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Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert, Margaret Mauldon (Translator), Malcolm Bowie (Introduction), Mark Overstall (Contributor)

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 79,628 ratings · 3,871 reviews

When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about int sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, and begins a devastatin...more

Paperback, 329 pages

Published 2004 by Oxford University Press (first published 1856)

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Jul 05, 2011 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, fiction, examined-lives, romantical, the-continent, tres-francais, woundedsoulsandfragileflowers, grand-opera

Oh, Emma. Emma, Emma, Emma. Darling, why must you make it so easy ? No, dear, (for once) I don’t mean for the men. I mean for everyone else in the world who goes into this book just looking for an excuse to make fun of you. I would say that most people don’t know that much about France, but they do know a few things: that they like their baguettes, their socialism, Sartre, dirrrty dirrty sexy lurrrve and they despise this thing called the bourgeoisie. This book doesn’t really do a thing to dispr...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

~~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...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, vive-le-france, ace

When I first met my husband at a Christmas dinner party hosted by my best friend, he made a joke that I was Emma Bovary. This unflattering comparison was based on my name, French heritage and interest in fashion. Charming. I made a joke that he was a tosser, we fell madly in love and married not long after. No really, we did.

I hadn't read Flaubert's Madame Bovary at that point, but I had heard Emma Bovary was a character without any saving positives. I had also heard that manyyoung women in Norm...more When I first met my husband at a Christmas dinner party hosted by my best friend, he made a joke that I was Emma Bovary. This unflattering comparison was based on my name, French heritage and interest in fashion. Charming. I made a joke that he was a tosser, we fell madly in love and married not long after. No really, we did.

I hadn't read Flaubert's Madame Bovary at that point, but I had heard Emma Bovary was a character without any saving positives. I had also heard that many young women in Normandy who subscribed to the magazine 'Revue de Paris' at the time the book was serialised, related to Emma. I remembered a story about my great aunt who had escaped the family farm in Brittany to start a new life in Paris in the 20's and I imagined Emma to be like her, a woman with ambition stifled by provincial life.

Well, not quite. Emma is a nightmare and a bit mental. She is dramatic and sensitive in the egoistic sense. Her happiness is entirely dependent on outside sources and she is ruled by her desires and longings. But this book isn't just about Emma and her bad life choices. Flaubert's tale is of 'bourgeoisdom'. The vulgarity and mentality of a society in which he lived. Of which he was part of. And whilst Emma is the protagonist, nearly all of his characters are written without saving positives, stepping on the throats of others to realise their ambitions. It's depressing. The characters are cliche-ridden, materialistic, petty, self-centred and envious. The human frailty of Emma towards the end of the book got under my skin, leaving me with ball of sadness in the pit of my stomach.

In spite of the ugliness of the story, the book is rather beautiful. The descriptions of the Normandy countryside are vivid, and actually very accurate even today. Despite Flaubert's personal distaste for the bourgeois he has painted an objective portrait. I was left to form my own opinions. He shows the characters talking and thinking without sticking on emotive labels or overindulging in metaphors.

This book must have been very difficult to write. I'll read it again. (less)

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Feb 08, 2011 Kat Kennedy rated it 2 of 5 stars

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

That's right. Defies judgment.

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

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

I can certainly a...more

51 likes · like · see review

Apr 02, 2011 DeLaina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-college

This is one of the books that has had a profound effect on my life. The moral? Be happy with what you have and where you are!!! Mme. Bovary fritters away her entire life with thoughts of, "If only X would happen, THEN I could be truly happy" and yet she never is. She gets everything she thinks she wants only to find out she's still not content.

I read this while I was engaged and at the time, thought, "Well, I'll be happier when I'm married, but once I am, then life will be fabulous". After a few...more

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Mar 13, 2008 Jeanette rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: did-not-work-for-me

Oy, the tedium, the drudgery of trying to read this book! I tried to get into this story. Really, I did. It's a classic, right? And everyone else likes it. I kept making myself continue, hoping I could get into the story and figure out what's supposed to be so good about it.
I won't waste any more of my precious reading time on this. It's about a self-absorbed young wife who longs for anyone else's life except her own. When she's in the city, she dreams of the farm. When she's in the country, she...more

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Mar 27, 2008 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: incurable romantics and those who love nineteenth-century literature in general

Shelves: continental-european, film, nineteenth-century, psychological-drama

Like every European teenager who takes French at secondary school, I was supposed to read Madame Bovary when I was seventeen or so. I chose not to, and boy, am I glad I did. I couldn't possibly have done justice to the richness of Flaubert's writing as a seventeen-year-old. Moreover, I probably would have hated the characters so much that I never would have given the book another chance. Which would have been a shame, as it's really quite deserving of the tremendous reputation it has.

Madame Bova...more Like every European teenager who takes French at secondary school, I was supposed to read Madame Bovary when I was seventeen or so. I chose not to, and boy, am I glad I did. I couldn't possibly have done justice to the richness of Flaubert's writing as a seventeen-year-old. Moreover, I probably would have hated the characters so much that I never would have given the book another chance. Which would have been a shame, as it's really quite deserving of the tremendous reputation it has.

Madame Bovary is the story of Emma Rouault, a mid-nineteenth-century peasant woman who has read too many sentimental novels for her own good. When the hopeless romantic marries Charles Bovary, a country doctor, she thinks she is going to lead a life full of passion and grandeur, but instead she gets stuck in a provincial town where nothing ever happens. Hell-bent on some escapism and yearning for someone who understands her romantic needs, Emma embarks on two adulterous affairs, plunges herself into debt and ends up very badly indeed, leaving behind a husband who might not have been the dashing hero of her dreams but who most certainly did care about her.

Madame Bovary is most famous for its portrayal of an unfulfilled woman, and indeed it's Emma's ennui and desperate need for romance that the reader will remember. They are described so convincingly that it's hard to believe the author was a man rather than a woman. However, Madame Bovary isn't all about one woman going through life dreaming and breaking down every time reality catches up with her. Like other great classics of realism, it's about society – about the social mores and conditions which instil certain kinds of behaviour in people and then punish them for it. Flaubert's depiction of Emma's provincial village (a haven of all that is base and mediocre) is painstakingly detailed and realistic. It's a wonderfully vivid and well-observed account of life in mid-nineteenth-century rural France, where people go about doing their jobs, conducting illicit affairs, gossiping behind each other's backs, ruining each other financially and generally leading lives which are far from exalted. Flaubert's portrayal of his characters is unabashedly vicious and misanthropic, but such is the quality of his writing that you forgive him for taking such a dim view of humanity. There are descriptions in the book (the seduction at the market, the club-foot operation, the endlessly prolonged death from arsenic poisoning) which rank among the best things nineteenth-century realism has to offer – gloriously life-like scenes which make you feel as if you're right there in the thick of things, watching things happen in front of your horrified eyes. And if the whole thing has a tragic and deterministic slant to it, well, so be it. That's realism for you. At least Flaubert has the decency to grant his heroine a few sighs of rapture before her inexorable demise. For it may be a realist novel, but it has some genuinely romantic moments of passion and drama (cab ride through Rouen, anyone?), and is all the better for it.

Ultimately, how you respond to Madame Bovary depends on your own susceptibility to romantic notions. If, like Emma Bovary, you're prone to dreams of passion, beauty and perfection, and yearn to feel and experience rather than being stuck in a dreary life in a village where nothing ever happens, chances are you'll be able to relate to Emma and thus see the genius of Flaubert's depiction of her. If, on the other hand, you think that such romantic escapism is a lot of sentimental, self-indulgent claptrap (which it is – that's the tragedy of it!), you probably won't be able to relate to Emma at all, and therefore won't much appreciate her as a tragic heroine. As for myself, I'm definitely in the former camp. If I'd been Emma, I probably would have walked into the same traps that she does. I would have fallen in love with the one neighbour who seems to understand my need for intensity, I would have gone through the same mad cycle of repentance, dissatisfaction and making the same mistakes again, and I probably would have spent a bit too much money in my quest for soul-affirming experiences, as well. My ruin wouldn't have been as complete as Emma's, but it would have been fed by the same dreams and desires. Oh, yes. So don't let anyone tell you Madame Bovary is an old-fashioned creature whose dilemmas are no longer relevant to modern readers. There are plenty of people in modern society who are as much in love with romance itself as she is, and not just women, either. And as for discontent, how many people today aren't dissatisfied with their lives because they don't match the glamorous/exciting lives they see on TV? And how many people today don't rack up huge debts because the magazines they read have led them to believe that they're entitled to more than is within their means? Replace 'sentimental novels' by 'TV', 'movies' and 'magazines', and all of a sudden Emma's cravings won't seem so outdated any more. Quite the contrary; they're as timeless and universal as they ever were. That's the hallmark of a classic – it speaks to us from across a century and a half and shows us ourselves. We may not much like the picture of ourselves, but it's pretty powerful all the same.

I'd give the book four and a half stars if I could, but alas. In the absence of half stars, four stars will have to do, with the assurance that it's well worth another half.
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Apr 28, 2013 Rakhi Dalal rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This is my third attempt at writing the review for the work. I tried and tried, but found myself at loss with words each time I sat and thought about the character of Emma. Her character, at the outset, is contemptible. A woman, who engages in an ignoble behavior with other man, someone who is not in control of her emotions, someone who doesn’t live in her present, ignores her child and husband for an illicit relationship, lives for her own gratification and is self-indulgent to the point of bei...more This is my third attempt at writing the review for the work. I tried and tried, but found myself at loss with words each time I sat and thought about the character of Emma. Her character, at the outset, is contemptible. A woman, who engages in an ignoble behavior with other man, someone who is not in control of her emotions, someone who doesn’t live in her present, ignores her child and husband for an illicit relationship, lives for her own gratification and is self-indulgent to the point of being a hedonist. No, one cannot forgive her.

To some extent, I agree. I found myself quite angry with her several times, more specifically towards the end, when her husband died and their only child was left to labor. It evoked a kind of rage, as I felt dearly for the child. But I couldn’t bring about myself to loath Emma. No, I couldn’t do that. Rather I felt pity for her, for I could acutely feel the despair which she might have gone through while living a dull provincial life. And many reasons, in my opinion, contributed to her despair. First one being, that she was a woman of an above average intelligence, who was infatuated with grandeur of a bourgeois society. She was a little educated and had been under the influence of what she might have gathered from her school life. If only, she had been exposed to other opportunities to explore more in life, she might have not felt the despair and earnestness to break away from her family. I have witnessed such a case in real life, where owing to an above average intelligence and for a restriction to explore in more in terms of education and career, a woman turned insane. Emma turned to experience adventure and fallacy of love. It is something not to be detested but to be understood.

Secondly, if she was born in a rich family, the society wouldn’t have affected her so. Thirdly and most importantly, if her husband was less sluggish and more enthusiastic, perhaps it would have helped her in finding other outlets for her frustration. As a woman, I think I can safely say that women do not respect men with less ambition. That said, I am, in no way trying to justify the actions taken by Emma. Rather, trying to analyse her reasons for doing so.

Gustave Flaubert has been such a master of the craft! Though through his work, he has given us a glance into the bourgeois culture which prevailed during his times and an account of the result of despair, on the part of a woman, that could arise from an unhappy married life; I think he has also incited us to question the very basis of a married relationship. Though the times have changed, women now more independent and free to indulge in their vocations and hobbies, but still, when it comes to marriage, the bottom line I guess, remains the same.

5 stars for bringing Emma almost alive!

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Sep 16, 2012 Emily May rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001-read, 2012

In this case, I think it was a bad idea to know stuff about Madame Bovary and Gustave Flaubert before starting the book. My high school English teacher loved to talk about books - and I know how she feels - but the result was quite a few spoilers for a lot of European classics. I think that knowing the author's intentions can be a bad thing and I'm certain that I was unable to keep it from influencing the way I viewed Emma Bovary and her behaviour. If you're curious about these intentions of Fla...more In this case, I think it was a bad idea to know stuff about Madame Bovary and Gustave Flaubert before starting the book. My high school English teacher loved to talk about books - and I know how she feels - but the result was quite a few spoilers for a lot of European classics. I think that knowing the author's intentions can be a bad thing and I'm certain that I was unable to keep it from influencing the way I viewed Emma Bovary and her behaviour. If you're curious about these intentions of Flaubert's: (view spoiler)

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

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

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

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

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Aug 31, 2010 notgettingenough rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: pre20th-century

added 1 September 2010

Oh, I adore this piece of marketing. How Amazon sells Madame B.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: French Erotic Romance Novel: Classic Nude Art Pictures (Romantic Fiction Stories: Love, Seduction & Fantasy)

-------------------------------------------------

A dead man took me to the opera last night. Sitting there I realized you knew you'd be dead by now. Wally, it was because you took me there, I was able to write this.

What if Emma Bovary had seen Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk?...more

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Sep 22, 2007 Shannon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 famil...more

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May 21, 2013 Nenia Campbell rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, x-1850s, did-not-finish-or-skimmed, translated, literature-i-do-not-like, bad-and-unreedemable, bad-and-boring, feminism-but-not-really, heroine-is-too-stupid-to-live, pretentious, whiny-whiny-angst-angst-angst

What the actual fuck is up with these so-called feminist books?! Seriously? I will never, never ever consider The Awakening, The Yellow Wallpaper, Madame Bovary, Mists of Avalon, or Kushiel's Dart feminist fiction and/or containing strong female protagonists.

I tried reading Madame Bovary for the first time about five years ago. I got annoyed and put it down. Lately, people have begun telling me that I must not like a book because I'm "too young" to get it (yeah, tell me again how literary Fifty ...more

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May 08, 2010 Manny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: strongly-recommended, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts

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 ha...more 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.

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Jan 22, 2009 Malbadeen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: what-everyone-else-was-assigned

Yes, the writing occasionally caused me to pause in appreciation for it's efficacy and irony. And true, some of the irritations with character may have been more an issue of realities of that time period rather than ideologies of the author but still, it was a little nauseating to see, once again, woman portrayed as banal nit wits that are so frail the mere thought of romance causes their hearts to twitter and their hands to shake while men pursued academics, culture and conversation.

But mostly...more Yes, the writing occasionally caused me to pause in appreciation for it's efficacy and irony. And true, some of the irritations with character may have been more an issue of realities of that time period rather than ideologies of the author but still, it was a little nauseating to see, once again, woman portrayed as banal nit wits that are so frail the mere thought of romance causes their hearts to twitter and their hands to shake while men pursued academics, culture and conversation.

But mostly I was just irritated with Emma. I kept rolling my eyes at her, telling her to "pull it together" in mind and generally being embarrassed by her every action. I wanted to grab her and tell her,

"Woman, get a grip! You're making a fool of yourself. You think you're the only one that has been disappointed in their partner?
You think your longings are so profound and exceptional that you should let them drive your every ridiculous action?
Hell No!
Take me for example, when I, mere weeks into my marriage, realized what a horrific mistake I'd made did you see me running out and hanging on every mans ramblings, staring at members of society that were not in my immediate circle, day dreaming about being invited in? Hell No! I did what any respectable woman would do, I walked to the back of he closet, rocked my dead dads shirts close to me and sobbed silently - that's how you do it.

And sure, I may not be in the best relationship right now, maybe I prefer a good book, early bed times and the outdoors, while my "boyfriend" prefers copious amounts of pot, drinking binges that last until 4:00 in the morning and comedy central.
you don't see me clawing my way to an arsenic bottle do you?
Hell NO!
We make the best of these things Emma! We carry on, we move forward, we look towards the good and silently await the inevitable demise of said relationship.

So you're not intellectually compatible! Brains are so over ratted these days. There are other things as well. There is sex and food and music. There are all these things to distract you from your miserable reality.

So suck it up! Don't be so freaking dramatic, gagging on your arsenic! pleeeeeeease.

pop in a Bonnie "Prince" Billy cd belt out the words to "So Everyone", weep your way through "Beast for thee" and then dry your eyes, dab on the under eye make up and get on with the day allready!

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Oct 13, 2007 Núria rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: rebeldes inconformistas y melancólicos insatisfechos

Shelves: mios, 5-favoritos, 2006, read-more-than-once, literatura-en-frances, decimononicos, para-la-isla-desierta

Uno de los libros más deprimentes que he leído nunca. Uno de los pocos que me ha hecho llorar (literalmente). Uno de mis favoritos, a pesar de que leerlo cada vez sea una experiencia devastadora, pero supongo que soy masoquista.

Emma Bovary es un seregoísta, caprichoso e inmaduro, y encima con muy poco criterio. Pero a pesar de todos sus defectos, Emma se hace querer, no sólo porque sea un personaje perfectamente construido, sino porque es apasionada pero está profundamente insatisfecha, y aún a...more Uno de los libros más deprimentes que he leído nunca. Uno de los pocos que me ha hecho llorar (literalmente). Uno de mis favoritos, a pesar de que leerlo cada vez sea una experiencia devastadora, pero supongo que soy masoquista.

Emma Bovary es un seregoísta, caprichoso e inmaduro, y encima con muy poco criterio. Pero a pesar de todos sus defectos, Emma se hace querer, no sólo porque sea un personaje perfectamente construido, sino porque es apasionada pero está profundamente insatisfecha, y aún así no quiere resignarse. El problema de Emma es el que tenemos todos, que la realidad no resulta nunca tan maravillosa como nos habían prometido. El problema de Emma no es que haya leído demasiados libros, sino que ha creído que lo que le contaban los libros era la realidad. A pesar de que se da un porrazo tras otro, a pesar de que tiene delante de sus narices la evidencia de que la realidad nunca es tan maravillosa ni intensa como la ficción, ella sigue queriendo algo más. Desea algo con todas sus fuerzas, lo consigue, pero una vez lo ha conseguido se da cuenta que no es lo que imaginaba, que esto tampoco le va a traer la felicidad. Por más cosas que consiga nunca será feliz porque la insatisfacción ha arraigado en ella. Es por todo esto que la obra es tan triste, porque parece que nos dice que la felicidad nunca es posible.

Emma nunca conseguirá la felicidad, pero los otros personajes tampoco. Creo que quizás el personaje más significativo de toda la novela sea León. Al principio, León es un joven idealista, apasionado, que anhela una felicidad que está más allá de la vida burguesa a la que está destinado. Pero luego se va a estudiar a París y lo perdemos de vista durante algunos capítulos. Cuando vuelve a reaparecer, se ha convertido en una persona práctica, cínica y materialista.

La primera vez que lo leí me pareció que esta evolución era demasiado brusca para ser del todo creíble. Ahora me doy cuenta de que era la única evolución posible y que es un acierto que Flaubert nos de esta elipsis y no se preocupe en describirla, porque al fin y al cabo ésta es la evolución natural, no es necesario contar nada, es de manual. León no tiene otra opción que renunciar a todos los sueños vagos y los deseos intangibles de juventud, y convertirse en un perfecto burgués con un perfecto trabajo y una perfecta familia. En esta sociedad tan hipócrita y abyecta, no hay lugar para los que no se conforman, los que quieren salirse de la norma; no hay lugar para Emma.

Pero es que los otros personajes tampoco te dan alternativas mejores. El único que parece realmente feliz, Charles, al final de la obra se da cuenta de que todo ha sido un engaño, una mentira. Y los otros son realmente despreciables. El que al final triunfa es el farmacéutico, Homais, que es el típico burgués mediocre que no triunfa por su inteligencia, sino por su jeta y sus malas artes. Al final, la obra nos deja totalmente vacíos, porque no ha dejado de recordarnos ni un instante toda la monotonía, la banalidad y el tedio que hay en lo que llamamos vida, y sobre todo que nunca podremos hacer nada para escapar. (less)

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Mar 31, 2009 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then determine whether or not they deserve the label. Madame Bovary is book #26 of the series.

The story in a nutshell:
Considered by nearly everyone to be one of the best novels ever written, French cynic Gustave Flaubert's 1857 Madame Bovary (originally published serially in 1856) is one of the first fiction projects in history to be as much a deep "character study" as a vehicle for simply propelling an exciting pl...more

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Feb 11, 2008 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: awesome

Just finished this morning. Wow. Wow. WOW. Straight into the all-time top 10.

Emma Bovary, wife of a kind and stable country doctor, longs for the depth of feeling and the hyper-reality she experiences in reading romantic novels or attending the opera, but her reality always falls woefully short. In search of a life where her ideals play out for her, she throws herself into high living and adulterous affairs.

This surprisingly bright and lively novel renders the failure of the ideal in relation to...more Just finished this morning. Wow. Wow. WOW. Straight into the all-time top 10.

Emma Bovary, wife of a kind and stable country doctor, longs for the depth of feeling and the hyper-reality she experiences in reading romantic novels or attending the opera, but her reality always falls woefully short. In search of a life where her ideals play out for her, she throws herself into high living and adulterous affairs.

This surprisingly bright and lively novel renders the failure of the ideal in relation to the real (or is it the other way around?) and above all, the limitations of being a capital-R Romantic. Amendment 6/18/08: The more I let Madame Bovary sit inside my mind, the more I'm convinced of a philosophical and artistic ambiguity at its core. Yes, Emma's romantic affectation hurts the people who care for her, isolates her in the tyranny of her own feelings, and leads to her (stupid) end, but look at the world that exists in indifference to it. Given a choice, who would enthusiastically choose that? Isn't there something in Flaubert that keeps turning toward dream, in spite of itself?

I hesitated to approach this novel, as I suspect many readers have, because I worried that its narrative would devolve into some 19th-century man making fun of a woman's emotions. However, that's not Madame Bovary at all - in no small part because of Flaubert's incredible amount of empathy with Emma. As another commenter noted, it's not hard to imagine him as a young man reading stacks of trashy novels, sighing beneath the summer stars, and eating all the roses off the trellis. You may be laughing at Emma, but whoever you are, you're laughing at yourself. I'm Emma Bovary too. We all are.

And perhaps I'm reading this with too modern an eye, but I saw plenty of very subtle commentary about the way women are taught to act in regards to their own emotions. For example, how can Emma have any influence in the public sphere or in her own life, other than by creating disruptive, excessively emotional scenes until a man who thinks himself kind-hearted gives in to her? If her passion encompasses her own degradation or her own destruction, so much the better for it. (And as a rather bourgeois woman myself, I feel that Flaubert has nailed the unspoken longing for storms and the terror of their secretly wished-for arrival.)

And the language. Dear god. Two scenes made me put the book down and go get some fresh air because I quite seriously thought I was going to vomit.

Favorite passage:
'As for Emma, she didn't think she was in love with him. Love, she believed, should arrive all at once with thunder and lightning - a whirlwind from the skies that affects life, turns it every which way, wrests resolutions aside like leaves, and plunges the entire heart into an abyss. She did not know that rain forms lakes on house terraces when the gutters are stopped up, and she remained secure in her ignorance until she suddenly discovered a crack in the wall.'(less)

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Dec 31, 2012 sologdin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

Nutshell: bucolic twerp, well read in romance novels, gets bored with bourgeois husband, has affairs, bankrupts estate, dies.

A tremendous narrative. Only rhetorical default is the first word, We (1), first-person narration, which nevertheless disappears very soon in favor of third-person omniscient. It's an odd defect, and am not sure what to make of it. A clever reading might be able to turn it into a virtue; I see no need.

In the first part, we must note that Emma's discourse is not presented d...more

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Mar 23, 2012 Loederkoningin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, lingers-in-the-mind, a-tragedy-unfolding, haunted-heroines, about-obsession, bittersweet-self-destruction, life-s-longings

Whether you enjoy or at least appreciate Madame Bovary, may depend a lot on how well you're able to identify yourself with the heroine. I've spoken to people who are pretty much content with their family and 9 to 5 job, their trips to the local supermarket and Sundays spent with their grandparents. And I envy them. And I don't. Those are the people who are most likely to throw away their copy, disgusted with stupid, shallow Emma, this woman who can't seem to appreciate all the happiness that is...more Whether you enjoy or at least appreciate Madame Bovary, may depend a lot on how well you're able to identify yourself with the heroine. I've spoken to people who are pretty much content with their family and 9 to 5 job, their trips to the local supermarket and Sundays spent with their grandparents. And I envy them. And I don't. Those are the people who are most likely to throw away their copy, disgusted with stupid, shallow Emma, this woman who can't seem to appreciate all the happiness that is under her nose, up for grabs.

However, If you have hidden and tucked away a few flaming, red hot dreams yourself, somewhere in the back of your head or inside cupboards, dreams that are patiently waiting for you to someday dare and take the leap, Emma Bovary's motives are eerily clear. And she acts on them so boldly, that you find yourself watching in horrid fascination at how her life unfolds.

Flaubert places his protagonist in a rural French village and thus condemns her to a humble, mundane life. A life that contrasts immensely with her romantic ideals. And despite her inability at retrospection or analysis, despite the fact that it never dawns on her that the grass perhaps isn't greener on the other side and that she might be chasing paper dreams, I feel for Emma. I suppose she reminds me of Scarlett. And I just happen to have a weak spot for women who dream big and stubbornly keep doing so, no matter what cards they are dealt in life.
Flaubert opposes Dream to Reality and noticeably isn't a fan of the first: he powerfully distances himself from the romantic zeitgeist. This is something I regret: Emma's life reads like a warning to women, and I'm never keen on moral messages (of course, this is written in an entire different era, which should be taken into account).
Despite the tragedy unfolding, the irony of Emma's life - and that of those surrounding her - is often amusing. As is the pompous theatrical dialogue, the self-declared importance of the provincials. But after all these empty dreams, melodramatic exclamations and the lazy pace in which the decline of Emma's life plays out, things start spinning out of control violently on those last harsh and naked pages.
A page turner this is definitely not, but I won't easily forget Madame Bovary.

(less)

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Jul 25, 2008 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

I’ve just read Bruce Nagle’s review of this book – in which he talks of the benefits of returning to a classic work of fiction after some time so that a ‘different self’ can ‘acquire new insights’ into a much loved work. If I didn’t have so much else to read this beautiful comment would be enough to make me take up this book again. I remember so loving this book when I first read it that it would be no hardship to read it again.

It is odd the things that get associated with books in one’s life –...more I’ve just read Bruce Nagle’s review of this book – in which he talks of the benefits of returning to a classic work of fiction after some time so that a ‘different self’ can ‘acquire new insights’ into a much loved work. If I didn’t have so much else to read this beautiful comment would be enough to make me take up this book again. I remember so loving this book when I first read it that it would be no hardship to read it again.

It is odd the things that get associated with books in one’s life – I particularly remember reading this one on the train on the way to and home from work years ago. I remember being utterly transported – yes, I know, there’s a pun there somewhere – by the story.

But I also remember talking to a friend on a train about it years later, who was also reading it on the train, talking to her about the ‘error’ I spotted in the book. Who is the narrator? In the first chapter he is clearly a school mate of the child who will grow to become the pitifully inept Dr Bovary – but the narrator becomes God at some stage, well, at least someone with the same ability to peer into the lives of others as God is reputed to have.

This book isn’t the book one might think it is. There comes a moment in this book when one is awoken from a dream and the book stops being a romance set in the French countryside and becomes something infinitely deeper and, well, terrifyingly human.

I’ve only now thought of the connection between Madam Bovary and Nora of A Doll’s House. Two women trapped in unreal kinds of ‘conventions’, both getting into financial difficulty to sustain their unreal lives and then both finding ways to get out of these ‘troubles’ that one might not quite expect – definitely not expecting the consequences given how our expectations have been moulded by the stories up until these points, these 'turning points'. Emma’s (Madam Bovary's) choice seems so romantic at the moment she makes it – but it then so quickly turns to shit – and this is the moment I referred to above, the moment when this novel becomes quite different to what I had expected it to remain. Nora’s choice, on the other hand, is utterly revolutionary - so much so that I believe the play was banned in many countries.

But perhaps that is a difference between life and art – far too often in life the choices we make are the bland middle path and we are not even Emma Bovary (which is no bad thing) but also, far too rarely, are we Nora Helmer either.

If you have never read this, you had better do it now or you simply will not get a chance to experience the joy Bruce spoke of in his review.
(less)

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Jun 11, 2007 Dot rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like their heroines to sleep around

Shelves: fiction

This is kind of embarrassing. I think I really wanted to be like a literary character when I was a teenager, so I made myself identify with Emma Bovary. We had nothing in common. I was pretty much celibate most of my high school years and really kind of disinterested in romance. She, on the other hand, was love-starved and I'm pretty sure she fucked everyone in the book. Just no alignment whatsoever. But I'm glad I got over that.

This book was alright. I don't really remember what went on because...more

11 likes · like · see review

Dec 13, 2010 Weinz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

LINES ON MARRIAGE

By Joel Brouwer

You’re not dewy with
sleep in the next room,
or impossibly
distant. You’re not here.
“Bovary bores me,
Bovary irritates
me, the vulgarity
of the subject gives
me bouts of nausea.”
You might be jogging
or buying groceries.
I don’t know where you
are. It’s not midnight
or high noon or dawn.
It’s about three, I
think, the hour Sartre
said is always too
early or too late
for whatever it
is you want to do.
Flaubert hates his
characters not because
of what they do or
who they are but
because t...more

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Jun 26, 2012 shuurei rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Madame Bovary depicts a bored and lonely wife. Marrying Charles maybe a big mistake for her but she cannot blame anybody but herself, her decision is subjective. She believes too much in love at first sight. What I hate about Emma was that she was so obssessed with love! But she didn't know what true love is all about. She described loved a hurricane that will just surprised you--love at first sight, her obssession with literature made her believe that when there is a damsel in distress there wi...more

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Jan 17, 2010 Venus added it · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

از این کتاب درسی عظیم گرفته میشود و آن پی بردن به خطر خانمان سوز سودایی و خیال پرداز بودن است

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Dec 07, 2011 Jeremy added it · review of another edition

Shelves: french-literature

I'm not big on books about 19th century domestic life, but damn, I found this hard to put down. Flaubert is a fierce writer, and he's able to generate an entire little world with these deft, precisely chosen details and descriptions. I found Madame Bovary to be cinematic, you can see almost every scene playing out in your head, and there are some really ass-kicking set pieces to boot. I don't think anyone ever invested an agricultural fair with so much pathos; even the part where they go to the...more

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Jul 20, 2011 selena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to selena by: Frances of Nonsuch Books

Shelves: 2011, literary-fiction

It seems that you either love or hate this book. Well, I liked it.

I own the Lydia Davis translation of this book and to be honest, I was waiting for it to come out before I attempted Madame Bovary again. I couldn't get through it the first time I tried it (pre-Davis).

Having never before read Flaubert, it felt like a real gap in my reading. In a way, I guess I've crossed it off, but I'm not done with Flaubert yet, though. I enjoyed his writing style and his focus on the little details within th...more It seems that you either love or hate this book. Well, I liked it.

I own the Lydia Davis translation of this book and to be honest, I was waiting for it to come out before I attempted Madame Bovary again. I couldn't get through it the first time I tried it (pre-Davis).

Having never before read Flaubert, it felt like a real gap in my reading. In a way, I guess I've crossed it off, but I'm not done with Flaubert yet, though. I enjoyed his writing style and his focus on the little details within the book. I understood, through his descriptions, the life that Madame Bovary wanted, and the very blase life that she was stuck with.

For a "classic," the book was easy to read and I felt engaged. I knew the ending to the book before I started reading it but in a way, it's like reading Anna Karenina. You know the ending. But what matters is how she gets there. That was my only qualm with the book - the ending.

It felt so rushed, her decision to commit suicide and to poison herself. It felt like the dramatic end to her life matched her dramatic moods and her desperation, but it was still too rushed. On the other hand, discussing this book with friends, the idea was brought up that her life was nothing without her possessions.

Instead of ending the book at her suicide and death or even at her funeral, I was glad that Charles got some extra attention at the end of the book. Though he was her husband, he felt like a minor character comparatively and his devotion to his wife truly came through in the end of the book.

Also, just as a P.S. since I've been reading so many reviews of Madame Bovary... I'm finding that people are having a hard time separating their feelings for the main character from their review of the book and the quality of the writing, merit of the author, etc. There is a difference and there are many books where you can certainly hate the protagonist (and do) but the book itself is worth reading.

tl;dr Please review the book, not how much you like the damn characters because I do not care.(less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french-lit

Black in the shadow, and a rich blue in broad daylight, they seemed to hold successive layers of colour, darkest at the depths and growing brighter and brighter towards the surface. His own eyes would lose themselves in those depths. He saw himself refelected there in miniature, down to the shoulders, with his silk hankerchief over his head and his nightshirt open at the neck.

This symbolic description of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault interweaving in body, life and fate foreshadows a fascinatin...more

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Nov 08, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Country doctors, bourgeoisie adulterers, NOT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Shelves: classic, literary, books-i-had-to-read-in-high-school, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, french-literature, audiobook, 19th-century, france, bad-marriages, reread, female-protagonist, realism

Of all the books I had to read in high school, this is the only one I truly hated. Probably the most boring book I ever forced myself to finish. None of the characters are likeable, the story is tedious, and I think it only still gets assigned in English classes because it was "controversial" a hundred and fifty years ago.

November, 2012 reread

Okay, I get it now.

Previously, I gave Madame Bovary 1 star, because among all the books I had to read in high school, that was the only one I remembered ab...more

9 likes · like · see review

Melki I hated EVERY book I had to read in high school. Something dreadful happens when you stick the word "required" in front of the normally pleasurable wo...more
Nov 09, 2012 02:59am

deleted user I agree with your last paragraph Melki. This was one of the books I had to read for my French degree. Out of all the french writers this is one that I...more
Nov 09, 2012 03:22am

Jeffrey Keeten I have never read this book. What a gap in my reading resume. I do find that I have sometimes a totally different take on a book on the second read es...more
Nov 12, 2012 06:35am

Feb 11, 2011 Lavinia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2004-and-older, fiction, 2011

Some random thoughts:

- I fail to see the book's obscenity (reason for trial when it was first published), still, we are some 150 years later;
- Emma is bland and a little stupid. Here, I said it. I didn't like anything about her as a woman. You don't want to get me started. I wondered, throughout the book, why she is so many people's favourite female character. Still beats me. Of course anyone can relate (I've put myself in her shoes as an exercise, it's not comfortable) - humanity / morals haven...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jun 04, 2008 Cendri rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was the first book I read on my new Kindle (a birthday present). This is totally irrelevant to the book, but it was a "novel" experience, so I thought I'd share :)

I'd tried to read M. Bovary once before and failed utterly. This time it clicked. As I've gotten older, I've gotten more cynical, more critical of unabashed love. All those movies where the guy gets the girl and they kiss and hug and walk off into the sunset - I now wonder: what happens later? If we checked back in a year, would t...more

4 likes · like · see review

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About Gustave Flaubert

Bulgarian: Гюстав Флобер

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie Region of France.

Flaubert's curious modes of composition favored and were emphasized by these peculiarities. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page, never satisfied wi...more Bulgarian: Гюстав Флобер

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie Region of France.

Flaubert's curious modes of composition favored and were emphasized by these peculiarities. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page, never satisfied with what he had composed, violently tormenting his brain for the best turn of a phrase, the most absolutely final adjective. It cannot be said that his incessant labors were not rewarded. His private letters show that he was not one of those to whom easy and correct language is naturally given; he gained his extraordinary perfection with the unceasing sweat of his brow. One of the most severe of academic critics admits that in all his works, and in every page of his works, Flaubert may be considered a model of style.

That he was one of the greatest writers who ever lived in France is now commonly admitted, and his greatness principally depends upon the extraordinary vigour and exactitude of his style. Less perhaps than any other writer, not of France, but of modern Europe, Flaubert yields admission to the inexact, the abstract, the vaguely inapt expression which is the bane of ordinary methods of composition. He never allowed a cliché to pass him, never indulgently or wearily went on, leaving behind him a phrase which almost expressed his meaning. Being, as he is, a mixture in almost equal parts of the romanticist and the realist, the marvellous propriety of his style has been helpful to later writers of both schools, of every school. The absolute exactitude with which he adapts his expression to his purpose is seen in all parts of his work, but particularly in the portraits he draws of the figures in his principal romances. The degree and manner in which, since his death, the fame of Flaubert has extended, form an interesting chapter of literary history.

The publication of Madame Bovary in 1857 had been followed by more scandal than admiration; it was not understood at first that this novel was the beginning of something new, the scrupulously truthful portraiture of life. Gradually this aspect of his genius was accepted, and began to crowd out all others. At the time of his death he was famous as a realist, pure and simple. Under this aspect Flaubert exercised an extraordinary influence over Émile de Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet and Zola. But even after the decline of the realistic school Flaubert did not lose prestige; other facets of his genius caught the light. It has been perceived that he was not merely realistic, but real; that his clairvoyance was almost boundless; that he saw certain phenomena more clearly than the best of observers had done. Flaubert is a writer who must always appeal more to other authors than to the world at large, because the art of writing, the indefatigable pursuit of perfect expression, were always before him, and because he hated the lax felicities of improvisation as a disloyalty to the most sacred procedures of the literary artist.

He can be said to have made cynicism into an art-form, as evinced by this observation from 1846:

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

His Oeuvres Complètes (8 vols., 1885) were printed from the original manuscripts, and included, besides the works mentioned already, the two plays, Le Candidat and Le Château des avurs. Another edition (10 vols.) appeared in 1873–1885. Flaubert's correspondence with George Sand was published in 1884 with an introduction by Guy de Maupassant.

He has been admired or written about by almost every major literary personality of the 20th century, including philosophers such as Pierre Bourdieu. Georges Perec named Sentimental Education as one of his favou(less)

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Quotes from Madame Bovary

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” — 1,198 people liked it

“At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.” — 176 people liked it

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