Although it took me a while to finish and I read it in two languages and the same number of formats I can award it no less than 5 stars. When I was a teenager I avoided anything classic and this book was specifically on my black list. I thought that one book about an adulteress who does not end well is enough. I was wrong about running away from classics and also wrong about this being another Anna Karenina. While in this one Emma Bovary takes not one but two lovers, the drama is more around wanting too much from life, more than your condition or abilities and not being able to be content. It is also an excellent cautionary tale of execrable management of money. Oh, and against building an imaginary life from books.

By reading this novel in Romanian and listening to it in English I realized how important a good translation that resonates with the reader can be. I thought the Romanian translation to be rough and peasanty (not a word, I know) while the English one a bit more elevated and flowing. I very much preferred the latter and I am sure that my rating would have been lower had I continued to read it in Romanian. So, in case anyone doubted, TRANSLATORS ARE IMPORTANT and they can make or break the reading experience. Praised are the good ones. I also decided to read as much as possible in the original languages even if I am not an expert in that idiom.

Three and a half stars, uprated to 5 stars because I can't get it out of my head. 9 April 2012.

Not sure what to make of it. The self-obsessed Emma Bovary was obviously (to me) a side of Flaubert himself. She feels that there is so much more but her limited life fences her in and instead of drawing into herself, seeing what she has to offer, how to make the best of herself, she wants happiness to come to her just as it does in the romance novels she, and Flaubert, read.

I understood that spiritual flailing around, turning this way and that, using looks to make up for depth, using sex to pass for love, and enjoying fooling those she lived with into believing what they saw was what they got. We've all been a bit shallow at times, but to have made a whole career, a whole life of it, no!

But then Emma departs from the author and becomes entirely his creation. She doesn't think forward, thinks her beauty will solve all. Thinks that those who say they love her don't mean they love having an affair, having sex, with her but that they love her deeply and for all time. Not that she is capable of loving that way herself either, so maybe she really didn't know what it meant. Her idea of love is the bodice-ripper, secret affair, always-exciting, happily-ever-after variety, except her affairs die when the men are satiated with this demanding woman. She can't even conceive of real-life nurturing of her child or being supportive, that's for fools like her husband. She always thinks someone will be there to pamper her and indulge her and that there will never be any consequences, that the piper will not call round to be paid for his pretty tune.

Such a sad story, so beautifully written and it deserves a far better review than these few lines but I felt like writing down my first reaction on finishing the book, I don't want the emotions to wear off and have to analyse it critically, it wasn't that sort of experience for me.

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

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

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

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

"Só as obras bem escritas hão-de passar à posteridade"
Conde de Buffon

Consta que Gustave Flaubert teria afirmado já no final da sua vida - qualquer coisa como: "eu vou morrer mas a puta da Bovary vai sobreviver".
E sobreviveu! Também o levou à barra do tribunal; a sociedade puritana da época não estava preparada para admitir a existência do adultério ou ver questionada a doutrina da igreja, nem a burguesia gostou de ter o dedo apontado na sua direção. Mas o livro sobreviveu, eternizou o autor e mantem-se mais atual do que parece à primeira vista.
Até meio do livro achei exagerado o epíteto atribuído à Bovary. Pareceu-me simplesmente uma rapariga embriagada de sonhos desmedidos, nascidos da leitura de revistas e romances, que aspirava a uma vida de luxo e opulência. (está ou não está actual?!) Aborreceu-se com a vida monótona do campo e desiludiu-se com a simplicidade e falta de objetivos do marido. Lentamente, foi fechando os olhos à realidade e mergulhando num universo de fantasia. O seu refugio foi também a sua ruína e as suas atitudes fizeram-na merecedora da alcunha.
Tanto ou mais que a história, o livro seduz pela escrita. Profundamente realista, G. Flaubert pinta quadros na nossa imaginação. A narrativa é rica em figuras de estilo, expressiva e fluida.
Sendo a personagem principal, são os pecados de Emma Bovary que saltam à vista, mas, na verdade, toda a aldeia de Yonville é uma caricatura dos principais pecadilhos.
As últimas páginas do livro, foram o coroar de glória. O triunfo da ambição desmedida e do oportunismo. Apetece fechar o livro com um estrondo e dizer:
- "Cambada de farsantes, suplantaram a Bovary!"

داستان تلخی بود...از اون تلخی های زننده ای که از حقیقت محض سرچشمه می گیرند
***
اگر رنج های ما به حال کسی سودی داشت می توانستیم به نام این که فداکاری می کنیم خود را دلداری دهیم

For some strange reason this got deleted from my books, so I'm just adding it again.

Along with Les Misérables, Madame Bovary was one of the first French classics that I read, and Emma B. certainly left her mark. There are so many great reviews of this, and it's not surprising, as it evokes so much within it's readers, and will continue to do so. I might post a proper review at some point, but for now all I will say is that it really is one of the greatest and most important novels ever written.

There are some poor versions of this book out there, but thankfully the Penguin edition I read was top-notch. Still wish I had read it in French though, but at the time, long before moving to France from the UK, my french was only just getting off the ground.

Madame Bovary is Gustav Flaubert's most famous novel and realistically tells the story and the sinking of a young woman. The subtle language, the characteristic detailed descriptions let you dive into a completely different world. And even if the story comes from a completely different time, there are so many parallels to ours. There are many possibilities for interpretation and also the psychological aspect is not neglected. Madame Bovary's story, especially when you consider the time the novel was written. He was a scandal then. There was even a trial. Despite its age, the book is timeless and therefore always up-to-date. If you are interested in French culture, you should have a look at this exciting book. Gustave Flaubert is one of the most brilliant authors of his time, whose genius and complexity is also reflected in this book. If, however, one takes a deeper look at the novel, one discovers the many parallels and understands the skill of the author, who tries to portray the image of society at that time. Absolutely worth reading.

_Madame Bovary_

Ok. I liked this book.
So, this is slow paced, full of descriptions and in general, not many things are happening even though the book covers a period of several years. It's "multilayered" on many aspects, giving us pieces out of eveyone's thoughts and showing us the emptiness of the provincial life in the ending decates of the 19th century in France. The humor, the kindness and the elegance which Flaubert uses in his writing in order to present the story and the characters is everything. The descriptions are alive. It's like you can watch them move in front of you. It is mainly the psychographic portrait of Emma, our main protagonist, but also, in a smaller extend, of all the people in her life. This is a masterpiece.
From here on there are going to be some minor SPOILERS cz i just wanna talk about a few things in the book.


First of all, i think i kind of like Emma. I know, she is emotionally unstable, always treating her life with ingratitude, she is vainglorious, greedy and conceited. She is impulsive and unpredictable. But after all this mess, i cannot dislike her, so i think i might actually like her. I beared everything that she did in this book but i swear there were times i wanted to just tell her "Hold still, my human, for a moment. Stop and look where you are, whom you are with. Stop and say to yourself, I am happy. Feel that. Be grateful for that. Ask for no more." But of course Madame Bovary is so not that kind of person. And at the end of the book, when i started getting tired of her mess, she did something. She denied something with strength and honor and it felt like to me, that not everything was lost, even though everything was lost. She is self-desastrous in this whole book but she walks in her complete destruction with such small steps that you can only undersand how far she has come in the mess of her life only in the last chapters, when Flaubert sums up all her actions, even the minor ones.
This book needs your paitence and understanding while reading it. I appreciate this piece of literature Flaubert has offered and i am sure i will reread it at some point. 5/5

When I start reading a book named after one of its characters, I simply can't help the anxiety to meet them. In this case, I was impatient to finally get acquainted with Madame Bovary.

Instead of that, on the opening chapter, we get to see Charles Bovary, the peaceful and shy little boy going to school for the first time. We accompany him while he grows up, study to become a 'doctor' and marry his first wife. After a series of events, he finds and marries his second wife - this time the one - and the story's protagonist finally takes center stage.

Flaubert presents to us on his biggest achievement the story of Emma Bovary - the always sad, sorrowful and never quite fulfilled female Don Quixote (read my review)- who, through her reading of love stories in books and Parisian society's glamorous events on newspapers, hoped for a more exciting married life than what it seemed to be destined for her.

Madame Bovary - who did not love her husband, or her daughter, or her home - was tragically in love with the possibility of a different scenario, and was willing to trade everything for being able to feel and go through breathtaking emotions. Beginning to grow unsatisfied and longing for a hero who would rescue her from her uneventful life, she ends up getting tangled up in a big web of lies, financial debts and cheating with not only one, but two lovers. The excitement of what seemed to be the real life she dreamed of ends up fading out, and finding herself even more lost and lonely than she felt before, she embarks on her ultimate escapade.

Worthy mentioning - and an innovation at the time - is an impressively well crafted scene where Emma and her lover Rodolphe are alone, declaring bit by bit their love to each other for the first time, while, in the meantime, they can (and we can!) overhear the events happening outside on an Agricultural Fair at the village. We get to read, concurrently, the lover's declarations and M. Lieuvain's speech. This technique worked well for building up the readers' (at least this reader's!) enthusiasm and thrill felt when that long awaited moment where we would finally see Emma happy happened.

The novel's impact was so huge that Gustave Flaubert was actually taken to trial for having written such an immoral book. Don't worry though: he was deservingly so acquitted of all charges. Its impact came not only because of the story itself, but also from the author's innovations and style: Madame Bovary - unlike most (maybe all?) novels from that time - totally lacks any personal commentaries or interventions from Flaubert; what we read is simply the report of the character's words and actions, leaving to us the task to try to make sense of their most inner feelings and actions.

Rating: for Flaubert's literary innovations, his beautiful yet sad story and how it was skillfully constructed, 4 stars.

داستان کتاب مادام بوواری از جایی شروع میشه که شارل بوواری نوجوانه و در مدرسه مورد تحقیر و تمسخر هم‌کلاسی‌هاش قرار می‌گیره و با وجود تلاشی که می‌کنه ابتدا برای تحصیل در رشته پزشکی نمرات کافی رو کسب نمیکنه اما در نهایت پس از جهد زیاد به عنوان پزشک نه چندان حاذق مشغول به کار میشه و مادرش برای تأمین آینده‌ی پسرش مقدمات ازدواج با یک بیوه با جهیزیه‌ی خوب رو براش مهیا می‌کنه. شارل چندان خشنود نیست از زندگی با همسرش و پس از مرگ همسرش عاشق اما، دختر یکی از بیمارانش میشه و تازه اینجاست که مادام بوواری پا به داستان می‌ذاره. مادام بوواری عاشق رمان‌ و عشق‌های آتشینه و در ذهنش چنین چیزی برای خودش تصور می‌کنه اما در واقعیت به چنین چیزی نمی‌رسه و برای رسیدن به خواسته‌هاش مسیر درستی رو پیش نمیگیره تا عاقبت خوبی در انتظارش نباشه. مادام بوواری توانایی تمییز دادن رویا و توهم با واقعیت رو نداشت و برای رسیدن به خواسته‌های خودش به معنای واقعی دست به هر کاری که نباید، زد. کتاب سختی خاصی برای خوندن نداره و جذابیت داستان به میزانی هست که شما رو ترغیب کنه به خوندن در حالی که خستگی خاصی رو متوجه نشید. رمان مادام بوواری بر بسیاری از نویسندگان تاثیر گذاشته و مورد ستایش بسیاری از نویسندگان بزرگ مثل ماریو بارگاس یوسا قرار گرفته.ه

هي الرواية الخالدة , التي وضعت بداية جديدة لفن الرواية بصفة خاصة وللأدب بصفة عامة , فلوبير لم يكتب مجرد نَص روائي مميز , بل كتب مفترق طرق للأدب , فيقال الرواية قبل (مدام بوڨاري) والرواية بعدها.

لطالما كنت من المنبهرين بالأعمال التي تناقش الضعف الإنساني , فهي تُقدم لك الإنسان بسليقته وما جُبل عليه , تقدم لك واقع الحباة وما تفرضه علينا المشاعر الطارئة وكيف أننا نُخدع وندعي مثالية زائفة في حين أن التجربة تكن لها كلمتها العليا .

الرواية هي (آنا كارنينا) الفرنسية وشبيهتها إلى حد بعيد , هي الرواية التي تجد شبيه لها فى كل ثقافة وكل لغة , فكانت من العالمية أن تركت بصمتها القوية على مختلف المجتمعات .

عن الرواية : لم يمهلك الكاتب كثيرًا لكي تلتقط أنفاسك , فقد وضعك في مواجهة مباشرة مع شخصياته وأحداثه الروائية , ملمًا بكل الجوانب يقدم لك الكاتب عمله , فيقدم لك وصف بليغ ومن أكمل ما يكون عن بيئة الأحداث ويقدم تأريخ مجتمعي متميز لتلك الفترة .

عمق نفسي من أروع ما يكون : فشارل بوڨاري يعيش معك وتعيش معه في كل فترات حياته ,فندما يولد يجعلك تراه يلعب وكيفية تعامل أمه وأبيه معه , وعندما يدخل المدرسة يجعلك تلميذ فى فصله تناكفه وتشاغبه وهو صامد على مدار مراحل تعلميه وحتى عندما يفشل يجد فى أمه حائط يقويه ويجعله يعبر مرحلة فشله , وعندما يتزوج زيجته الأولى : ينقل لك معاناته ومدى الاضطراب النفسي الذي وقع له واحساسه بالخديعة وعندما يصبح أرمل تستنشق معه نسيمحرية ما , وعندما يتزوج الزيجة الثانية تشفق عليه وتعطف ,ولكن لا يخلو الإشفاق من احتقار خفي تعجز عن منعه , ولكن لحظات حبه لزوجته وتعلقه بها تبث في نفسك شئ من السعادة .

أما (إيما أو مدام بوڨاري ) فتقف أمامها عاجزًا , فلقد عجزت إلا عن حب آنا كارنينا الروسية ولكني فشلت في حب إيما بوڨاري ولا أدري أهو تعمد من الكاتب أم تحيّز شخصي تجاهها , ورغم الطبيعة الإنسانية في الميل إلى العطف على الخاطئين من بني البشر أحيانًا , إلا أني فشلت في هذه الحالة .

ولكن لنصبر قليلًا ونضع انفسنا فى مكان الزوجة , ونتفكر في ذنبها وما عانته ونحاول الوضول إلى الخطيئة الرئيسة في الموضوع , أهو الطموح الزائد أم الرغبة العنيفة في حياة معينة رسمتها مخيلتها , أم هو الضعف الإنساني ؟؟؟
نجح الكاتب بكل براعة في أن ينقل لك معاناة شخصياته ويجعلك تتأثر بأحداثهم (شخصيا بكيت في فصل موت مدام بوڨاري تأثرًا وحزنًا على حال زوجها ولعى نهايتها المآساوية) ورأيت فى هذا الفصل قمة ابداع الكاتب .
فى المجمل : العمل عن الضعف والرغبة الزائفة والخديعة التي يقع فيها المرء نتيجة لغشاوة عواطفه , مع دمج ممتع لطبيعة المجتمع وعرض لبعض وجهات النظر المختلفة بحيث ينقلك إلى ظروف المكان وزمانه .

وفي النهاية : يا كل امرأة رسمت في خيالها الحياة المثالية تمهلي , ويا كل أنثى رأت فى رجل ما حلمها المنشود تريثي , فخلف الباب مغامرة والنفس ضعيفة وغريبة ولا تُؤمن تصرافتها , فلا تحملِ نفسك أكثر مما تستطيع.

العمل ترجمة أستاذنا محمد مندور وكانت ترجمة مميزة شاملة دلت عن علم واسع ومعرفة بالمجتمع الروائي , وتدل على عبقرية النص الفرنسي .

وكعادة المجتمعات فى عصور الظلام : نرى إناس يضعون أنفسهم مكان الآلهة فيجرمون هذا ويعاقبون ذلك , و وقت ما نُشرت الرواية تصدى البعض ورفع دعوى قضائية ضد الكاتب ودار نشره متهما إياهم بالفجور وإشاعة الفحشاء , وكانت قضية شهيرة قام مندور بعرض كافة مرافعاتها من كل الاطراف المعنبية بها وكذلك حكم البراءة , كل ذلك فى جزء خاص من الطبعة التي قرأتها .

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Emma Bovary has become the epitome of desperate housewife, the archetypal unfaithful wife, the ultimate daydreamer whose fantasies lead to a premature self-destruction.

“She wished she could stop living, or sleep all the time.”

Madame Bovary follows the ‘provincial ways’ of the petite bourgeoisie. Charles Bovary is a so-so doctor, married to an older woman, and is ordinary in every which way. Similarly to Prince Myshkin his naïveté and kind-heartedness are perceived by those around him as weaknesses or signs of stupidity. He falls in love with Emma, the daughter of one of his patients, and lucky for him his wife just ups and dies (as she is hanging the wash she exclaims “Oh, my God!” sighs, loses consciousness and dies: “She was dead! How astonishing it was!”). Charles makes the most of this tragedy and asks Emma’s father for her hand in marriage. After an incredibly ornate wedding the two settle into married life. Or Charles does. He is exuberant, he adores Emma, lavishing her with affection. Emma, on the other hand, finds her husband suffocating and grows increasingly resentful towards him. She craves the “passion” and “intoxication” promised to her in her favourite books (in this she reminds me of Catherine from Northanger Abbey who obsesses over Gothic books, so much so that she ends up viewing the world through Gothic-tinted glasses).

In the following chapter (which happens to be my favourite one) the narrative describes Emma’s childhood and education at a convent. It is there that Emma becomes enthralled by the world of popular romances. She feels “an ardent veneration for illustrious or ill-fated women” such as Joan of Arc, Mary Stuart or the nun Héloïse. Emma is captivated by the regalia worn by the hero of a novel rather than by the hero himself. We find this same attitude towards many things in her life: “She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only when it grew up here and there among ruins”. Likewise, while at the convent she seems to more attracted to the trappings of religion rather than feeling a genuine devotion: she focuses on the appearance of the “white-faced” nuns, the rosaries, the copper crucifixes, “the perfumes of the altar, the coolness of the fonts, and the glow of the candles”. She does not pay attention to the Mass, gazing instead “in her book at the holy pictures with their azure edges”. Emma Rouault loves “the church for its flowers, music for the words of its songs, and literature for its power to stir the passions”.

Emma Bovary strongly resembles her maiden self. She is disappointed by her marriage, for she considers Charles to be a man who “taught her nothing, knew nothing, wished for nothing”. She thinks him dull and unambitious, the very opposite of an ideal husband. Emma is equally let down by her experience of motherhood, which is quite unlike the one she envisioned. Finally, her love affairs—with Rodolphe and Léon—seem to offer merely a pretext for her to exchange keepsakes and letters with another person. Emma goes through the motions of being in love without feeling any real love; it is the opportunity of wearing a new riding habit that causes her to embark upon her first affair. It is unsurprising then that she soon grows weary of both her lovers: “[Emma] was rediscovering in adultery all the platitudes of marriage”.

As Emma’s appetite for luxurious material goods increases, she grows more disillusioned with her life, and since the happiness those extravagant items give her is merely temporary, she is unable to fight ennui. Her mounting debt to Lheureux, the man who sells her the material goods she so desperately craves, and her failed love affairs contribute to bringing about Emma’s own demise.

Even before marrying Charles, Emma had fallen prey to ennui: soon after leaving the convent “she considered herself to be thoroughly disillusioned, with nothing more to learn, nothing more to feel”. Whereas boredom is a ‘response to the immediate’, ennui ‘belongs to those with a sense of sublime potential, those who feel themselves superior to their environment’. And indeed, Emma feels a sense of superiority to what surrounds her: her dull husband, her mother-in-law, her servants, the uncouth villagers, the “tiresome countryside, the idiotic petits bourgeois, the mediocrity of life”. Emma is adamant that she has been cast in the wrong role, that of a petit-bourgeois woman, believing that she deserves to live as a heroine in a romance does, married to Prince Charming and surrounded by beauty.

A pattern gradually emerges: time and again Emma is disappointed by her attempts to reconstruct the world portrayed in her romantic novels. At the same time, it is almost as if Emma is unconsciously not really interested in satisfying her desire or making her daydreams reality; what she seems to truly enjoy is the act of desiring itself. After all, it is only in her fantasies, and by apotheosizing her past experiences, that Emma can envision herself experiencing a form of pure sensation and heightened emotion. And perhaps it is the very act of fantasizing that enables her to feel something akin to jouissance, which in Lacanian theory is a form of ‘backhanded enjoyment’, an excessive pleasure that ‘[b]egins with a tickle and ends with blaze of petrol’. The pleasure that Emma feels by longing – by the very act of daydreaming – is similar to the ecstatic feeling experienced by her dream self. Yet, the enjoyment that she derives from yearning is accompanied by a feeling of pain since Emma is only able to long because she is missing something. Paradoxically, then, Emma can find fulfilment in the perpetuation of her non-fulfilment given that ‘every form of fulfilment necessarily brings an end to the desired state of longing, it is only the infinite deferral of satisfaction that keeps desire alive’.

There is the tendency to believe that Emma’s mania, her depression and her subsequent suicide result from her clumsy attempts at upward mobility. Flaubert makes Emma’s desires and her unhappiness quite clear to us: she wishes to live like the heroines in her beloved romances, yearns for an impossible glittery lifestyle but, try as she might, never really succeeds in replicating the feelings or experiences she has read of. Certainly, there are many instances where readers will find Emma’s dissatisfactions to be risible. But, however small-minded and solipsistic Emma Flaubert articulates her sense of entrapment and addiction to longing (for sublimity, love, completion, meaning) in such a way as to challenge easy dismissals of her desires (as being petty or superficial).

There are so many things that made me love this book. Flaubert's prose (or Lydia Davis’ impeccable), his attention to the minute details that constitute provincial life, his irony, his absurd characters....the list goes on.
Flaubert excels at depicting the contradictory nature of people, the fleeting moments of irritation, boredom, hate, passion...there are many scenes which seem to ridicule his characters’ worries, but he never directly pokes fun at his characters (his readers will do that for him). And while a certain sardonic humor prevails there are also episodes that will certainly elicit our sympathies.
Although this novel is often labelled as a romance or a tragedy, Madame Bovary reads like an anti-romance. We have characters such Emma and Léon, idealists, self-proclaimed romantics, who are trapped in a realist narrative. Yet, Flaubert is also making fun of realism. There are so many descriptions of what the characters are wearing, of the smells or objects, houses, streets, you name it. Then juxtaposing these lavish or picturesque descriptions we have scenes detailing Charles’ operating on the stable boy’s club foot, and these scenes make for some nausea-inducing reading material.
Nevertheless this remains a beautifully crafted novel. Flaubert’s acuity, his striking prose, his vibrant characters, make for an unforgettable read. One should not approach this novel hoping for something in the realms of Anna Karenina. Although one could describe Emma as the ‘heroine’ of this novel, she possesses mostly qualities that will make readers hate her. There were many instances in which I disliked her (just read of the way she treats her servants or her daughter or even Charles). But Flaubert is a deft writer, and Emma cannot be simply be labelled as 'unlikable'. In many ways she reminds of the alienated women who star in recent fiction such as the narrator in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Emma is like them bored, self-destructive, prone to bouts of depression, and finds pleasure only in daydreams.
The first time I picked up this novel I struggled to make it past the first chapter. I then ended up listening to the audiobook (narrated by Juliet Stevenson who gives an impeccable performance) and, just like that, I was transfixed. This second time around I read it myself (I own a very stylish penguin classics edition) and I was once again enthralled by Flaubert narrative. I was particularly intrigued by the seamless way in which he shifts perspectives. This time I was also able to truly savour Flaubert's prose as I already knew how the storyline would unfold. Next time I may try reading the Italian translation and maybe who knows, one day I will be able to read the original French (okay, that's quite unlikely but you never know...). Anyway, I could probably go on and on about this novel. I would not recommend it to those who have a low tolerance for irony and kind of detestable characters.