The story of Emma Bovary, an adept reader of romantic novels, facing marriage and the dullness of provincial life in Normandy.

This is an emblematic novel for a range of different reasons : its scathing style, its sorry and flawed characters, its true-to-life, acute, sharp psychological portrayals, the beauty of Flaubert's fully fleshed out prose.

Flaubert's story is also a prime opportunity to read biting irony on the pettiness of the country clerks and shopkeepers and it offers a terrific glipse at a silly, seamy, ludicrous flirt during a session of the Agricultural Fair. That speaks volumes about the odds Flaubert may have faced and the throes he may have lived in the flesh before his novel came to fruition.

-----

L'histoire malheureuse d'Emma Bovary, lectrice consommée de romans d'amour, que rien n'a préparé à vivre un mariage forcément décevant et les amourettes médiocres pour l'en distraire.

Un roman exemplaire à plus d'un titre. Son style ravageur, ses personnages et leur histoire touchante et triste, la pénétration psychologique de l'auteur, la beauté de la langue charnue de Flaubert.

Ce texte de Gustave Flaubert est aussi l'occasion de scènes mordantes sur la vie provinciale normande : opinions politiques des notables et des commerçants, une scène de séduction délicieusement stéréotypée et mièvre au cours d'une foire agricole (à l'insu et aux dépens d'Emma qui en est l'objet).

Tout ça en dit long sur les déconvenues et le désenchantement que Flaubert a dû connaître en personne avant de pouvoir accoucher de ce roman éternel.

What do we know of marriage until we marry? A glimpse at best is all that parents give their children who see the squabble not the making up after. If you lose a parent when you are young, you are robbed of even a glimpse. This purse of experience though second hand is stolen. You are poorer as a result. This is the plight of Flaubert's heroine.

In all literature, she is to me the most deserving of pity. Raised in a convent school, Married off young, fresh from a convent school, this child comes to marriage with little if any experience of life. Her only wealth is books she read growing up. Smuggled into the convent by an old seamstress, the books were romances. They are the real villains in this story.

Early in this portrait of a marriage, the young wife expresses her disappointment in her new husband this way.

"He couldn't swim, or fence, or fire a pistol, and was unable to explain a riding term she came across in a novel one day.

"Whereas a man, surely, should know about everything; excel in a multitude of activities, introduce you to passion in all its force, to life in all its grace, initiate you into all mysteries!"

"Sometimes he came home late, at ten or even twelve o'clock. He would want something to eat, and as the maid had gone to bed, Emma looked after him. . . . [He finished off the onion stew, pared the rind from his cheese, munched an apple, emptied the decanter, and took himself off to bed, where he lay down on his back and started snoring."

"Despite everything, she tried, according to theories she considered sound, to make herself in love. By moonlight in the garden she used to recite to him all the love poetry she knew, or to sing with a sigh slow melancholy songs. It left her as unmoved as before, neither did it appear to make Charles more loving or emotional."

This wife's problem isn't boredom. It is heartache. Her husband is oblivious that anything is wrong. Charles is a doctor yet detects nothing ailing his wife. Broken bones he can splint. Yet to her heart, he becomes a splinter, worsening her condition with each day. The truth is that they are both lacking in much experience of life. Charles's first marriage to a wizened widow with a bad complexion was his mother's idea and in order to set him up for life, she thinks. The widow has money, it is rumored. Charles does what his mother asks and gets married. In a scene where the first wife is fraught with fears that she will lose him - he has been visiting a patient too frequently who has a young daughter - he is not moved at all by her worries. Charles in a nutshell lacks imagination. Even when the feelings are his own. The young daughter is Emma and will become his second wife on the first's death. But his actions never draw reflection. He just bumbles along. In his medical practice his lack of though leads to an outcome for one patient that is horrific.

Then, there's Emma. Dear Emma, who does so much that is wrong, too. There's no denying that. Though the harm she does is worst to herself. Emma. Emma. Emma. Never Madame Bovary, to me. That weighty title is for dowagers or painted women with guile. If those are your taste go elsewhere to read. Emma is neither, which makes her fall so tragic. Blame her innocence or romances she once read. This child just wants to feel loved.

95th book of 2021.

3.5. So glad I finally read this even though I failed to find the apparently superior translation by Lydia Davis. That being said, Wall's translation is still stunning and is a testament to the stories about Flaubert labouring every single phrasing in his work. My main problem with it is that as a 19thC novel it is fairly predictable in its plot. In fact, most of the time you can guess how novels of this period wrap-up. The ending did carry some emotional weight though, helped by Flaubert's prose. I suppose contextually this novel becomes more powerful by Emma Bovary's actions/thoughts as a woman of the time and being written by a man no less. Nowadays adultery doesn't raise the eyebrows like it used to, of course, but it's easy to imagine what this was like at its publication. I almost gave this book 4-stars for the prose alone but honestly I was rather bored reading it at times and read it very slowly, only stomaching so many pages at once before having to put it down. I underlined a fair bit, good quotes such as, 'Love was gradually dimmed by absence, regrets were smothered by habit', and countless longer descriptions of setting, which Flaubert does quite a lot; they are beautiful but sometimes get in the way of the plot. But can you really complain about paragraphs like this?:
n  

In the summer heat, more of the bank was above water, exposing the garden walls to their base, with their little flights of steps going down to the river. It was flowing silently, swift and cold to the eye: tall clustering grasses arched over it, bending to the current, and, like cast-off green hair, uncoiled their fronds in the limpid depths. Now and then, on the tips of the reeds or the leaves of the water lilies, some slender-legged insect crawled or came to rest. Sunbeams pierced the tiny blue bubbles in the waves as they rippled and died away; the old lopped willows gazed in the water at their grey bark; out beyond, all around, the meadows looked empty.

n
So paragraphs like that almost beg for a higher rating and they deserve it. But I couldn't help but feel the elegant prose was stifled a little by everything mentioned above. Emma is a selfish and sometimes irritating character but she had my respect at the same time (or rather Flaubert did) when she thought things like, 'She wanted to do battle with men, spit in their faces, crush them all'. And yet despite this I found the novel lacking in some sort of depth. It reminded me ever so slightly of Middlemarch, though Eliot's novel is as well written if not better and brimming with philosophical depth and emotion. The more I read around the 19thC the more I realise how utterly brilliant Middlemarch was and how it is perhaps deserving of the 5-stars I failed to give it.

بیشتر از اینکه مجذوب خود داستان بشم مجذوب پردازش داستان شدم. فراز و نشیب هایی لذت بخش که حوصله ام رو سر نبرد و خسته ام نکرد. جمله هایی که منظم و با دقت کنار هم چیده شده بودن و شخصیت هایی که کنش ها و واکنش های به جا و مناسبی داشتن.

Cada vez estoy más convencido de que la forma, el estilo, es lo que marca la diferencia en un relato, mientras que lo contado no deja de ser una condición necesaria pero insuficiente y pudiera ser que ni siquiera fuera necesaria. Comprendo perfectamente a Flaubert cuando desea…

“Lo que me parece hermoso, lo que quisiera hacer, es un libro sobre nada, un libro sin atadura externa, que se mantuviese por sí mismo por la fuerza interna de su estilo, como la tierra sin ser sostenida se mantiene en el aire, un libro que casi no tuviera tema o al menos en el que el tema fuera casi invisible, si puede ser.”.

Pues bien, ese estilo, esa forma que tanto le costó al autor conseguir en su novela, es lo que no he sabido disfrutar como seguramente debiera. Parafraseando al autor, hay perlas, magníficas, brillantes, pero el collar no acaba de sentarme bien.

Todo lo demás funciona. La trama está perfectamente estructurada, desarrollada y bien contada, a veces espléndidamente bien contada. Los argumentos, interesantes, desde la crítica social (aunque ahora algunos de los personajes nos puedan parecer clichés) hasta ese tema, el principal, tan bien resumido en la frase siguiente:

“Agostando toda dicha a fuerza de quererla demasiado grande.”.

Y Emma, el gran personaje que no puede dejar indiferente a nadie, lleno de matices y ante quien nuestra postura nos calificará sin remedio.

“Acostumbrada a las cosas tranquilas, se inclinaba, por contraste a las accidentadas. Le gustaba sólo el mar por las tempestades, y el verde sólo salpicado entre ruinas. Necesitaba sacar de las cosas una especie de provecho personal; y rechazaba como cosa inútil todo lo que no contribuía al consumo inmediato de su corazón, pues de temperamento más sentimental que artista, buscaba emociones y no paisajes.”.

Habrá quien alabe su rebeldía ante todo aquello que no cumple sus elevados requisitos, quizás quiméricos; habrá quien critique su egoísmo; habrá quien guste de su rabiosa búsqueda del goce, de la aventura excitante, ese gusto tan wildesiano por lo superfluo; habrá quien le reproche su personalidad caprichosa e irresponsable; habrá quien guste de su ingenuidad, su frescura, su inconsciencia; habrá quien rechace su cursilería, su romanticismo folletinesco… y habrá a quien todo ello le parezca la composición magnífica de un ser humano.

Mi edición de la novela (traducción de Consuelo Bergés) viene rematada con la correspondencia del autor en la que se alude a la novela, y en la que encontré algunas cosas sorprendentes.

Lo primero es que la personalidad del autor no ayuda mucho a encariñarse con su obra, cosa de prejuicios a los que soy especialmente sensible. En este sentido, estoy absolutamente de acuerdo con Flaubert cuando dice aquello de que “los ídolos no hay que tocarlos: se queda el dorado en las manos.”

En segundo lugar, me llamó mucho la atención la posición del autor frente a sus personajes y frente al tema de la novela:

“Piensa que tengo que entrar a cada cinco minutos en pellejos que me son antipáticos.”

“A veces la vulgaridad de mi tema me da náuseas, la necesidad todavía en perspectiva de escribir bien tantas cosas vulgares me aterra.”

“Tengo que hacer grandes esfuerzos para imaginar mis personajes y después para hacerlos hablar, pues me repugnan profundamente.”.

Lo cual, según su propio argumentario, suponía un punto a su favor.

“Cuanto menos se siente una cosa más apto se es para expresarla exactamente”

“No hay nada peor que poner en arte sentimientos personales (..)Tu corazón, alejado en el horizonte, lo iluminará en el fondo en lugar de deslumbrarte en el primer plano.”.

Y, por último, me sorprende el sufrimiento con el que escribió la obra, el hercúleo esfuerzo que le suponía cada página, cada frase, casi cada palabra. (aunque no descarto el, como dirían mis hijos, simple postureo).

“Me da vueltas la cabeza y me arde la garganta de haber buscado, bregado, cavado, contorneado, tartamudeado y gritado, de cien mil maneras diferentes, una frase que por fin acaba de terminarse. Es buena, respondo de ello, ¡pero no ha salido sin esfuerzo!”.

Un tipo de comentario que se repite hasta la saciedad en las muchas cartas que escribió durante los cuatro años que tardó en concluir la novela, pero, cómo el propio narrador llega a decir:

“La palabra humana es como una caldera rota en la que tocamos melodías para que bailen los osos, cuando quisiéramos conmover las estrellas.”.

Recently (November 17, 2023, to be exact) I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Emma Bovary, an adaptation for the ballet and presented by The National Ballet of Canada, in Toronto. Such production was outstanding and the choreography was extraordinary.
So, as soon as I arrived home I searched for my copy of this book, because I felt the need to re-read it (but this time in English).
I read this work during my early teens, and in my memory I remembered this book being about adultery, but the adaptation for the ballet was a lot more than just that. In the ballet the portrait of mental illness was very strong and touching. You do feel sorry for the main character, but at the same time, you hate her. She is very unlikable, so I think that the majority of the negative reviews of the book are based on that alone, which I think is very unfair, but I have only to accept those opinions.

Yes, I had to re-read this book, to see what I missed out on my first reading. The ballet gave me a different perspective and I loved the adaptation.

This novel was originally serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856, and then published in two volumes the following year.

Upon its release, the French government accused Flaubert of obscenity, but, in my opinion, there is nothing vulgar, offensive or obscene about this book, but perhaps during those years no one would consider the desires of a woman as being normal. But I’m not sure if anything was lost in translation.

But it is said that this is a work of profound humanity, and according to some, it opened a new age of realism in literature.

Yes, I have to agree that the development of the storyline is not very engaging.
This is not a page turner.

My favourite part of the book was the last 20%, which was very well written and tragic.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the time it was written and I had to take that fact into consideration, hence my ratings.

I did read this edition and at the same time I listened to the audiobook narrated by Leelee Sobieski (on Audible).

I noticed some differences in the words/phrases such as below:

Audio x ebook

Stifled laugh x stifled bomb

Five hundred lines x five hundred verses

She always accompanied him x She always reconducted him

I didn’t write all of the difference between editions (there were too many), but this sample will give you an idea of what I’m trying to say.
After a few chapters I switched editions and found one that was exactly like the audiobook (it happens to be an edition by Amazon Classics).

I should have googled for the one considered as the best translated edition, before starting.
Anyways, I did it after and this was the result: “The original, classic translation from 1886 is the one by Eleanor Marx-Aveling (the youngest daughter of Karl Marx) and the one that's trendy now is the 2010 translation by Lydia Davis.”

Paperback (published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction): 368 pages

ebook (kindle - Amazon Classics): 372 pages (default)

ebook (Kobo), The Floating Press (Release Date: January 1, 2008): 399 pages (default), 115k words

Audible - Audiobook narrated by Leelee Sobieski: 12h 32min (normal speed)

Emma is a rather silly, very passionate ( too much so) bored, uneducated to the reality of the real world young woman, who believes in the romantic novels she reads, moonlight walks, eerie, forbidding castles, dangerous flights into unknown, and strange lands always trying to escape their frightening captors... brave, handsome men, that are faithful to their beautiful virtuous women, fighting the evil, monstrous, corrupt but attractive libertines and the hero rescuing them in the nick of time...Emma lives on a farm in mid nineteenth century France, the widower, a remote still gentle father, Monsieur Rouault anxious to get rid of his useless daughter, and though he enjoys the work, is not very good at it, ( farming) but a considerably better businessman; being an only child, she wants excitement. Hating the monotonous country, dreaming about the titillating city, Paris and the fabulous people and things there. Yet meeting and marrying the dull, common , hardworking good doctor, Charles Bovary who fixed her father's broken leg, he adores his pretty wife, life has to be better elsewhere she thinks, so agrees to the marriage proposal. Moving to the small, tedious village of Tostes , Emma regrets soon her hasty marriage. Even the birth of a daughter, Berthe who she neglects, not a loving mother the maid raises , has no effect on her gloomy moods. She craves romance, her husband is not like the men in her books, ordinary looking, not fearless or intelligent, words do not inspire coming out of his mouth, he lacks the intense feelings she wants. After moving to another quiet village, Yonville (Ry) clueless Bovary thinks the change of scenery, will lift his listless wife out of her funk. The local wealthy landowner Rodolphe Boulanger, sees the pretty Emma, senses her unhappiness and seduces , a veteran at this sort of thing, he has had many mistresses in the past. At first the secret, quite perilous, thrilling rendezvous behind the back of Emma's house, clandestine notes, reckless walks in the predawn mornings to his Chateau, reminds Emma of her novels... but everything becomes routine, no better than married life. Rodolphe gets annoyed, unexcited, he also doesn't feel like the beginning, sends a letter breaking off the affair. The emotional Emma becomes very ill, her husband fears that she may die, puzzled at the sudden sickness. A slow recover ensues, Emma still has the same husband, starts another affair with a clerk, shy Leon Dupuis, younger than she more grateful too not like the previous lover, the erratic Madame Bovary is in control. In the nearby town of Rouen in Normandy they meet every week, until this also becomes uninteresting, the spendthrift woman behind her trusting, loving, naive , husband's back drives them to ruin through her unreasonable buying sprees . Emma Bovary learns much too late, that the only person who loves her, is the unremarkable man she married. What can I say, love or hate this , it remains a controversial classic , the crowds flock to.

***NO SPOILERS***

Gustave Flaubert’s beautiful way with words can’t compensate for Madame Bovary’s lackluster tale of Emma Bovary trapped in an unhappy marriage to boring Charles. It sounds like a soap opera--this premise that has been explored before--but unlike a soap opera, Madame Bovary lacks what makes soap operas so watchable for so many: drama and tension. Here the marriage is the focus, yet strangely, Flaubert never honed that focus nor did he keep the focus on the marriage for much of the book. Madame Bovary wanders off on numerous tangents--even opening on a tangent--that have no bearing on the plot. This makes for an uneven reading experience. Just when the main story involving Emma and Charles heats up, it switches gears to focus on an agricultural fair or soporific discussion of club feet.

The story’s biggest offense is its direct telling. The union between Emma and Charles is an unhappy one because Flaubert says it is. Emma falls in love with her lovers and they her just because; the actual falling in love is never shown. Similarly, Emma is unhappy with Charles simply because, according to Flaubert, Charles is dull. This is a story long on exposition and short on showing. Dialogue is scarce. Action is languid, with no urgency. There’s no hook.

At no point does Madame Bovary pull readers into the heart of the story and hold them right there. This is what happens when the couple at the center of the story isn’t well drawn. Flaubert sat down to write a story about a woman in crisis, whose marriage is a failure, whose husband she finds inadequate. This premise has so much potential for drama--but not if the two main characters are mere outlines. Flaubert shined the spotlight on Charles so infrequently that it’s hard to get a sense of him outside of what he does for a living; he interacts little with Emma except to fawn over her. Emma is insipid, self-absorbed, unsatisfied, and depressed, but this is all there is to her. These aren’t characters with life. Put them together, and they simply stand beside each other limply. There’s no being gripped by the mounting tension and drama as husband and wife slowly realize their marriage is disintegrating.

Nevertheless, the story is, at least, a good portrait of depression and despair. This focus may exasperate some readers, but Flaubert depicted the depth and emptiness of loss deftly--and he did so many times throughout. Some may complain this lends a sulky tone to Madame Bovary, and it's true that there are long, angsty (maybe melodramatic) passages; however, because of the care Flaubert took with authenticity, here Madame Bovary is shot through with realism.

The novel is most impressive for its writing, which is straightforward and accessible while also beautiful at times:

. . . the fiery glow that had reddened her pale sky grew gray and gradually vanished. In this growing inner twilight she even mistook her recoil from her husband for an aspiration toward her lover, the searing waves of hatred for a rekindling of love. But the storm kept raging, her passion burned itself to ashes, no help was forthcoming, no new sun rose on the horizon. Night closed completely around her, and she was left alone in a horrible void of piercing cold.

(See also the saved quotation below this review.) This is a review of the Francis Steegmuller translation, an excellent translation (save “innocent of stockings” for “barefoot”) that preserved Flaubert’s mastery of words. This is where Madame Bovary’s verve lies--in the words, not the story.

On the flip side, excessive description loses readers while once again taking the story down an annoyingly tangential path. In particular, Flaubert lovingly described his characters’ clothing and appearance, and landscapes received only slightly less attention. This could be chalked up to scene-setting, but it’s hard to argue how the number of flounces on a dress is relevant (or is even interesting). With the large cast of characters being mostly bland and extraneous, it looks like Flaubert hoped vivid descriptions of appearance could stand in for vivid characterization. In short, Madame Bovary’s artistic writing is what takes the breath away, not the story, which sounds more scandalous than it actually is.

مدام بوفاري
هذه المرأة التي لا تدري أتحتقرها أم تبكي عليها
أتشفق على حالها أم تلعنها

فيا لكل هذا البؤس
ويا لكل هذا السخط
..

وربما يكون السخط هو مفتاح الرواية الرئيسي
فهو الشعور الذي يمزق إيما لحما ودما وتأوهات
لقد انبثقت تعاستها جزعا ووجعا وتهورا وتمردا‏
ولكن الأنكى من هذا كله
خيانةً

::::::::::::::::::::::::


بلغت الأنانية بإيما مبلغا جعلها تحطم كل القوانين
لا القوانين التي ابتدعها البشر والتي لا أبالي بها‏
بل قوانين الإنسانية التي كان عليها تقديمها على هذا الشبق الذي ملأ ‏كيانها
فجعلها تنساق ملهوفة أمام كل رغبة ملونة زاهية
ضاربة بعرض الحائط كل وخز مؤنب بداخلها
بأن عليها ألا تخون

ألا تخون...‏
‎
فهل نعذر مدام بوفاري لأنها تعيش جحيمها الخاص
لأنها تعاني البرود وهي جمرة متقدة
لأنها انزلقت آملة في حياة شغوفة ‏
تبدد الحيرة والألم والسأم

لأنها أرادت أن تعيش كيفما ترى للعيش معنى..؟
‎
بالتأكيد ستبكي معها وعليها
ولكنك لن تتوقف عن لعنها كذلك

::::::::::::::::::::::::

قيمة الرواية تتجلى في قدرة الكاتب المدهشة
على الغوص بداخل ‏دماغ مدام بوفاري وتبيان هذا التخبط المزاجي الذي عاشته
وجعل قارئه يعيش الحيرة طوال الرواية وحتى بعد إتمامها

فلوبير بروايته هذه اتجه بقوة نحو الكتابة الواقعية ‏
منفلتا من أسر الأدب الرومانسي‏

مثريا روايته بعمق النظرة
ومبحرا في دهاليز شخصياته بهواجسها وأمنياتها المعلقة
وعارضا للأفكار بتضاربها واختلافاتها ‏
وهذا الدافع الآثم المطهِّر بداخل كل واحد فينا‏
للتحرر ..‏
للهروب من قيود فرضتها علينا مجتمعات وأيدولوجيات لا ذنب لنا في كوننا جوارها
ولكن أبدا ابدا لا نكون جزءا منها

I dedicate this review to my dear friends Will, Jeffrey and Sidharth, whose wise words have always inspired me


SPOILERS


n  "Did she not seem to be passing through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her brow the vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself seized by an icy charm...But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate. That dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted heart, of whose torment those chaste lips said nothing."n


If Emma Bovary had been born into another century, into our century, she could have been a great artist. It is arguable whether she has the talent, but she certainly has the soul. Her weakness could have been her strength in our times. Unfortunately, she lived in the XIX century society that didn’t encourage her sensitiveness, her gentleness, her highly emotional and romantic nature. Instead, she lived in one that did not tolerate passion, assertiveness and freedom of spirit and mind in women. (Her father sees her as useless and instead of trying to help her grow, develop, he is only too quick to find her a husband, and this husband and his mother go as far as forbidding her to read novels) When we long to be understood, to be happy, to be connected, we also long to be seen. For someone else to see what we ourselves cannot or don’t want to see. Sometimes we live on the edge of self-discovery and we only need a gentle push into the right direction. Emma waits, hopes to be saved, to be discovered, to be helped. Like all of us, she longes to be noticed and appreciated.


n  "At the bottom of her heart she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. Each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow."n


However, all those rudiments that could have resulted into something wonderful, were molded into something destructive. She is too obsessed, too possessed by her desires. Her romantic nature dives her to harsh judgementalism, she is condemned and renounces everyone and everything that falls short of her idea of perfection. She is a woman incapable of seeing nuances. She is a woman of extremities. Even her feelings are such. Both her joys and disappointments are to the max.


n  "Accustomed to calm aspects of life, she turned to those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of its storms, and the green fields only when broken up by ruins. She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate desires of her heart, being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, looking for emotions, not landscapes."n


Would she have been happier had she found what she was looking for? And what does she look for? A man with the imagination and passion her husband lacks and with the loyalty and trustworthiness her lovers fail to provide. One might argue that Charles offers her at least the latter. But I don’t think so. Does he want her to be happy? Yes. Does he love her? Very much so. But love and connection aren’t the same thing. She condemnd him for being so very far away from her ideal and he condemns her by failing to be interested into the inner workings and struggles of her soul. He isn't even aware of them. He is a man satisfying himself with the ostensible. He isn't a man of deep thoughts and desires. This simplicity partially takes a good direction, because it results into a calm, amiable, trusting and optimistic nature, into a man needing a little to be happy. He is easily content. He is a man in denial. A man who needs a hurricane to wake him up. To me the two of them, while miles away from each other in other ways, are very much alike in their inability to see nuances. They are equally blind, equally self-absorbed. And they mutually destroy each other.


n  "Charles’s conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and every one’s ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought. A man, on the contrary, should he not know everything, excel in manifold activities, initiate you into the energies of passion, the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one taught nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her happy; and she resented this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the very happiness she gave him...If he had but wished it, if he had guessed it, if his look had but once met her thought, it seemed to her that a sudden plenty would have gone out from her heart, as the fruit falls from a tree when shaken by a hand. But as the intimacy of their life became deeper, the greater became the gulf that separated her from him."n


The same could be said for Rodolphe, who is too lost in his idea of women being weak, superficial and undeserving of his loyalty and affection. He falls in love with her, but fights with this love and his desire to give into it until the end.


n  "Because lips libertine and venal had murmured such words to him, he believed but little in the candour of hers; exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre affections must be discounted; as if the fulness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest metaphors, since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars."n


He does not want to believe that Emma draws from a deeper well. Maybe too deep. Yet, would she have been happy had he stayed by her side, had he taken her away from her unhappy, lifeless marriage? I doubt it.


n  "She did not know if she regretted having yielded to him, or whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to enjoy him the more. The humiliation of feeling herself weak was turning to rancour, tempered by their voluptuous pleasures. It was not affection; it was like a continual seduction. He subjugated her; she almost feared him."n


When we are too fixated on some purpose, if we reject everything and everyone else that falls short from the image we carry within ourselves, even if we do achieve our dream, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the result. I have always believed that our ability to appreciate the grand things is build upon our ability to cherish the little ones. Is the ultimate goal the only goal? It is so for her. Only in the end, on her deathbed, she reveals a deeper, calmer, more compassionate, more conscientious side of her, which only shows that had she been given a chance, she could have been someone very, different.


n  "So she had done, she thought, with all the treachery, and meanness, and numberless desires that had tortured her. She hated no one now; a twilight dimness was settling upon her thoughts, and, of all earthly noises, she heard none but the intermittent lamentations of this poor heart, sweet and distinct like the echo of a symphony dying away."n


We breathe life into others through both our happiness and our sorrow. We are always open to the former, but seldom to the latter. I see this book as one illustrating what happens to women stuck into society that suppresses them, smothers them, that pushes them into a corner and leaves them there to rot. Another person’s misery can be our own awakening. However, there are many who, like the characters in this novel, always choose to look the other way. And there are many who see human heart as something to step on and human misery as something to build upon. We all strive to build ourselves strong, but many believe that the best way to do so is by closing their hearts to human weakness and pain, including their own. But I believe that if we devoid ourselves of empathy, we deny ourselves happiness as well. My friend Will has told me more than once “It is important to let yourself feel the pain” My friend Jeffrey has told me "It is both weakness and strength' And my friend Sidharth has told me more than once, to be sensitive is to be vulnerable, but it is also to be alive. I believe that we are truly alive only when we have something/someone we would die for.

Read count: 1

Henry James once said, "Madame Bovary has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone; it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgment."

That's right. Defies judgment.


I don't know... he looks kind of judgy to me...

Unfortunately, I had to read a translation as my French is nowhere near good enough to read the original. Though I am assured that the prose in the original French are amazing and inspiring.

I can certainly appreciate the characterization and story-telling ability but I personally struggled with the story as I reconciled what Flaubert seemed to be saying about society, women, women who had affairs, men and romance.

Now, I would like to take a moment to quote Manny's Review, since he is the one who convinced me to read this book in the first place.

"Flaubert makes no obvious attempt to judge Emma..."

No, Flaubert doesn't break up his beautiful prose at any point with, "So whilst that is a very nice tree, I would like to intrude and mention that Emma is, like, a total ho! So, now back to the tree..."

I feel he doesn't do this because that would be superfluous. In fact, it seems to me that he doesn't stop judging through this entire book.

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The judgement is like looking at vacation photos of a ninja family. You can't see it but you know it's there.

Why else would Flaubert so meticulously describe and relish in Emma's fall from grace? Every little detail is mentioned with the same eagerness as a kid dobbing in their little brother. He puts together a file of evidence for her complicity, a smoking gun as you'd say, and leaves it up to us to point the finger.

-She immediately decides after her wedding night that she doesn't love Charles.
-She then sets about creating her own misery by obsessing and romanticizing this unhappiness until it consumes her.
-She goes from a productive and proficient housewife to a morose, unrelenting mess.
-She quickly begins despising Charles and blaming him for everything while he dotes on her and grows increasingly content.
-Her home quickly falls into a state of shabbiness.
-Her daughter goes neglected.
-Her first romance uses her unforgivably but is eventually driven away by her incessant neediness and demands.
-Her second romance, whilst more earnest in his affections, is also driven away by her incessant neediness, deteriorating mental health and demands.
-She drives her husband into bankruptcy.
-Commits suicide to escape it all.
-Her husband falls into despair, neglects their child and quickly dies.
-The child ends up working in a cotton factory.

What would a child do working in a cotton factory, you ask?

Oh, just a little mill-scavenging. Their job was to crawl under the huge, spinning WHEELS OF DEATH to pick up the spare bits of cotton. They were not allowed to sit, rest, or take a break while the mill ran - which was always except for Sunday when they cleaned the huge, spinning WHEELS OF DEATH that caused these children to live in a constant state of grief and terror

Well, doesn't that just cheer you up!

The entire story arc and every unnecessary tidbit condemns Emma like one more nail in the coffin. Society is condemned, men are condemned, romantic idealism is condemned. Really, this novel thinks everyone is to blame. What is this novel's answer to it? It seems to be saying, "Well, that silly woman had so much and she threw it all away and look at her now, kids. She's dead! And poor, which is really much worse."

The novel seems to step back and tsk at Emma, saying that she had so much. A safe and comfortable home, a good husband who doted on her and she just couldn't be happy with that.

Then it looks at society and says, "Well, you created this and now you've helped destroy her too, you assholes!"

It shakes its head at Charles and says, "You weren't strong enough to keep her in line and then you pined over this worthless woman to the ruinment of your only child."

But I wonder what this book would have been if Emma hadn't been a victim to everyone and every circumstance except for Charles. I wonder what this book would have been like if it displayed a far more realistic approach to a woman having an affair and her reasons. Because, let's face it, this book's depiction of a woman and why she has extra-marital relations is very obtuse. Emma's life and situation is hardly the common for women who seek more out of life. This book makes her quest for more seem silly, unneccessary and ungrateful.

Most of all, I wonder what this novel would have been like if it had dealt with Emma as a real character. One who didn't need to be mostly insane to justify having an affair. One who wasn't both stupid and entitled and didn't lose all her money through a lack of self-control and ability to take five seconds to do the math. One who was capable of growing and learning from life.

Unfortunately all that is lost. Even in the end, Emma learnt nothing. All sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

Much like this novel.

My final criticism about this book...

This was a book about people gettin' it on...

AND THERE WAS NO SEX!

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Curse you, Flaubert! Curse you!

“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