I read this a long time ago but the only thing I could remember about it was that I read it a long time ago. Also that some lady was married to some really boring guy. This turned out to be true. Madame Bovary was like the young Juliette Binoche from Three Colours



And her husband was like Jessie Plemons from The Power of the Dog



He is the guy who the instant he gets married puts on fifty pounds and ages 20 years so it is not to anyone’s surprise that the hot tomato that is his wife gets so she glazes over as soon as she hears the chilling phrase "Honey I’m home." Here is Juliette’s – sorry, Emma’s very own father, pondering Charles Bovary :

It was true he thought him a bit of a loser, and not what he’d have chosen as a son-in-law, but people said he was careful with his money

Not a ringing endorsement.

Emma, she is grabbing Charles to get out of the house where she feels like a prisoner, the impulsive fate of many young women. Quite soon she is feeling like she swapped one prison for another.

Flaubert can make exquisite phrases, here is one :

Her will, like the veil attached to her hat, flutters with every breeze; always there is the desire inviting her on, and, always, convention holding her back.

Desire for what? Well, her husband's idea of passion was to have sex once a week on Saturday night in the exact same position if he wasn't too tired. She thinks life should have more possibilities. She is looking for something other than the smothering blandness and monotony of being a rural doctor’s pretty missus, something to get her blood surging, something, anything.

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…. She was sometimes astonished at the appalling possibilities that came into her head; and yet she must go on smiling, go on hearing herself repeat that she was happy, and let everyone believe it!

Eventually she meets a local rich guy who is a Player, which, the Urban Dictionary reminds us, is

A Man or Woman that has MORE than ONE person think that they are the ONLY ONE.

This Rodolphe takes one look at Emma and thinks

Poor little thing! Gasping for love like a carp gasping for water on a kitchen table. With just three little words of love, it would worship you, I’d bet on it, it would be so tender and charming! Yes, but how to get rid of it afterwards?

So they have this years-long affair and she almost melts his heart – but no, not really. Are you kidding, not Rodolphe! Eventually, as you might predict :

Certain of being loved, he stopped taking pains to please her, and imperceptibly his manner changed.

Flaubert skewers this boyfriend without mercy, allowing us into his player brain most uncomfortably :

He had heard all these things said to him so many times that they no longer held any surprises for him. Emma was just like all his mistresses, and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion., which never varies in its forms and its expression. He could not see – this man of such broad experience – the difference of feeling beneath the similarity of expression.

People say that Flaubert doesn’t comment on his characters and just pins them up like a butterfly collector, but as you see, he is explicit in telling us Rodolphe is a nasty nasty man, but, you know, normally nasty. Here’s another great turn of phrase about this creep :

His pleasures, like boys playing in a school yard, had so thoroughly trampled on his heart that nothing green would grow there

There is a great moment when he has to write a big goodbye letter to Emma – she’s preparing to run off with him, abandon her husband and daughter in a snap – she is so in love with him – and he finished the letter then thinks hmm, there’s something missing, and drips a single drop of water onto the page. Yes, a tear will make it look more heartfelt.

The intimate story of Emma’s decline and fall is psychologically gripping, even though this is a simple age-old story we have had before in a thousand variations. Flaubert was the great anti-romantic, he was the auditor of human disillusion. You are with Emma so closely throughout this novel that her death, even though you know it will come, is still shocking. It was very similar to watching the great documentary Amy, about Amy Winehouse. The final scene where we see her being taken out of her house in a body bag gives you a real jolt of horror.

Readers should be warned of one thing however : James Joyce said he wanted to write Ulysses so that if Dublin burned to the ground they could rebuild it by referring to his novel. He may have got that super-realist detail mania from Flaubert who thinks that Madame Bovary should be the encyclopedia of rural France, so prepare for boring conversations between pharmacists and doctors and farmers and other farmers and a 60 page description of an agricultural fair. Some of this can be zzzzzzz. I would normally knock off half a star for that kind of thing but not in this case.

Madame Bovary is a great novel. 5 stars, of course.

Madame Bovary es sobre la figura de la mujer y el hombre en medio de la realidad burguesa.

Antes de empezar con mi reseña (que es un poco extensa) hay tres puntos importantes dentro de la obra dignos de análisis:
1. La narrativa, ya que ella se caracteriza por dos cosas: la ironía situacional que la hay muchísima y los pasajes descriptivos que se apegan a ese movimiento realista que se busca recrear, donde hay puntos muy buenos y otros que cansan con toda la monotonía y el día a día de la vida rural del campo.
2. La evidente crítica a un sistema burgués que no es correcto moralmente y que desborda una sucesión de hipocresía, convenciones sociales y política que castigan a sus participantes.
3. Y por último pero no menos importante: Emma Bovary. De la cual es la que voy a hablar durante toda esta reseña y su complicada relación con los hombres y el entorno que la rodea.

Advertencia: ¡Posibles spoiler!

Ahora sí, Madame Bovary es una novela que en su tiempo fue una obra que generó muchísima polémica porque expone a lo largo de su extensión por medio de la vida de hombres burgueses, la mediocridad, la crueldad y la hipocresía masculina tomando a la vez como centro la figura de una mujer que busca bajo sus propios términos el significado del amor, la felicidad y la libertad de su vida personal, el poder manejar los hilos de su presente y su futuro a su antojo. Y lo hace de formas sociales no correctas y bien vistas.

Y es que mediante la idealización de la protagonista y de las mujeres en general dentro de la sociedad, que deben cumplir ciertos parámetros y comportamientos muestra una cruda realidad social que la condena, la mantiene enjaulada, inconforme e infeliz. Flaubert construye una crítica a la burguesía como un constructo social y económico castigador en el que la mujer tiene un final trágico y los hombres en su mayoría mantienen el status quo.

De hecho, desde que la novela inserta a Emma, esta se presenta como una mujer soñadora y romántica, que toma como expectativas llevar una vida igual que la que se ve reflejada en la literatura, en esos libros que devora con ansias. Emma es un personaje que tarde o temprano no sabrá medir esas expectativas con la realidad que está viviendo y que por mucho que desee una vida de ciudad, con amores apasionados, lujos, teatro, música, bailes, vestidos sofisticados, noticias y emoción sin límites, se encuentra muy lejos de cumplirlo porque es una burguesa que lleva una vida medianamente acomodada en el campo, donde debe enfrentarse a la monotonía, el aburrimiento, el hastío, la falta de acontecimientos y la falta de pasión y amor hacia su aburrido marido, el cual la desespera hasta el punto de vivir comparando su realidad con la expectativas que le generaron los libros.

Es por eso mismo, que al no estar contenta con su presente, Emma busca en los brazos de otros hombres la felicidad que cree merecer, es una mujer que aunque caprichosa e infiel, al menos no se rinde ante lo que la sociedad le ha impuesto. Desde allí, empieza a romperse esa barrera y ella como mujer en la literatura es de esos pocos y contados casos en el cánon al salirse del típico actuar pasivo en la figura femenina. Y encima, el de ser una mujer correcta y ejemplar.

Primero intenta una relación con Rodolphe sin saber que él no la ve como su igual sino como una conquista entre las tantas que ha tenido hasta que al final la deja sola y desamparada con sus ilusiones luego de haberle endulzado el oído. Y luego, si bien su segundo amante (León) es más parecido a ella porque está en su sintonía, ya que es un hombre que consume literatura y arte, le gusta la pintura, la música y la poesía (otro individuo fantasioso e igual de soñador que ella), al final ambos se aburren el uno del otro y este termina dándole la espalda por su posición social y laboral, que es más importante que una aventura.

Luego Emma es engatusada por Lheureux, el comerciante de telas que no duda en hacer lo que esté en sus manos para embaucar por una espiral de deudas a la familia Bovary, especialmente a Emma y sus ganas de llevar una vida de lujos y excesos endulzándole el oído. La tienta con préstamos e intereses abusivos que los lleva a la ruina financiera, lo que demuestra el gran nivel de deshonestidad del personaje.

Y otro personaje despreciable es Homais, un hombre que desde la llegada de la familia Bovary al pueblo quiso mostrarse como un hombre ejemplar e inteligente en muchos temas, tratando de sobresalir y de demostrar conocimientos y habilidades que nunca tuvo para ganarse la confianza del nuevo médico y codearse con las altas esferas sociales ganando renombre y ascenso económico. Una vez que el médico cae en ruinas (en parte por su culpa) y también daña su reputación no se acerca a él nunca más y como una amarga ironía el farmacéutico al final termina recibiendo y ganando una medalla de honor.

Volviendo al punto de la protagonista, Emma solo quiere ser libre y por eso el concepto de libertad no es de extrañarse que ella lo encuentre en la figura de un hombre, ya que estos si bien en sociedad también son castigados por la moral, la mujer lo lleva mucho más peor. No es casualidad que dos escenas en el libro sean reveladoras, la primera de ella cuando se mira en un espejo y toma ciertos atributos estilísticos y físicos que acorde a los estereotipos de género debe llevar un hombre o que cuando está embarazada ella desee con todas sus fuerzas que ese bebé sea un niño para que cuando crezca como hombre tenga menos límites y ataduras que una mujer.

Y es que existe un subtexto muy evidente en el que las mujeres están condenadas a ser infelices por las convenciones sociales, por eso cuando se dirige a Berta le dice "pobre hija", porque es mil veces preferible que hubiera nacido hombre y sabe lo que le deparará en un futuro, ya que ser mujer constriñe puertas, cierra oportunidades, te doblega y te encierra en una prisión con las manos esposadas y con cada paso cuidadosamente medido.

Siguiendo ese hilo de pensamiento, es por eso mismo que la rebeldía de Emma para con el mundo y su realidad social, aquella de la que reniega es lo que la lleva a su propia autodestrucción. Y es que gracias a su falta de conformismo termina fracasando contra la irónica fuerza de los hombres burgueses y la realidad de esa sociedad, donde quienes al final terminan triunfando son todos ellos y a ella la dejan sola, utilizada, abandonada, estafada y en últimas: desesperada hasta querer morir.

No es casualidad que luego del funeral de ella su esposo la llore y la recuerde, pero sus amantes duerman tranquilamente como si su existencia nunca les hubiera afectado en nada. Es más, la vida sigue su curso: Rodolphe vive, León se casa, el comerciante sale indemne y Homais logra su cometido alcanzando su renombre a costa de otros. Lo que deja a Emma en un final autodestructivo por rebeldía y exceso mientras que el resto se integra como si nada a esa realidad social que enfrentan.

Ya como conclusión, la novela de Flaubert pone sobre la mesa como protagonista a una mujer que fue un escándalo en su tiempo por seguir sus propios intereses, dejando de lado la idealización de la mujer como una figura ejemplar y que solo debía contentarse con la vida que le tocó. Además de que hace una crítica a los valores burgueses, ya que describe el ascenso de la pequeña burguesía rural a través de la caracterización de varios de sus personajes principales: por un lado el aburrido y conformista marido de Emma, el comerciante manipulador con quien esta se endeuda, los amantes que al final siguen con su vida como si ella hubieran sido una piedra en el zapato y por último, el arribista e hipócrita farmacéutico. Todos ellos hombres que conforman un círculo de valores burgueses en cuyo interior se encontró enjaulada Emma Bovary, la víctima de un sistema que penaliza la emancipación de la mujer y la castiga psicológicamente hasta llevarla al suicidio.

Since I read Quicksand by Nella Larsen this week, Emma Bovary started haunting my mind yet again!

We are old friends, Emma and I.

I spent hours and hours over a dictionary at age seventeen in high school, trying to read about her agonies in original French, with only the Isabelle Huppert film as a guidance. In fact, I actually think I owe it to Emma Bovary that I finally made it over the threshold to understand written French. That ultimately led me to university studies in French literature, and a lifelong love for French writers. In a way, I could argue that Emma introduced me to Diderot and Voltaire, I guess.

But she did so much more for me, as well.

She awakened in me a sense that the world holds different options for women and men, and that women's dreams are dangerous, detrimental and slightly sentimental and ridiculous. She made me socially, politically angry for the first time.

I know there are thousands of erudite studies showing all the weaknesses of Emma Bovary, but from the start, I could not - would not - see her that way. I was with her when she danced in the ballroom, and I wished the party would never end. I hated the conventional goodness of Charles, and understood Emma's frustration with him better than his frustration with her. After all, she had ideas, dreams, longings, and he had: routine, reputation and boredom.

I rejoiced that she dared to do what men have always, always allowed themselves to do: enjoy a sexual life of her own choice. She knew she would pay a much higher price than any man ever would for that freedom. I loved the fact that she embraced life in its passion and pain, and I suffered through the horrifying pages of her brutal final agony with the feeling that I would not have wanted her to say no to one single piece of experience in exchange for a better end - living according to her husband's standards would have been death over and over, without end.

I am fully aware that this is not a moral reading or interpretation of the novel, and I don't encourage or follow her choices in real life, but I loved Emma Bovary's daring rebellion without limits when I was young, and it has never actually changed. Whenever I remember my encounter with Emma, the first thought invariably is: "Go girl! Do what you want!"

To close the circle: reading Larsen's Quicksand made me think of Emma because the character Helga Crane, not fully belonging anywhere, and drifting from one place to the next, never really lives her dreams fully. She always pulls out, runs away, hides from too strong emotions, and in the end, she resigns herself to rural life with a preacher she hates, and multiple pregnancies to bind her to the hopeless boredom and tedium.

Reading about Helga, I found myself thinking again with fondness of Madame Bovary: "Go girl! Do what you want!"

Why are all the "great classics" lead by famed female heroines all too often about personal freedom thru means of sexual compromise leading to abject misery and ultimate demise? I realize it's an accurate depiction of culture and times, however why are Bovary and Moll Flanders the memorable matriarchs of classic literature? See my commentary on the Awakening for similar frustrations. Why aren't there more works about strong women making a difference in their own lives if not those of their families and communities? Why aren't we having young women read a work or 2 portraying a strong female who doesn't end up having an affair, committing suicided, or otherwise screwing up her own life and the lives of others as she sinks to the bottom where she inevitably belonged? Where are the strong, sentient heroines who might make feminists look slightly intelligent and/or inspirational?

"Her will, like the veil strung to her bonnet, flutters in every breeze; always there is the desire urging, always the convention restraining."

Most of us, at one time or another, have wished for some elusive ‘thing’ that we believed would make our lives complete, but Emma Rouault has turned wishful thinking into an art form. Life on her father's farm is dull as dishwater, so to escape the boredom, she reads romance novels and dreams of a white knight on a majestic steed who will carry her away.

Enter Charles Bovary, a country doctor coddled far too long by his mother, who barely graduated from medical school and experienced nothing but bad luck in love. The last thing he needs is a flighty, beautiful wife with Champagne tastes that far exceed his income. But when Emma’s father breaks his leg, and Charles is called in to mend it, the farmer’s daughter bewitches him, and their fates are sealed.

My heart ached for Charles; he loved his wife and would have given anything to see her happy. But he had to engage with Emma; destructive, miserable Emma… I longed to reach into the pages and give her a good shake. She continually chased a dream while ignoring the steadfast love that waited patiently for her on her doorstep.

Madame Bovary is a tremendous tragedy brimming with beautiful prose. Bravo, Monsieur Flaubert!

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.

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...

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...).

Moira posted a terrific review of Rabbit Redux the other day, and it made me realise something I should have noticed years ago. Rabbit Angstrom is Emma Bovary's literary grandson! As Moira says, Updike was deeply influenced by Nabokov, a fact that had somehow passed me by. Nabokov, in his turn, was a disciple of Flaubert; he famously said that he'd read all Flaubert, in the original French, by the time he was 14. So the family tree is clear enough.

It's one of those cases, though, where things have sort of skipped a generation. It's not hard to see that the three authors are stylistically close. But Flaubert and Updike are both ultra-naturalistic and Nabokov is not, and Nabokov also has quite a different take on psychology compared to the other two. So you don't immediately link Updike to Flaubert, or at least I didn't; though I do remember, at least once, defending Rabbit by comparing him with Emma. It seemed somehow like a reasonable comparison, but I'd thought it was just a chance resemblance.

Now that I have the missing link, it's all painfully obvious. The central characters in both stories are marked by early experiences which give them exaggerated hopes of what they can expect out of life; Rabbit is a high-school basketball star, and Emma attends the unfortunate ball at the château La Vaubyessard. After this, everything is a disappointment to them, and they find life with their respective partners, Janice and Charles, dull and stultifying. Their sense of frustration drives them into increasingly disastrous sexual liaisons, which eventually kill them and destroy several other lives as well.

Flaubert makes no obvious attempt to judge Emma, which led to many of his contemporaries denouncing the book as wicked, immoral and even obscene, charges which are often applied to Updike for similar reasons; many American readers today dislike Rabbit as much as late nineteenth century French readers disliked Emma. To me, these criticisms are completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not Rabbit and Madame Bovary are great books. We see Emmas and Rabbits all around us; ignoring the novels is hardly going to make them go away. And the language is so delightful, especially Flaubert's.

I'm in the middle of reading Madame Bovary for the third time. Emma has just met Rodolphe: he's put together a crude but effective seduction strategy, which he's already starting to implement. As usual, I'm willing her not to fall for him, but I don't think it's going to work out the way I want it to. Poor Emma.

_______________________________________________

Finished. It's an almost perfect book, that you can read any number of times. Here are some of my favourite passages.

The trashy novels that Emma reads when she's feeling depressed during the early years of her marriage:

Ce n'étaient qu'amours, amants, amantes, dames persécutées s'évanouissant dans des pavillons solitaires, postillons qu'on tue à tous les relais, chevaux qu'on crève à toutes les pages, forêts sombres, troubles du coeur, serments, sanglots, larmes et baisers, nacelles au clair de lune, rossignols dans les bosquets, messieurs braves comme des lions, doux comme des agneaux, vertueux comme on ne l'est pas, toujours bien mis, et qui pleurent comme des urnes.

MM. Bournisien and Homais watch over Emma's corpse, while squabbling with each other:

Le pharmacien et le curé se replongèrent dans leurs occupations, non sans dormir de temps à autre, ce dont ils s'accusaient réciproquement à chaque réveil nouveau. Alors M. Bournisien aspergeait la chambre d'eau bénite et Homais jetait un peu de chlore par terre.

Rodolphe finishes his break-up letter:

-- Comment vais-je signer, maintenant? se dit-il. Votre tout dévoué?... Non. Votre ami?... Oui, c'est cela.

«Votre ami.»

Il relut sa lettre. Elle lui parut bonne.

-- Pauvre petite femme! pensa-t-il avec attendrissement. Elle va me croire plus insensible qu'un roc; il eût fallu quelques larmes là-dessus; mais, moi, je ne peux pas pleurer; ce n'est pas ma faute. Alors, s'étant versé de l'eau dans un verre, Rodolphe y trempa son doigt et il laissa tomber de haut une grosse goutte, qui fit une tache pâle sur l'encre; puis, cherchant à cacheter la lettre, le cachet Amor nel cor se rencontra.

-- Cela ne va guère à la circonstance... Ah bah! n'importe!

Après quoi, il fuma trois pipes et s'alla coucher.

And a little earlier, this, which I think is simply one of the most heartbreaking paragraphs ever written.

Il s'était tant de fois entendu dire ces choses, qu'elles n'avaient pour lui rien d'original. Emma ressemblait à toutes les maîtresses; et le charme de la nouveauté, peu à peu tombant comme un vêtement, laissait voir à nu l'éternelle monotonie de la passion, qui a toujours les mêmes formes et le même langage. Il ne distinguait pas, cet homme si plein de pratique, la dissemblance des sentiments sous la parité des expressions. Parce que des lèvres libertines ou vénales lui avaient murmuré des phrases pareilles, il ne croyait que faiblement à la candeur de celles-là; on en devait rabattre, pensait-il, les discours exagérés cachant les affections médiocres; comme si la plénitude de l'âme ne débordait pas quelquefois par les métaphores les plus vides, puisque personne, jamais, ne peut donner l'exacte mesure de ses besoins, ni de ses conceptions, ni de ses douleurs, et que la parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles.

Pur essendo stato scritto nel 1856, Madame Bovary è un titolo esemplare anche per interpretare sentimenti soverchianti sui social media come la noia e la frustrazione e gli atteggiamenti nevrastenici che adottiamo con il cambio repentino delle mode tipici della contemporaneità globalizzata e interconnessa. Sembra qualcosa di anni luce rispetto alla vita in provincia limitata e frustrante in cui è immersa Emma Bovary, una donna che ha come unica prospettiva il matrimonio, secondo le convenzioni del tempo, e invece no. Ne ho parlato a lungo qui -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB_OJ...

n  "Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon."n

It's always difficult to properly appraise a book when one hasn't read it in the language in which it was written. My edition was translated by Geoffrey Wall, who preserved Flaubert's distinctive punctuation, italicisation and paragraphing habits. Though the overuse of exclamation marks is discouraged by modern-day publishers, Flaubert scatters them like seed. I'm all for it, as it added to the vibrancy of his writing.
I read this classic at a leisurely pace, one chapter at a time, in between newfangled reads. I carefully jotted down notes and some well-chosen passages, intending to reproduce them here. Sadly, I unintentionally left my humidity-corrugated notepad by a pool in Thailand! : (
Emma (Madame Bovary), along with Lady Chatterley and Anna Karenina, is in the running for literature's most famous adulteress. And in that respect, she doesn't disappoint.
Defying convention, Flaubert deliberately chose to make his bourgeois femme fatale unlikeable, which I saw as a good thing: it makes her character believable; it makes her seem modern, (Flaubert would cast her as an influencer if he could come back to life) and it shows the extent to which the author was unfettered by tradition.
Emma "Drama Queen" Bovary, whose untamed heart rules her head, is trapped in a boring, frigid marriage and, without a care in the world, looks for love and lust elsewhere. In many ways, she behaves like a sex-hungry man who can’t keep it in his pants, except she’s living in patriarchal France in the 1800s!

Of course, when a literary character plays with fire, you just know they're gonna get burnt!

Yes, Emma is shallow and selfish and wants what she can't have but, because she is a flawed human being wholly driven by sentimentality, I somehow sympathised with her.
Translations notwithstanding, I really enjoyed Flaubert's anomalous writing style and luxuriant prose but, for me, this isn't the page-turner that Anna Karenina is.

(Book 886 from 1001 Books) - Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856.

The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

One day, Charles visits a local farm to set the owner's broken leg and meets his patient's daughter, Emma Rouault.

Emma is a beautiful, daintily dressed young woman who has received a "good education" in a convent.

She has a powerful yearning for luxury and romance inspired by reading popular novels.

Charles is immediately attracted to her, and visits his patient far more often than necessary, until Heloise's jealousy puts a stop to the visits.

When Heloise unexpectedly dies, Charles waits a decent interval before courting Emma in earnest.

Her father gives his consent, and Emma and Charles marry. The novel's focus shifts to Emma.

Charles means well but is plodding and clumsy. After he and Emma attend an elegant ball given by the Marquis d'Andervilliers, Emma finds her married life dull and becomes listless.

Charles decides his wife needs a change of scenery and moves his practice to the larger market town of Yonville (traditionally identified with the town of Ry).

There, Emma gives birth to a daughter, Berthe, but motherhood proves a disappointment to Emma.

She becomes infatuated with an intelligent young man she meets in Yonville, a young law student, Léon Dupuis, who shares her appreciation for literature and music and returns her esteem.

Concerned with maintaining her self-image as a devoted wife and mother, Emma does not acknowledge her passion for Léon and conceals her contempt for Charles, drawing comfort from the thought of her virtue.

Léon despairs of gaining Emma's affection and departs to study in Paris. ...

مادام بوواری (بواری) - گوستاو فلوبر (مجید ، نشر مرکز) ادبیات فرانسه؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه آوریل سال 1982میلادی

عنوان: مادام بواری؛ نویسنده: گوستاو فلوبر؛ مترجم: رضا عقیلی، محمد قاضی؛ تهران، انتشارات کیهان، 1341 ؛ در 386ص؛ چاپ دوم 1357؛ چاپ دیگر سوم تهران، نیل، 1362؛ در سی و هشت و 366ص؛ چاپ پنجم 1369؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، مجید، 1380؛ در 648ص؛ شابک9644530055؛ چاپ دوم 1381؛ چاپ چهارم 1386؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده 19م

مترجم: مشفق همدانی؛ تهران، چاپ چهارم امیرکبیر، 1395؛ در 392ص؛ شابک 9789640016985؛

مترجم: سوسن اردکانی؛ تهران، نگارستان کتاب، 1388؛ در 726ص؛ شابک 9786005541533؛

مترجم: مینا آذری؛ مشهد، مرندیز، 1394؛ در 444ص؛ شابک 9786001062957؛

مترجم: سمیه موحدی فرد؛ قم، نظاره، 1395؛ در 432ص؛ شابک 97860083940389؛

مترجم: سارا راکی؛ قزوین، آزرمیدخت، 1396؛ در 440ص؛ شابک 9786007241691؛

نقل قولی از «فلوبر» هست که: من خود «اما بواری» هستم. پایان نقل

نخستین اثر «گوستاو فلوبر» است؛ «فلوبر» پس از نگارش اثری با عنوان «وسوسه سن آنتوان»، از دوستان منتقد خود «ماکسیم دوکان»، و «لویی بونه»، دعوت میکند تا داستان را، برای آنها بخواند، ولی آن دو، داستان را اثر بدی برمیشمارند، و به او پیشنهاد میکنند، که داستان دیگری درباره ی «دلونه»، از آشنایان آنها، بنویسد؛ بر این اساس، «فلوبر» آغاز به نگارش داستان «مادام بوواری» میکنند، ایشان کوشش کردند تا داستان را براساس شخصیت‌های واقعی بنویسند، و با سود بردن از مشاهدات، و ذهن خویش، رخدادها را، در طول داستان، گسترش میدهند؛

شخصیت‌های داستان

اما بوواری: «اِما» شخصیت اول داستان بوده، و نام داستان از نام ایشان گرفته شده ‌است؛ او دختری شهرستانی است که انتظارات سیری ناپذیری از دنیای خود دارد، و مشتاق زیبایی، ثروت، عشق و جامعه‌ ای سطح بالاست؛ بخش عظیمی از داستان حول اختلافات میان ایده ‌آل‌های خیالبافانه و جاه طلبانه «اِما» و واقعیت‌های زندگی روستایی او می‌چرخد، به ویژه که این قضایا او را به سوی دو عشق زناکارانه سوق داده و بدهی‌های قابل توجهی برایش به همراه می‌آورند، که سرانجام باعث می‌شود «اِما» اقدام به خودکشی کند؛

شارل بوواری: «شارل بوواری»، همسر «اِما»، مردی بسیار ساده و معمولی بوده، و با توقعات خیالبافانه همسرش، فاصله بسیاری دارد؛ او پزشک روستای «یونویل» است، ولی در این زمینه، توانایی ویژه ای از خود نشان نداده، و در واقع صلاحیت لازم، برای پزشک بودن را ندارد؛ با وجود اینکه همه ی اهالی روستا از شهوترانی‌های «اِما» باخبر هستند، «شارل» چیزی از این موضوع نمی‌داند، و کنترلی روی همسرش ندارد، زیرا در واقع همیشه درگیر سر و سامان دادن به خرابکاری‌های خودش است؛ او همسرش را می‌پرستد، و او را زنی بی عیب و نقص می‌داند

رودولف بولانگه: «رودولف بولانگه» روستایی ثروتمندی است، که «اِما» را، هم به زنجیره ی بالا بلند معشوقه‌ های خویش افزوده است؛ او به «اِما» علاقه ای در خود نمی‌بیند؛ در حالیکه «اما» بیشتر و بیشتر وابسته ی او می‌شود، احساس دلزدگی، و نگرانی از بی احتیاطی‌های «اِما»، در «رودولف» افزونتر می‌شود؛ پس از اینکه آن دو تصمیم به فرار با یکدیگر می‌گیرند، «رودولف» درمی‌یابد که توانایی آن کار در او نیست، به ویژه به این خاطر که «اِما»، به تازگی صاحب دختری، به نام «برت» شده ‌است؛ به همین دلیل «رودولف»، در روز تعیین شده برای فرار، به تنهایی از روستا می‌گریزد، و «اِما» را دچار شکست روحی شدید می‌کند

لئون دوپوا: «لئون دوپوا» منشی جوانی، از اهالی «یونویل» است؛ او پس از «رودولف بولانگه» دومین فردی است که با «اِما بوواری» رابطه ای عاشقانه برقرار می‌کند

آقای اومه: «اومه» داروساز روستا است؛ او عقاید ضد دینی و آتئیستی دارد

آقای لورو: «لورو» تاجری حقه باز است، که پی در پی «اما» را، به خرید جنس‌های خویش وامیدارد؛ و از او می‌خواهد که پول آن‌ها را بعداً بپردازد؛ «لورو» با سودهای کلانی، که روی وام‌های «اما» می‌کشد، مبلغ بدهی‌های او را بسیار بالا می‌برد، و همین موضوع نقش مهمی در تصمیم «اِما» به خودکشی دارد

چکیده داستان: داستان «مادام بواری» با فرستادن پسری توسط مادرش، برای تحصیل درس پزشکی آغاز می‌شود؛ فرایند این داستان با پزشک شدن این پسر، «شارل بوواری» پی گرفته می‌شود؛ این جوان کم بضاعت، که پزشک تازه‌ کاری نیز به شمار می‌رود، طی ماجراهای ویژه ای با دختر ثروتمندی، برای بار دوم ازدواج می‌کند؛ شهرستانی بودن، و نداشتن اعتماد به نفس شارل، زندگی را برای او دستخوش تغییرات فراوان و پر هزینه‌ ای می‌کند.

مادام بواری زیبا، جلوه ‌ی عشق را در مردان بسیاری می‌بیند؛ «اِما» درست در زمانیکه باید به عشق تکیه کند، آن‌ها را توخالی، و پوچ می‌یابد؛ هر کدام از آن مردان، به نوبه ‌ی خود ضربه ی مهلکی، به روح این زن جوان، وارد می‌کنند، و جالب اینکه، «شارل بواری» از داستانها خبر ندارد؛ آگاه شدن «شارل بواری» از رویدادها زمانی ممکن می‌شود که شالوده ی خانواده «بواری» از هم گسسته است

اصلی‌ترین محوریت اصلی داستان، تأکید بر مسائل غیر معمول در ازدواج و مخالفت با فضای سنتی فرانسه آن دوران، می‌باشد؛ در واقع داستان با یک حادثه ی پیش پا افتاده آغاز می‌گردد، و در ادامه زنی را به نمایش می‌گذارد، که برای آزادی، و برآوردن خواسته‌های گوناگون خود به هر سوی روی می‌آورد

زمان اوج داستان، در شرایطی پدیدار می‌شود، که شخصیت اصلی داستان، برای دست یافتن به خواسته‌های خود، به هر کاری، تن می‌دهد؛ به همین دلیل احساس سرخوردگی، و گاه رضایتمندی، در سرتاسر داستان، به جذابیت آن می‌افزاید، در چکیده ی «مادام بواری»، عشق و نفرت را کنار هم، و در فاصله ‌ای بسیار کم، می‌توان مشاهده نمود؛ باید توجه داشت، که عامل بروز همگی رویدادهای این داستان، یک رخداد عجیب و خارق العاده نبوده؛ بلکه تنها نارضایتی یک زن جوان، و خواسته‌های کمال‌گرایانه ی او توانسته او را به ورطه بکشاند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 21/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 14/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی