling Emma quite innocently for the first time when offering her to buy some scarves, 'I wanted to tell you, he went on good-naturedly, 'that it isn’t the money I should trouble about. Why, I could give you some, if need be.' Thus, another temptation felt into her lap like a dream come through. The endless line of irresponsible credit was not more than an option offered her that she could not have imagine existed if were not for this trickster.

Later we witness how she tries to reform, to be more tolerant and wishing to endure her life as it was, taking responsibility for her daughter and taking interest in the housework. Just then up comes Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger, who after first meeting Madame Bovary '[s]he is very pretty', he said to himself, 'she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife.' And he goes on, 'I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table. Yes, but how to get rid of her afterwards?' He decides so easily to seduce her. Oh, yes, she went along with it and of her free will. But it was too much temptation, for someone so thirsty. I imagined that if it was not Rodolphe it would be another. And later on came Leon.

After the affair with Rodolphe begins, Emma marvels at how much she had lacked living before:
n  

"I have a lover! a lover!" delighting at the idea as if a second puberty had come to her. So at last she was to know those joys of love, that fever of happiness of which she had despaired! She was entering upon marvels where all would be passion, ecstasy, delirium. An azure infinity encompassed her, the heights of sentiment sparkled under her thought, and ordinary existence appeared only afar off, down below in the shade, through the interspaces of these heights.

n
Thus, Flaubert puts all these temptations in her way. It is as if Emma when walking down a meadow starts to stumble on beautiful, ripe apples that lie on the ground and cannot resist but pick some and take a few bites. Could she have resisted them all?

n  But could Emma have escape her destiny?n

Could she have simply accepted life as it was offered to her?, with all its constraints and no reward... I believe all that she lived was utterly inevitable. Could she have run away from her own behavior and avoided her ultimate destiny? Emma was on the same boat as Oedipus found himself in. I felt after reading Oedipus Rex that there was not really anything that Oedipus could have done to get himself out of his destiny. Could Emma have done it differently? It seemed to me that the more Oedipus attempted to get out of it, the deeper he was immersed in its inevitability. It is simply that there was no way for him to avoid doing it all and facing his fate. Was Emma’s destiny any less inevitable? I do not believe so. There was no chorus to declare that to us, but Flaubert himself serves the role, even if it is not so explicit and you have to read between the lines:
n  

It seemed to her that the ground of the oscillating square went up the walls and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing boat. She was right at the edge, almost hanging, surrounded by vast space. The blue of the heavens suffused her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had but to yield, to let herself be taken; and the humming of the lathe never ceased, like an angry voice calling her.

n

n  And so it all ends…n

But as in the beginning in the end, you beguiled me Emma. I was with you from the start and you could not escape me even in death. Seriously, I tell all your critics, your tragic story would not leave me alone. It still doesn’t. You had no choice like Oedipus could not escape killing his father or marrying his mother. So, why people do not stop condemning you when they pity him?

You were clever and wanted to exercise your intellect. Imagine the frustration of nothing to do? Perhaps your mother in law was right, you were fated to end badly. What a tragedy of never finding someone that could begin to understand you. Flaubert with his impressive prose evokes her thoughts and feelings throughout the novel, and I had no choice but be enticed by his heroine.
n  

...it seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably, ...she had never felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for others... She would have liked to strike all men, to spit in their faces, to crush them, and she walked rapidly straight on, pale, quivering, maddened, searching the empty horizon with tear-dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing in the hate that was choking her.

n
Finally, I think I was able to grasp the reasons that make Madame Bovary a classic, a modern tragedy where a soul is doomed because she appreciates and battles against all that comes her way. Despite her limitations in life and as a product of her time, Emma has an unbridled passion and ends pursuing her fantasies. That ends condemning her. Nevertheless, Emma Bovary is brave in her irresponsible choices because it brings her closer to the happiness she wants, even if doing so she is able to attain only a glimpse of her dreams. Even if for that she had to die. And she died so that other women could strive for a more compassionate fate.
___

incidentalmente, il più grande personaggio letterario creato su base di mediocrità umana. il rapporto disfunzionale tra le romanticherie che riempiono la testa di emma e le possibilità offerte dal tenore della vita con charles schiantano lei ma fanno di questo romanzo non solo il capolavoro che è, ma uno dei più sottili (e meno pomposi) attacchi alla piccineria bempensante e borghese che flaubert detestava.
con la sua insoddisfazione, le sue vite prese in prestito dai libri, le sue smanie senza costrutto e il suo concedersi a uomini che non la amano mai abbastanza, emma ci appare miserevole ma nel contempo stacca i suoi compaesani e il loro ottundente autocompiacimento. sia sul piano dell'entusiasmo e della curiosità, sia nel non farsi bastare (fino alla sragionevolezza) la grazia e il tedio a morte del vivere in provincia.
ancora, emma porta all'estremo patologico il meccanismo dei «desideri mediati» e dei modelli che secondo l'antropologo rené girard riguarda personaggi fittizi come lei, don chisciotte e vari della recherche, ma anche (fuori dai libri e in misura diversa) tutti noi in quanto esseri umani desideranti e mimetici. ecco perché, in questo senso, si detesta il personaggio di emma bovary soprattutto quando ci si illude di essere svincolati dalle dinamiche di desiderio-tramite-modelli, ma in realtà si percepisce particolarmente radicata quella somiglianza che ci si affanna a negare. ammettere al contrario, come gustave, che «madame bovary c'est moi» sarebbe segno di maggior equilibrio. statevi accuorti.

Madame Bovary is a tragedy. It tells the story of Emma Bovary who lived a tumultuous life between real and imagined, and whose end arouses more pity than scorn. Emma is a complex character. She is vain for sure, silly in certain ways, and bold and impetuous in some of her conduct. Her idea of love is misguided. "Love, she believed, should come upon you suddenly, with thunderclaps and blinding flashes of lightning, bursting like a hurricane out of the skies and into your life, turning everything upside down, sweeping your will along like a leaf in the gale, and carrying with it into the void the whole of your heart." She marries Dr. Charles Bovary under a misconception. "Before her marriage, she had believed that she was in love; but since the happiness she had expected this love to bring her had not come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to find out what exactly was meant, in real life, by the words ‘bliss’, ‘passion’, and ‘ecstasy’, words that she had found so beautiful in books.". Emma has no proper idea of what love and marriage are all about. Her convent education didn't prepare her for human life and human relationships. She learned all that through fiction, a dangerous method of instruction if you don't resort to the proper kind. Emma had no mother to impart any maternal wisdom on these important subjects of a woman's life. So, one cannot blame Emma for being who she was, having raised herself on her own misguided beliefs.

This second reading made me properly understand the character of Emma Bovary. She is not the wicked villain as society would think of her for being an adulteress, and she is not the conceited spendthrift as the picture paints. Yes, she is guilty on the two counts on the face of it. But if one looks beyond the surface, a question arises whether she is the culprit or the victim. To me (and also to Flaubert, I believe) Emma was a victim, a victim of temptation. This poor misguided woman, who could be easily persuaded, who was craving for passionate love and luxury, was trapped in the hands of three men, two lovers, and one cunning tradesman. And they, without pity or remorse, led her down the hill to her destruction. I'm not justifying Emma's conduct as a woman. But given her ill-formed and misguided personality, and in the absence of any strong person in her life to guide her otherwise, she couldn't have done differently. And here is where her husband comes. Her husband should have seen this calamity beforehand. If he had been a smart, intelligent, and strong fellow, Emma wouldn't have been able to perform such deception. If Charles Bovary had been that man, perhaps, Emma may have mended her waywardness. But Charles was not what Emma expected in a man. He was weak and was neither intelligent nor remarkable in any way. "Charles’s conversation was as flat as any pavement, and everybody’s ideas plodded along it, garbed in pedestrian style, inspiring no emotion, no laughter, no reverie." Emma couldn't look up to him because he "taught nothing, knew nothing, (and) desired nothing". Emma and Charles were of two diverse temperaments. Their personalities were poles apart; she was lively, he passive. What Emma expected in a husband, Charles couldn't be. And she resented him for it. "What enraged her was that Charles seemed quite unaware of her anguish. His conviction that he was making her happy seemed to her a mindless insult, and his complacent security, ingratitude. So for whose sake, then, did she remain chaste? Was not he himself, in fact, the obstacle to all felicity, the cause of all misery..."But how could have Charles Bovary been other than who he was, he also being a victim of a poor upbringing? I truly pitied them both.

Although it is easy to lay the blame elsewhere when one feels sorry for someone, I felt justified in laying the blame for the tragedy of both Emma and Charles on the heads of Rodolphe, Leon, and Lheureux. They destroyed not only Emma but a whole family. Little Berthe lost both her parents at quick intervals leaving her destitute and orphaned. The fact that she, still a child, had to earn her living by working at a cotton mill broke my heart. If Rodolphe and Leon hadn't been so base as to seduce an unhappy woman, and if Lheureux hadn't been so vile as to reap financial benefit from a poor, vain woman, the story of Emma would have written quite differently. But they are ever-present, even today. I have met in my profession odious men like them who take selfish advantages from women in distress. Flaubert describes how Rodolph and Leon took the news of Emma's death. "Rodolphe, who, to take his mind off things, had spent the day in the woods with his gun, lay peacefully asleep in his chateau; down in Rouen Léon, too, slept."

Flaubert had written the story of Emma so beautifully. It's both sensitive and sympathetic to its main characters, Emma and Charles. Vladimir Nabokov wrote "Stylistically it is prose doing what poetry is supposed to do" and Henry James wrote, "It has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone." What more authority does one need to emphasize on Flaubert's artistic cleverness.

”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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„Poți rezuma aceast roman ca povestea unui adulter provincial și, totuși, să dai dovadă, prin chiar acest rezumat, că n-ai priceput absolut nimic din Doamna Bovary” (Robert McCrum).

În locul unei recenzii zadarnice, aș menționa rapid două lucruri. Mi se par mai utile decît recenzia. Primul e că doamna Bovary suferă de așa-zisa eroare quijotică. Cînd citește, Emma confundă ficțiunea cu realitatea. Ar dori să modifice realitatea în sensul ficțiunii, ar dori să-și trăiască viața ca într-o ficțiune. Aș lega această observație de un amănunt mai puțin observat de cititori. Nici eu nu l-am remarcat odinioară.

Iată! După ultima întîlnire cu Rodolphe, Emma e disperată, a făcut datorii imense și nu găsește înțelegere la nici un creditor. Rodolphe o respinge. Rătăcește pe drumuri și, într-un tîrziu, iată Fatalitatea!, ajunge la prăvălia farmacistului Homais, intră pe coridorul unde se află ușa laboratorului cu medicamente și droguri și îi cere tînărului slujitor Justin (care o iubește în taină) să descuie ușa. Cheia are o etichetă pe care stă scris cuvîntul „Capharnaum” (poftim amănunt!). Merge la rafturile sprijinite de perete și întinde mîna după arsenic:

„Luă borcanul albastru, smulse capacul, vîrî mîna înăuntru și, scoțînd-o plină de praf alb, începu să-l mănînce chiar din palmă”. Detaliul e teribil, cred că arată, printre multe altele, cît de tare se urăște pe sine femeia.

Dar nu-i numai atît. Amănuntul și mai grozav abia urmează. Emma se întoarce acasă, se așază la birou, scrie în grabă un bilet, îl pune într-un plic, adaugă „data, ziua și ora”, apoi se întinde pe pat și începe să se observe:

„Un gust iute pe care-l simțea în gură o trezi... Luă o înghițitură de apă și se întoarse cu fața la perete. Gustul acela îngrozitor de cerneală stăruia: Cet affreux goût d'encre continuait”. Prozatorul însuși spune că a simțit aievea, cînd a scris aceste propoziții, gustul otrăvii.

Faptul că, înaintea sfîrșitului, eroina simte în gură un gust „iute, îngrozitor de cerneală” (ne-am fi așteptat la un gust amar, la orice altceva) pare menit să atragă atenția asupra principalei sale greșeli. Nu-i bine să citești ca Don Quijote...

P. S. În Capharnaum / Capernaum (așezare din Galilea), Iisus Christos a vindecat mai mulți bolnavi: slujitorul unui centurion roman, un paralitic...

P. P. S. Se pare că arsenicul nu are nici un gust. Doar un ușor miros de usturoi.

Madame Bovary is a gorgeous comedy of manners… The narration is flowery and almost baroque… There is no sympathy for the characters… The snide style of the novel is unique.
Gustave Flaubert begins from afar… From the school years of Charles Bovary – the future doctor and subsequent husband of Emma Bovary… Being already married one night he visits a patient and there he meets his daughter…

Charles was surprised by the whiteness of her fingernails. They were glossy, delicate at the tips, more carefully cleaned than Dieppe ivories, and filed into almond shapes. Yet her hand was not beautiful, not pale enough, perhaps, and a little dry at the knuckles; it was also too long and without soft inflections in its contours. What was beautiful about her was her eyes: although they were brown, they seemed black because of the lashes, and her gaze fell upon you openly, with a bold candor.

Nonetheless some mysterious spark flies between them… And his destiny chooses to set him free… So there is a new marriage…

Emma, however, would have liked to be married at midnight, by torchlight; but Père Rouault found the idea incomprehensible. So there was a wedding celebration to which forty-three people came, during which they remained at table for sixteen hours, which started up again the next day and carried over a little into the days that followed.

Charles is absolutely happy… But to Emma he is just a way station…

She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only when it grew up here and there among ruins. She needed to derive from things a sort of personal gain; and she rejected as useless everything that did not contribute to the immediate gratification of her heart, – being by temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions and not landscapes.

They relocate to another town… Her daughter is born… Their life goes smoothly… But she wants more… She wants to run away from everyday routine…

But she was filled with desires, with rage, with hatred. That dress with its straight folds concealed a heart in turmoil, and those reticent lips said  nothing about its torment.

Even the most innocent romantic dreams may lead one far astray.

"Los libros que el mundo llama inmorales, son aquellos que muestran al mundo su propia vergüenza." Oscar Wilde

Cuando uno termina de leer "Madame Bovary" sabe que puede encarar la reseña que escriba desde distintos ángulos. La novela, transgresora y vanguardista en sí, el proceso constructivo que Gustave Flaubert aplicó para ella, lo que la novela generó en Francia en 1857, el tema del adulterio tratado a favor y en contra aún hoy, la personalidad de Emma Bovary e incluso el juicio al que Flaubert tuvo que someterse ese mismo año y del que salió airoso.Trataré brevemente de tocar estos puntos.
Cuando una novela rompe todos los esquemas, automáticamente se generan dos bandos: los que la aplauden de pie y los detractores que quieren destruirla junto con su autor. Casos en la literatura hay varios. El "Ulises" de James Joyce, "El guardián entre el centeno" de J. D. Salinger, "Crimen y castigo" de Fiódor Dostoievski, "El retrato de Dorian Gray" de Oscar Wilde y hasta "Don Quijote de la Mancha" de Cervantes molestaron e incomodaron a muchos por sus temáticas.
Cuando la sociedad no logra asimilar una obra (de arte) el rechazo es fuerte y hasta lleva décadas digerirlas. Considero que también sucede lo mismo en la pintura.
Lo cierto es que en el Segundo Imperio francés, donde Napoleón II ejercía junto a la Iglesia un férreo control sobre los que se publicaba, esta novela cayó mal y fue juzgada.
Era la primera vez que se establecía una diferencia muy puntual, la de diferenciar al autor del narrador. Era el estilo literario lo que rompía esta regla sustentándose en el estilo indirecto libre y la escritura impersonal.
Gustave Flaubert es llevado a juicio acusado de "ofensa a la moral pública y religiosa" francesas y muy poco tiempo después Charles Baudelaire será enjuiciado por los mismo cargos siendo culpable mientras que Flaubert no.
Los motivos de la fiscalía para enjuiciar eran según sus principios más que sobrados: el tema que dominaba a esta novela era el adulterio de Emma Bovary con ¡dos! amantes. Muy arriesgado para su época, Flaubert se jugó todo narrando una historia fuerte, como nunca antes el público había leído.
Para crear el personaje de Emma Bovary, Flaubert se nutrió de dos casos reales sucedidos unos años atrás en Francia que puntualmente hablaban de dos mujeres que engañaron a sus maridos, uno de ellos fue un pintor conocido en esos años. Ambas terminaron en suidicio.
Estas mujeres se llamaban Delphine Delamare y Louise Pradier. De esta forma, Flaubert amalgamó ambas historias y las fusionó en la figura de Emma Bovary.
Venía de un traspié literario, "La tentación de San Antonio", que reescribiría después, ya que el proyecto de esta novela le requirió la utilización de todos sus sentidos. El resultado es brillante e inolvidable.
Se ha escrito mucho acerca de Madame Bovary. Los verdaderos expertos y críticos coincidirán en la excelencia de la novela y especialmente en la estructuración del personaje de Emma Bovary, uno de los mejores logrados de la literatura.
Algunos llegaron a definir a Emma Bovary como "el Quijote con faldas". La comparación con el Caballero de la triste figura es interesante. Quijotismo y Bovarismo se asemejan. Don Quijote se afana por las conquistas de batalla en cada una de sus aventuras, la normanda busca lograr conquistas amorosas. Ambos buscan evadirse de su realidad cotidiana. Don Alonso Quijano ve gigantes en los molinos de viento, la esposa de Charles Bovary cree visualizar en sus amantes a los héroes que leyó en sus novelas.
Y es precisamente que Emma es una mujer extremadamente romántica encarcelada en una novela realista. Nuevamente citamos al Quijote. A uno la lectura de tantas novelas lo hizo tomar la lanza y buscar aventuras asido a su locura. A Emma, la lectura la lleva utilizar la ficción para conquistar a sus amantes en la vida real.
Pero todo es realismo en esta novela. Ese detalladísimo realismo flaubertiano con sus descripciones interminables del paisaje o del ambiente en el que viven los personajes ponen al lector en su sitio.
Diferenciándose del realismo de Balzac orientado a la burguesía parisina que junto con esas novelas de Stendhal se basan en el ascenso social, el de Flaubert recala en la anodina vida de los habitantes de provincia, casualmente allí donde Emma parece no encajar.
El tedio, aburrimiento e inconformismo de Emma se percibe ya desde las primeras páginas. Es una eterna soñadora. Emma y Charles son el día y la noche. Rápidamente se da cuenta del error al casarse con este medicucho intrascendente y sus autobombardeos psicológicos irán arrinconándola al vicio del engaño, a querer arrojarse en los brazos de otros hombres.
En un maravilloso artículo escrito por Charles Baudelaire en el diario L'Artiste en 1857, este define con perfección a Flaubert y a Emma Bovary: "Al autor, para culminar completamente su hazaña, no le quedaba más que despojarse (en lo posible de su sexo) y hacerse mujer. El resultado ha sido una maravilla, ya que no ha podido evitar infundir sangre viril en las venas de su criatura, y que Madame Bovary, en lo que ella tiene de más enérgico, ambicioso y soñador, no ha dejado de ser hombre."
Emma está dotada de un carácter forjado en hierro, pero recubierto de sensibilidad y pasión amorosa incontrolable. Dista mucho de ser una Eugenie Grandet. Es todo lo contrario. Fogosa, impulsiva y apasionada desde sus primeros momentos en Tostes hasta el descontrol de sus andanzas en Yonville, dónde todo transcurre.
Es más, da a luz una hija, Berthe, pero esta aparece muy poco en la novela. Recién sobre el final toma cierto protagonismo, pero no reviste gran relevancia. Aquí el protagonista principal es el corazón de Emma, secundado por su mente febril e imparable.
Los restantes personajes de la novela son muy importantes, en especial el boticario Homais quien deja en protagonismo un poco atrás al marido de Emma, Charles Bovary para imponer su personalidad avasallante.
Luego están sus amantes, el joven pasante Léon y el gentilhombre que la apasiona con sus encantos, Rodolphe Boulanger. Entre estos dos hombres, Emma dividirá su corazón y será objeto de sus más eróticos deseos y pasiones.
Emma pasa de ser apasionada a obsesiva. Comienza a tener problemas económicos suscitados por tantas escapadas clandestinas. Sufre desengaños, colapsa y por último cae sobre ella el martirio y un peor final.
Ya en la tercera parte de la novela, corre nuevamente hacia a los brazos de Léon, luego vuelve a Rodolphe. Está arruinada psíquica y económicamente. Sufre desvaríos, descontrol y delirio. Acorralada por las deudas, defraudada por sus amantes y hastiada por su desastrosa vida, cae en picada.
El final es inminente. El mismo autor lo anticipa: "El porvenir era un pasillo negro, en cuyo fondo solo e veía una puerta cerrada."
Flaubert escribe en la última página un final irónico y paradójico. Como si cerrara la historia en una horrible mueca del destino, el personaje principal ya no está, pero termina destacándose otro más impensado. Las últimas líneas de esta novela me remiten directamente a las de "La metamorfosis", de Franz Kafka.
Si tienen un minuto para leerlas, creo que encontrarán esas similitudes.
Comencé esta reseña con una frase de Oscar Wilde, porque considero que fue a partir de libros como este la forma en que la literatura supo imponer su predominio en las sociedades. La crítica por la crítica misma se cae ante la falta de argumentos.
Emma "se ocupa de leer novelas, libros inmorales, contrarias a la religión y en las que hace burla de los curas, con citas sacadas de Voltaire" condena la madre de Charles de la misma forma que un pacato fiscal que se llamó Ernest Pinard y que en 1857 quiso crucificar a Flaubert.
Lejos están, tanto en la ficción como en la realidad de lograr sus fines.
Estos libros son necesarios para darnos cuenta de lo importantes que somos los seres humanos y de que no hay ley ni crítica que pueda doblegar nuestros espíritus en busca de la verdad y la libertad.

n  Splendid, Accessible Prose in Lydia Davis' Translation of Madame Bovaryn


Madame Bovary dreams of the romantic adventures of which she reads and stands out as possibly the most self-centered anti-heroine in the Western canon. Yet, it could be that some who haven't read it have no idea of the "ending" ending (which I won't give away here).

If you haven't read this, I recommend this translation, in which Lydia Davis' prose is sublime, e.g.:

n  Love, she believed, had to come, suddenly, with a great clap of thunder and a lightning flash, a tempest from heaven that falls upon your life, like a devastation, scatters your ideals like leaves and hurls your very soul into the abyss. Little did she know that up on the roof of the house, the rain will form a pool if the gutters are blocked, and there she would have stayed feeling safe inside, until one day she suddenly discovered the crack right down the wall.n

The novel was ground-breaking in several ways, not the least of which is the well and range of human emotions that ebb and flow through the reader while marveling at Flaubert's astounding attention to detail. Clunky translations of this novel in the past took away from the experience of the sadness, anger, disgust, contempt and pity that this translation so aesthetically accentuates.

I highly recommend this translation if you haven't read this.

In this case, I think it was a bad idea to know stuff about Madame Bovary and Gustave Flaubert before starting the book. My high school English teacher loved to talk about books - and I know how she feels - but the result was quite a few spoilers for a lot of European classics. I think that knowing the author's intentions can be a bad thing and I'm certain that I was unable to keep it from influencing the way I viewed Emma Bovary and her behaviour. If you're curious about these intentions of Flaubert's: He hated the rising bourgeoisie during the nineteenth century, therefore he intentionally painted them as silly fools obsessed with romance and never satisfied with the good things life gave them.

Even so, three stars means I liked it and I did. The novel reminds me of a cross between Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Painted Veil. I found it better than the former but nowhere near as good as the latter. It is built on the same ideas of a woman being unhappy in marriage and turning to other comforts and affairs in order to try and gain some happiness and romance from life. Emma Bovary starts off a character much like Kitty from The Painted Veil, she is naive and fickle, her new husband is nice and kind but he cannot hold her interest. She longs for passion and excitement and she becomes delusional in the face of empty promises made by her secret lover.

She is a far better character than Constance Chatterley, or perhaps what I mean is that I find her selfishness and dissatisfaction with everything in life more interesting. I am not a big fan of Lawrence - a man who I believe wrote mediocre romance novels and owes his fame to what could at the time be considered shock tactics like "ohmigod, female orgasms!" and "ohmigod, affairs with the working class!" All I'm saying is that Lawrence was lucky the term "mommy porn" wasn't around back then. But Maugham is an entirely different story and I think where Emma Bovary fails and Kitty succeeds is in character growth.

In The Painted Veil, Kitty starts out naive and annoying, at times you'd like to strangle her for being so frustrating... but she suffers, she changes, she adapts and she grows into a different human being. Emma Bovary is a rather hopeless case, and if you did happen to read the spoiler in the first paragraph then you'll probably understand why I think this was Flaubert's intention all along. I will give him every credit where it's due, I think he paints a very interesting and detailed picture of a unhappy woman's life and mental workings. It has been pointed out that he doesn't judge Emma, but I sort of think he does in an indirect way. I mean, Emma Bovary and those closest to her are the ones who suffer in the end because she was so delusional and unable to be happy and satisfied with what she had. But, like I said, my opinion is undoubtedly influenced by what I already knew of Flaubert.

One more thing: I don't believe Gustave Flaubert is really Gustave Flaubert. I think he is Hercule Poirot O.O

n  
n  n

Every sentence is a considered sentence. Every sentence has a purpose. You know, I read so much just-published contemporary so-called literary fiction that I forget sometimes how great books can be. I don’t think most writers understand that every sentence can be intentional and purposeful, and I think most readers have been lulled into not expecting more. There are probably a hundred books published a year that meet this high bar but the only way to find them is to quickly let go of the ones that are flabby and bleh, no matter what sort of real-time praise they get. I’m thinking there needs to be more intention in the writing I read for me to keep on with a book and not put it down. I could say this reread has set a high bar generally in what I’m going to read for some time to come. I’m sick of the blah-blah. Ok. That’s about it.

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.

خیلی انتظار کشیدم تا کتاب مادام بوواری بە دستم رسید، اما خوشبختانه ارزششو داشت! واقعا فوق‌العاده و بی‌نظیره! یکی از شاهکارهای ادبیات فرانسه‌س.
به نظر من اگه رمان‌خون‌ها مادام بوواری رو نخونن نصف عمرشون بر فناس!
:))
این کتاب، پیشنهادم به دوستانیه که دنبال خوندن شاهکارهای ادبی هستن.