book review of madame bovary

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By Kathryn Harrison

• Sept. 30, 2010

Poor Emma Bovary. She will never escape the tyranny of her desires, never avoid the anguish into which her romantic conceits deliver her, never claim the oblivion she sought from what is perhaps the most excruciating slow suicide ever written. Her place in the literary canon is assured; she cannot be eclipsed by another tragic heroine. Instead, each day she will be resurrected by countless readers who will agonize over the misery she brings herself and everyone around her and wonder at Flaubert’s ability to, godlike, summon life from words on a page.

The power of “Madame Bovary” stems from Flaubert’s determination to render each object of his scrutiny exactly as it looks, or sounds or smells or feels or tastes. Not his talent to do so — that would not have been enough — but his determination, which he never relaxed. “Madame Bovary” advanced slowly, as slowly as it would have to have, given an author who held himself accountable to each word, that it be the right word, of which there could be only one. “A good sentence in prose,” he wrote, “should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable. ”

As Lydia Davis describes Flaubert’s work habits in the introduction to her translation of the book that “permanently changed the way novels were written thereafter,” Flaubert’s attention to detail was as painstaking as humanly possible. He spent up to 12 hours a day at his desk, for months at a time, discarding far more material than he kept and reporting as little progress as a single page per week. Given the pressure Flaubert applied to each sentence, there is no greater test of a translator’s art than “Madame Bovary.” Faithful to the style of the original, but not to the point of slavishness, Davis’s effort is transparent — the reader never senses her presence. For “Madame Bovary,” hers is the level of mastery required.

Having taken to heart the advice of his best friend, the poet Louis Bouilhet (to whom he dedicated “Madame Bovary”), Flaubert settled on a mundane topic to suppress his admitted “tendency to wax lyrical and effusive in response to exotic materials.” (An early draft of “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” was so purple Bouilhet suggested he burn it.) Adultery, financial ruin: these dramas played out in every social circle, Flaubert’s included. Emma’s fate is borrowed from two real-life cautionary tales, the adultery and suicide of Delphine Delamare, and the heedless extravagance that bankrupted Louise Pradier. If the plot was a simple enough equation, adding one vain, selfish act to another until they collectively resulted in disaster, the demands Flaubert placed on his execution of the narrative were severe and absolute.

Readers cannot like Emma Bovary, and yet they follow her with the kind of attention reserved for car wrecks, whether literal or metaphorical. How can a covetous, small-minded woman, incapable of love and (as she feels no true connection to anyone) terminally bored by her life, fascinate us as she succumbs to one venal impulse after the next? Flaubert commands his audience’s attention by rendering every aspect of Emma’s life — he called his novel “a biography” — with such skill that readers need not willingly suspend disbelief. Whether or not they admire Flaubert’s masterwork, they cannot doubt its trenchant, often uncanny realism.

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Book Review: “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert

My Facebook Reading Challenge 2018 is well underway and March’s theme was a classic. I chose Madame Bovary , Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 classic, because it seemed to fit well with a lot of the women’s issues around and being discussed at the moment, particularly gender equality and sexual exploitation. It is fair to say that it had a mixed reception among the readers on the Facebook group!

I don’t think even Flaubert liked his characters and I think it was the intention of the author that we stand with him and examine the people he puts before us, with all their flaws. I believe he wants us also to dig a little deeper and examine the French provincial society that gave rise to Emma. As a young woman she lives a dull and uninteresting life with her widowed father on a farm, until the day she marries Charles, a physician in a neighbouring town, and goes to live a dull and uninteresting life with him. Passed from one man’s home to the next. Emma would not have had expectations, but she was an intelligent woman and the kind of life she was forced to lead did not fulfil her deeper needs. She is a woman of deep passions, but there is no outlet for them, apart from the romantic novels she devours. Certainly, Charles does not really do it for her! “Charles’s conversation was as flat as any pavement.”

Flaubert hints that Emma’s lack of fulfilment may be dangerous when he observes, after she and Charles were invited to an aristocratic ball, where she glimpses how the other half live and begins to fantasise:

“This life of hers was as cold as an attic that looks north; and boredom, quiet as the spider, was spinning its web in the shadowy places of her heart.”

What a sentence! Emma is naïve and inexperienced, however. Her life has been limited and she sees events in the most superficial of ways:

“She confused in her desire, sensual luxury with true joy, elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment.”

Flaubert doesn’t expect us to like Emma very much, but I think he wants us to see her as a product of a time and a place, not as wilful and malicious.

Seduced by romantic fantasy, Emma takes lovers, both of whom are equally selfish and unpleasant. Whilst she is clearly a willing participant in her adultery, there is no doubt that both Leon and Rodolphe exploit Emma. When Emma’s reckless behaviour leads her to run up unsustainable debts, the town’s notary, from whom she has been borrowing money, also exploits her. When he requests sexual favours in return for his continued discretion we can see how deeply lost Emma’s situation is and how as a woman she has almost no power or autonomy. Her response to him, is when we begin to see for the first time something more admirable in her spirit:

“You are taking insolent advantage of my distress, monsieur. I may be in a pitiful state, but I am not up for sale!”

Parts of the book are heavy going, but it is in Part Three that we see the tragic coming-together of events, the closing-in on Emma of all the consequences of her misguided actions, her falsehoods, and the tremendous dislike she accrued. She is not a nice woman – she betrayed her husband, who did not understand her, but loved her in his own way, rejected her daughter and treated those about her with contempt. She was the architect of her own downfall, but she was also a victim of heartless men, of social norms and conventions that failed women like her and gave them no outlet.

She is a difficult heroine for us, but one who makes us think, for sure. Recommended because it’s just one of those books you have to read!

Do you find it hard to connect with the classics? What is your favourite?

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3 thoughts on “Book Review: “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert”

• Pingback: Why book ratings are pointless! – My Family and Other Books

A great review. Thanks. I reread it a while ago but I suspect I didn’t get right to the end, which I now must do. I think the quotes you chose were really good.

Thank you. Yes, it’s worth a re-read.

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MADAME BOVARY

by Gustave Flaubert translated by Lydia Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2010

—Wendy Smith

I’d better confess up front: I have always disliked Madame Bovary . I read it in English in high school, in French in college, and both times I was repelled by what I saw as Gustave Flaubert’s (1821–80) contempt for his characters. I couldn’t warm up to a novel that so mercilessly depicted its heroine—and almost everyone around her—as shallow, ignorant, selfish and greedy. Flaubert’s famous declaration, “ Madame Bovary, c’est moi ,” must be an example of his celebrated irony, I thought; his cold, clinical narration demonstrated not a shred of empathy.

Granted, someone whose favorite author was Charles Dickens was not necessarily the best audience for his considerably less sentimental French contemporaries. But I adored Stendhal and Balzac, also read in college, whose sardonicism was tempered by affection for at least some of their characters. Flaubert, I concluded after my second try, was one of those savage artists, like Stanley Kubrick, that I just didn’t get. Over the years, however, I realized that, although a masterpiece doesn’t change, people do, and you can grow to appreciate works of art that once seemed antipathetic. Kubrick has become one of my favorite filmmakers, for example, and when Lydia Davis’s new translation of Madame Bovary came my way, I thought I might find myself savoring Flaubert’s ruthless detachment as I had come to enjoy the black humor of Dr. Strangelove . Well, kind of. Davis, herself an acclaimed short-story writer as well as a distinguished translator, does a brilliant job of capturing Flaubert’s diamond-hard style. I don’t remember which earlier English version I read, but I do remember that it seemed antiquated as well as unpleasant. Davis’ English prose has precisely the qualities she notes that Flaubert was striving for in French; it is “clear and direct, economical and precise.” This translation reminds you what an aggressively modern writer Flaubert is: suspicious of all received wisdom, infuriated by any value system—Catholicism, rationalism—that willfully ignores the world as it really is. Sentences I had missed before now jumped out at me: “A man, at least, is free…but a woman is continually thwarted.” I still didn’t believe Flaubert much liked silly, sensual Emma Bovary, but I could see that he thoroughly understood the society that produced her. Did I like Madame Bovary better this time around? Not really, but I admired it much more. Flaubert’s courageous refusal to pander to our need for sad stories to be softened by reassuring morals, or at least tragic grandeur, ages very well indeed. He won’t lie, and he makes it very difficult for us to lie to ourselves. I’d still rather be reading Bleak House , but I get it.

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-670-02207-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 2009

Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...

Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga ( Firefly Lane , 2008, etc.).

At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.

Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008

GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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TELL ME LIES

by Carola Lovering ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 12, 2018

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."

Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.

Pub Date: June 12, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

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Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857) translated from the French by Margaret Mauldon (2004) Oxford University Press (2004) 329 pp

I know: I’m way behind here. Consistently lauded as one of the two or three greatest novel of all time, frequently the precedent to whatever book I’m reading (can one write about adultery without some root in Madame Bovary ?), but I thought I knew everything about it because it’s one of those stories one cannot help but have touched upon somewhere. Why read it, then? Well, it’s a bit awkward in conversation when I admit that I’ve never read it. And then my wife read it a few years ago and has been coaxing me to open it up. And, honestly, after reading another critical essay about a contemporary book that has its roots in Madame Bovary , I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

To begin with, I should say that another reason I avoided reading Madame Bovary is because I hate reading classics in translation unless I’m sure I have an excellent translation. The edition my wife read had several awkward sentences — and even used the word “freaking,” as in “I’m freaking hungry” — so it was hard to believe that it was faithful to the flow and passion of Flaubert’s language. I feel it’s such a disservice to the author (and myself) to read a poor translation of her book: how many people have been put off of world masterpieces because they read some publisher’s cheap edition with the cheap or archaic translation? At that point it’s all about getting the plot line across, even if the sentences are syntactically convoluted. Furthermore, I think that Nabokov’s translations of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin is bad because he believed in translating the Russian into its strict literal equivalent in English, sacrificing the poetic melody of the original (incidentally, when Nabokov’s friend Edmund Wilson reviewed Nabokov’s translation in the New York Review of Books, it caused their falling-out). There is value in Nabokov’s style of translation, obviously, but I find that value comes mostly when one wants to delve into scholarship, not into reading for reading’s sake. For me, at that point, it’s necessary to find a skilled translator who succeeds in getting the meaning, form, and poetry across. I think we’ve got one great translation of Madame Bovary here. Margaret Mauldon has been translating French classics since 1987. Her translation of Madame Bovary appeared in 2004, and it’s beautifully rendered. I can’t think of a single sentence where I thought, boy, is she trying to write English? And I was looking.

Now, enough about the translation. While reading the book, I discovered another reason to read Madame Bovary : it is more than just a good story. More than most authors, Flaubert manages to make his form perfectly complement his substance. In other words, on a sentence level, each word and comma serves to not only express a thought but also a certain pacing and emotional journey, so the reader feels very involved. It is to Flaubert that is most applied the phrase he made famous:  le mot juste , meaning the author searches for not just the word with the correct meaning but also for the word with the correct sound and shape. This strategy is also carried out on a paragraph, chapter, and on the book as a whole. We go up and down with Emma; when she is bored, the sentences are longer and contain more tedious detail. When she is excited, the sentences push into one another, barely ending before the next one begins, building crescendo by the syntax. It’s beautiful. Proust and Joyce acknowledge a debt to Flaubert.

The story begins not by introducing Emma, the soon-to-be Madame Bovary, but her soon-to-be husband, the bumbling Charles Bovary, or, as I now prefer to call him, charbovari . I did not know it before reading, but before Charles marries Emma he marries an older widow “with more pimples on her face than a tree has buds in springtime” but who did not lack suitors. When as a young physician, newly married, Charles meets Emma, he is instantly charmed by her. Before too long Charles’ miserable wife dies, and Charles can marry Emma. (For some reason, though he lusts after Emma while already married to the widow, readers tend to forget Charles’ own tendencies to be unfaithful when Emma makes him a cuckold.)

Charles is happy immediately upon marrying Emma. Here is a passage about Charles’ early days of marriage with Emma (the passage was just suggestive enough — look at the last phrase — to be one of the pieces of evidence against Flaubert in the obscenity trial that elevated this book to a must-read):

And then, on the endless dusty ribbon of the highway or in the sunken lands under bowering trees, on paths where the grain stood knee-high, with the sun on his shoulders and the morning air in his nostrils, his heart full of the night’s bliss, his spirit at peace, and his flesh content, he would ride along ruminating his happiness, like someone who, after dinner, goes on savouring the taste of the truffles he has eaten.

It seems that when Charles consumates his marriage he feels he has already achieved all there is in life, so he stops trying too hard. Not that he had a lot going for him anyway. Here’s how Flaubert introduces the couple after their wedding night:

The next morning, by contrast, he seemed a different man. He was the one you would think had been a virgin, whereas the bride gave absolutely no sign that meant anything to anybody.

Charles quickly resembles the awkward school boy we met in chapter one, “walking half bent over her with his arm round her waist and his head crushing the front of her bodice.” Emma, who thought that marriage would be all excitement, rapture, and everything she’d imagined after reading her books, becomes despondent and depressed. After coming to the conclusion that since she was unhappy that she must not have ever loved Charles, she despises him.

So it was upon him that she focused the multifaceted hatred born of her unhappiness, and every attempt she made to conquer this feeling only served to strengthen it; for the futility of her efforts gave her another reason to despair and intensified her estrangement from Charles. Even her own meekness goaded her to rebel. The mediocrity of her home provoked her to sumptuous fantasies, the caresses of her husband to adulterous desires. She would have liked Charles to beat her, so that she could more justifiably detest him, and seek her revenge. 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, act as if she were, and let everyone belief it!

Emma is ripe for for some dashing Frenchman to take her away — and there are many willing candidates. Flaubert has just begun to dissect this marriage and the concept of love. My preconception of this novel was that Flaubert, not a particularly faithful man himself, had some qualms about the notion of “love.” Indeed, when many of his characters express love or longing for each other, Flaubert mocks them; what they say is contrived, pure cliché. Here is a wonderful scene where Rodolphe, who’s had his eye on Emma for a while, begins to pursue her at the county agricultural fair. This scene also captures the way Flaubert comments upon his characters indirectly, allowing external elements to do the description and the criticism, as Rodolphe’s declarations of love are separated by an awards ceremony at the fair:

And he seized her by her hand; she did not withdraw it. “Prize for all-round excellence in farming!” proclaimed the chairman. “The other day for example, when I came to your house . . .” “To Monsieur Bizet, of Quincammpoix:” “Did I know then that I’d come here with you?” “Seventy francs!” “Time and again I’ve intended to leave, yet I’ve followed you, I’ve remained by your side.” “Manures:” “Just as I’d remain at your side tonight, tomorrow, day after day, my whole life!” “To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!” “For never before have I felt so utterly enchanted by anyone . . .” “To Monsieur Bain, of Givry-Saint-Martin!” “So that I’ll cherish the memory of you forever.”

Nothing Rodolphe says here is original. “Manure” is indeed le mot juste . And Rodolphe himself knows it’s manure; he doesn’t truly love Emma at all. Ironically, later on Flaubert revisits the idea that the language of love — and perhaps love itself — is somewhat vacuous. Here Emma has proclaiming her undying love to the bored Rodolphe, but . . .

Because wanton or venal lips had murmured the same words to him, he only half believed in the sincerity of those he was hearing now; to a large extent they should be disregarded, he believed, because such exaggerated language must surely mask commonplace feelings: as if the soul in its fullness did not sometimes overflow into the most barren metaphors, since no once can ever tell the precise measure of his own needs, of his own ideas, of his own pain, and human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity.

The beautiful way Flaubert describes the way Emma is truly feeling, though inadequately expressing, shows how the book roams around the nuances and subtleties of love (and many other things), at one time critical, at another time with deep esteem. The characters of Emma and Charles are similarly difficult to measure. One desires to blame someone for the tragic course this book takes, but at once all and none are blameworthy. Not only did I find this book worth reading once; it could very well reach the rarified heights of being one of my perrenial reads.

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32 comments.

I must also admit that I have not read Madame Bovary, although I have pondered doing so in the past. Your thoughtful review has encouraged me that I should attempt it in the future, though I will be certain to be cautious when it comes to selecting the translation.

My own Madame Bovary experience, and it is only two years old. I finished reading it the first time and thought “why does everyone think this is so great?” (And I don’t think I can blame the translator –sorry, I forget who it was.) So I decided, quite quickly, to read it again — and was stunned from page one at how much I had missed the first time. All of which is just a warning that this is a complex but incredibly good book — very good review too.

This is a book I re-read every few years, so am glad you enjoyed it Trevor. A Sentimental Education is also well worth reading.

You know, adevotedreader, I often mistakenly assume that since a particular author has one or two really well known works, I assume the rest aren’t worth much. I know very little about A Sentimental Education but will need to check it out. Thanks!

Steph, this one is worth checking out sooner rather than later. It’s not too long, and it really shows what literature is capable of achieving.

Thanks for the kind words, Kevin. I’m very interested to see what I pick up on another read.

Your review captures why I needed to read this book twice. One of my failings as a reader is that I tend to pay attention to social context, sense of place and characterization on the first time through — often at the expense of appreciating style and language. (This would explain why I became a journalist rather than a poet.) Madame Bovary has all those things, but even more important, as you note, is Flaubert’s style (whatever the translation may be). I think it was only on the second time through that I started to appreciate that — and must admit that until I read your excellent review I didn’t understand that that was what the difference was. Thanks.

Fantastic review Trevor, I hadn’t picked up the way the sentences altered to fit the desired tone and it’s a great insight.

Madame Bovary is, for me, the greatest novel I have ever read. I consider it pretty much peerless, a spectacular work of great literature which shows just what the novel can aspire to. Put another way, I quite like it.

I’m glad you quoted the cracked kettle section, it’s wonderfully written, as indeed is the section in the fair with its cruel banalities. But then, as is the whole work really. I do think you picked very apposite quotes for your review though.

On translations, I read the Penguin Classics translation, which I enjoyed (obviously given my comments here). I must dig it out and compare the passages you quote to see how they compare.

Anyway, enough gushing, delighted to see you review this Trevor. Nicely done.

For me Madame Bovary is a triumph of style and language. There is social commentary and other observation, but I don’t think that’s where it’s greatness lies.

Trevor, forgot to ask, is there a Eugene Onegin translation you would recommend? I have the Penguin Classics again, but haven’t yet engaged with it.

Trevor, you are to be praised for taking on such a Big One and coming out of it so well!

My own Madame Bovary experience, like Kevin’s, is only a few years old, and like you (and unlike Kevin!) immediately I realised why this was one of the great novels. It was also I believe Richard Yates’s favourite novel, after or alongside The Great Gatsby .

Good luck with the move. Since I am sure you are still fine-tuning, I do have one problem — your screen is wider than the image I get on my computer so I have to navigate to get to the right hand sidebar, where the latest comments are posted (a part of the screen that does interest me). You have joined PGA Tour.com in a “most annoying” category — I have to manipulate my screen to see what I most want to see. Other screens I frequently visit have the same problem — the left sidebar, which is pretty constant and of marginal value, is always there in full, the right, which changes the most, is the one I have to work at to get to. So when you finetune, as I am sure you will, do me a favor and take this into consideration. Even just swapping left and right would work for me.

Other than that, great.

Another small problem — for some reason, my first comment got moved up in the comments section.

Kevin, the great thing about this is that I can fully manipulate my column widths. However, it sounds like you might have a screen set at low resolution. I’ll get on here later to see what width would best fit screens like yours.

As for your comment, I finally switched my time from GMT to my own EST, so this thinks your early comment is later. Once this initial time change of five hours has passed, that problem will go away.

Thanks for the feedback. I hope to do quite a bit of revision here so it all helps.

Very odd Trevor – my comment appears in the middle of the comments even though I posted it after all the others from Kevin and Max. Technological teething troubles?

Congratulations on the move Trevor, I’ll be interested to see how you develop the place.

For the moment, so you know, I’m getting the same screen size issue as Kevin. I’m not technologically sophisticated to know why I’m afraid.

I’ve updated my blogroll to include your new address. Good luck with the new site!

As a frequent victim of time zone changes (my wife travels internationally a lot), I have ever intention of playing these five hours as a game as much as possible. This is serve one, there may well be others to disrupt you.

Ohhh . . . Kevin. I’m afraid your serve hit the net. The five hours are apparently up and all is on track for the future!

By the way, I modified the column width. How is it now?

Nice new blog! I’ve updated my feed reader, as well as your participant link on The Complete Booker .

Thanks Laura!

Modification works fine for me — thanks. It is also not the first time a serve has hit the net.

Congratulations; the new site looks great! If there’s one thing wrong with WordPress, it’s the inflexibility of the templates.

I have yet to read Madame Bovary, but I’ll be sure to return to this review after I have. As for the matter of translations, I agree completely with what you say. I’ve been put off so many times by poorly-written – and outdated – translations. Initially, I planned on completing Garnett’s ‘Anna Karenina’, but I think I will be reading the Pevear-Volokhonsky.

Trevor: Sorry about being a techie complainer. The comments link on the NBCC post doesn’t seem to be working — given that some us may well want to comment later today…..

Oh, the problems of setting up a new site…..

Hmmmm, thanks Kevin. I’ll try to see if I can find and fix the problem. I’m sure it’s something easy.

By the way, I’m hoping to expand those pages and have individual pages for discussion on each of the books on the shortlist. Hopefully I can get it working!

I meant to say Trevor, that I like the new design very much, now that I’ve worked out what happened with my comment appearing in the middle like that.

And the NYRB spines too. Do I get a prize for naming them all? The Slaves of Solitude, In Hazard, That Awful Mess on the Via Somethingia , something by Leonardo Sciascia, and Beware of Pity . Well, three and a half out of five isn’t bad.

Excellent job, John. I’m sure there aren’t many others who could name them all on sight. The Sciascia book is The Name of the Owl . And it’s That Awful Mess on Via Merulana (a very strange but gratifying book).

I’m having trouble with the blog width. My screen resolution is 1152×768. The text of the review is cut off to the right and the right-hand sidebar is completely invisible. I wouldn’t mind if there was a horizontal scroll bar, but there isn’t, so I have to move the window way to the left and then extend the right hand side, which is rather a nuisance. Hopefully you can do something about it?

(Oh my, “I’m freaking hungry”?! Flaubert probably turned in his grave.)

Great new look on your blog. Congrats!

Question on the widow: Was she very rich?

I saw a couple of versions of Madame Bovary (PBS and an old movie.) I think that I will tackle it in 2011.

What a good review — it had me raring to have another go with Mme. B. I tried when I was too young for it — not that I think there’s a particular perfect age for the novel, but I definitely wasn’t in the right frame of mind to read it then. But now…let’s see.

When you read it again, estelle, please return to let me know if it is better than before. I definitely don’t think I would have appreciated it had I read it when I was younger. I don’t think I would have understood it, for one thing. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the writing, for another. Then again, maybe had I read this when I was younger I would have caught on to this whole literature thing much sooner : ).

For any interested, the University of Rouen has just posted the complete manuscripts of Madame Bovary .

Four times I started Madame Bovary and failed to get past the first third. But I read Sentimental Education and thought so highly of it that I tried MB again — and the fifth time I finally “got it.” My problem had been that I went into the novel with preconceptions that were false. It’s no Anna Karenina, where the main character is sympathetic. Emma Bovary is a horrid person and Flaubert is merciless toward her. It’s a brutal book, but it’s also a great one.

Emma Bovary is a horrid person and Flaubert is merciless toward her.

And I quite feel sorry for Emma (and, interestingly enough, perhaps less so for Anna Karenina — until that heartbreaking scene with her child). Sure, Emma was idealistic and felt romance was her destiny, but to get saddled with charbovari! who just ceases to do anything for their relationship. And, in her attempts to get that romance she ends up with others only in it for the thrill. I agree that Flaubert is brutal (and I feel bad for charbovari! , too.

Ahh, it is a rich, wonderful book. Thank you for bringing it to mind today, Phillip — apparently I do have a desire to read the new Lydia Davis translation.

At least Anna loved her children, and part of her depression is due to losing them. Emma can’t stand Berthe, never could. The debts Emma runs up lead to the financial downfall of her husband; after he dies, Flaubert sends little Berthe to work in a cotton factory. I reread few novels, but I think I read a clunker of a translation of Bovary . Let me know if Davis did justice to Flaubert — he worked so damn hard on getting it right, so I owe him another reading. BTW, Tolstoy grew mightily sick of his heroine.

At least Anna loved her children, and part of her depression is due to losing them. Emma can’t stand Berthe, never could.

True, and certainly remembering those passages makes me less sympathetic to Emma. In fact, after I posted my comment above my wife reminded me of those parts and I thought I might should come in here and amend. So thanks!

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“Pourquoi, mon Dieu ! me suis-je mariée ?” – Madame Bovary  

Summary of madame bovary (i warn you: this is with spoilers).

The story begins when Charles Bovary was still a teenager, unable to adjust to his new school and laughed at by his new classmates. Eventually, after he finished his medical studies, he became a second-rate country doctor. His mother married him to a widow who died soon after. She was older than Charles, and he wasn’t in love with her, there was only jealousy and sadness from her side. I adored the manner in which Flaubert mentioned her death: “tandis que Charles avait le dos tourné pour fermer le rideau de la fenêtre, elle dit : « Ah ! mon Dieu ! » poussa un soupir et s’évanouit. Elle était morte ! Quel étonnement ! ” :’D   (in English: “while Charles had his back turned to close the curtain on the window, she said: “Ah! my God ! », let out a sigh and passed out. She was dead! How astonishing it is! )

In the last moments of the first Madame Bovary’s life, Charles met a beautiful young lady who’s the daughter of one of his patients. Even though his patient is already recovered and healthy, he still keeps coming to their farm, which made his wife jealous. Now that she’s dead, he allowed himself to fall in love with this young lady, whose name is Emma, and asks her to marry him. Emma said yes, and the newly wed couple settles in Tostes, a Norman village where Charles practices as a doctor. The reality of her marriage, however, is not as passionate as Emma expected… As a young girl, she dreamed of love and marriage as the solution to all of her problems. She read these novels in which the men were all romantic, in which the characters had fights full of emotions, in which there was passion between the two lovers. Whereas her marriage with Charles turns out to be monotone and boring. Charles, on the other hand, is happy. He’s married the woman of his dreams.

After an extravagant ball at the Marquis d’Andervilliers’s, Emma takes refuge in the memory of that evening and begins to dream of an ever more sophisticated life. She dreams of Paris, reads Balzac and Eugène Süe, is bored and depressed when she compares her fantasies to the reality of her monotonous life, and finally her apathy makes her sick. When Emma becomes pregnant, Charles decides to move to another city in the hopes of improving her health.

In Yonville-L’Abbaye, the Bovary couple meet Homais, the town pharmacist, a pompous talkative mill who listens to himself talk and Léon Dupuis, a notary’s clerk, who, like her, is bored with rural life. and loves to escape through romantic novels. They happen to have common tastes and when they talk with each other there’s a growing passion between them… 

Eventually, Emma gives birth to her daughter Berthe. She actually wanted a son, so she continues to be depressed. The relationship she’s got with Léon is platonic and fun, but when she realises that Léon actually loves her, she feels guilty and gives herself the role of a devoted wife. She starts to spend a lot of borrowed money on expensive dresses and furniture (all on her husband’s name,  of course). Léon gets tired of waiting and, believing that he will never be able to possess Emma, leaves to study law in Paris. Emma had feelings for him so she grows even sadder now that he left. 

Not long after that, Emma lets herself be seduced by a wealthy neighbour named Rodolphe Boulanger, who’s attracted by her beauty. From the day Rodolphe met her, he’s had bad intentions. Emma thinks he truly loves her, and she is often indiscreet when she’s with him, so that all the locals chat about her. Charles, however, suspects nothing. His adoration for his wife and his stupidity combine to make him deaf to all gossip. His professional reputation suffers a blow when, urged on by Homais and Emma, he attempts surgery to treat the clubfoot from Hippolyte, the hostel’s stable boy, and ends up having to call another doctor to amputate the leg. (It went terribly wrong)

Disgusted with her husband’s incompetence, Emma throws herself even more passionately into her affair with Rodolphe who doesn’t treat her very nicely. She borrows more and more money to buy him gifts and suggests that they run away together and with Berthe to Italy. He nods softly. But, quite quickly, Rodolphe grew bored of Emma’s demanding affections. Refusing to run away with her, he leaves her with only a letter. If this was in our time, it would have felt like a break up with a simple text message. Desperate, Emma gets sick again and even thinks of killing herself.

When Emma regains a bit of strength, Charles is in financial difficulty: he has had to borrow money to pay his wife’s debts but also her treatment. However, he decides to take her to the opera in the nearby city of Rouen, to make her feel better. At first, Emma loves the opera, and just when Charles starts to enjoy it as well, Léon shows up. She basically forces her husband to leave the opera, just so she could talk with Léon again. Their meeting rekindles the old romantic flame between Emma and Léon, and this time they engage in a love affair. Emma gets drunk on her weekly trips to Rouen and she borrows more and more money at exaggerated interest rates from Mr. Lheureux (and her husband will have to pay these debts, of course). She is less and less discreet with Leon. So much so that on several occasions his acquaintances are on the verge of discovering Emma’s infidelity.

Over time, Emma gets bored with Léon and vice versa. Not knowing how to leave him, she is demanding more and more, as her debt swells day by day. Finally, Lheureux has Emma’s property seized to compensate for the debt she has accumulated. Terrified that Charles will find out about the situation, she tries desperately to raise the money she needs, calls on Leon and all the businessmen in town. Finally, she even tries to prostitute herself by offering to come back to Rodolphe if he gives her the money she needs. He refuses, and, pushed to the limit, she commits suicide by swallowing arsenic. She dies in horrible suffering in front of a distraught Charles who does not know what to do.

For a while, Charles idealized the memory of his wife, before discovering the letters of Rodolphe and Léon. Confronted with the truth, he breaks down for good. He dies of grief, and their daughter, Berthe, needs to live with an impoverished aunt, who sends her to work in a cotton mill.

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, madame bovary.

• About the Book

Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs in an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter. In this landmark new translation of Gustave Flaubert’s masterwork, award-winning writer and translator Lydia Davis honors the nuances and particulars of Flaubert’s legendary prose style, giving new life in English to the book that redefined the novel as an art form.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

• Publication Date: October 4, 2011
• Genres: Fiction
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• ISBN-10: 014310649X
• ISBN-13: 9780143106494

Review – Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Introduction: madame bovary by gustave flaubert.

The timeless classic Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners (Oxford World's Classics) is one of those books which is constantly on the various lists of must read books. And I can see why! Gustave Flaubert has written a masterpiece, there is no doubt about that, but at the end of Madame Bovary, this deep melancholy wrapped it arms around me and I quickly had to pick up another book which would make me laugh.

What a depressing ending. If we do not have hope, then what do we have? There has to be hope amidst despair, and I did not feel this while reading Madame Bovary. I didn’t get the sense that the key characters were growing to be better people. There was no feeling of redemption either.

Content: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is set in northern France in the 1850s. There are two Madame Bovaries in the book, but the main character is Emma Bovary the daughter-in-law, and her husband Charles Bovary, the senior Madame Bovary’s son.

The older Madame Bovary is a very controlling woman who marries off Charles to a widow who was much older than he was. When she dies, Charles marries Emma, a farmer’s daughter, who he met while treating her father. Emma marries Charles, thinking she is heading to Adventureland and instead ends up in Snoozeville. Although Charles adores his wife, and is very kind to her, he is exceedingly boring and not much fun to be around. And after marriage, he takes no pains in his appearance. Emma becomes bored with him and lives a life of adventure through the novels she reads and develops a taste for passion and the finer things in life.

As the story unfolds, you see that Emma and Charles are not well-matched, and she becomes very discontented with her life. Emma meets Leon a young student who she yearns for but doesn’t do anything about it, then he moves away. Later she meets Rodolphe a wealthy, local landowner, who pursues her relentlessly. She makes plans with Rodolphe to run away, but at the last minute he “discards” her in a cruel manner after a three-year love affair.

Emma is devastated and becomes quite ill. She slowly recovers, and Charles takes her to the nearby town Rouen to see an opera in a desperate act to aid her recovery. While there, they reconnect with Leon who soon after also pursues Emma. She succumbs once again, and tells Charles she is taking piano lessons and sets her plans in place to visit Leon at a hotel in Rouen each week. To cover her actions, she makes a deal with the piano teacher to keep her cover. Emma is a master of deceit.

Emma spends money faster than Charles earns it because she has to have beautiful things, many of which she buys on credit. She becomes so mired in debt that when they call in the loans she cannot pay them and drives her husband into bankruptcy. Emma eats arsenic powder which she steals from a neighbour who is a pharmacist. She dies a painful death, which is described quite vividly, and of course Charles is so distraught because he has always been smitten with her.

He later finds the evidence of her betrayal and one disaster after another keeps on happening to the Bovary family. To me it was just too much. Flaubert was making a statement with Madame Bovary. According to Books That Changed the World by Andrew,

“Flaubert’s meticulous attention to realistic detail and the presentation of immediately recognizable scenes and exchanges made the novel appear shockingly like an objective depiction of provincial life – which was exactly what he wanted…Flaubert’s undisguised contempt for bourgeois manners and morality…led to charges that he was condoning adultery…”

Final Thoughts: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

I recommend Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert because it’s truly a masterpiece, but if you are looking for a happier ending like I was, this is not the book for you. So why read Madame Bovary? It makes a perfect financial case study, and it's very well written and deals with serious issues that most feel uncomfortable talking about in our society even today: Infidelity, suicide, class structures, discrimination, greed and our finances.

About the Author  Avil Beckford

Hello there! I am Avil Beckford, the founder of The Invisible Mentor. I am also a published author, writer, expert interviewer host of The One Problem Podcast and MoreReads Success Blueprint, a movement to help participants learn in-demand skills for future jobs. Sign-up for MoreReads: Blueprint to Change the World today! In the meantime, Please support me by buying my e-books Visit My Shop , and thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter and Pinterest !

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