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Madame Bovary (Oxford World's Classics)
by Gustave Flaubert

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2175.Madame_Bovary?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Madame Bovary (Oxford World's Classics)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1160691449m/2175.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2175.Madame_Bovary?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Madame Bovary</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1461.Gustave_Flaubert">Gustave Flaubert</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19461646?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars Madame Bovary is a cautionary tale. On the surface it appears to be an admonition against infidelity. It appears to be an age-old tale about a woman who is disappointed by the simplicity of her husband. In light of this, she looks outside of her marriage for something that will fulfill her desire for felicity and rapture which she has for many years read about in books.
 
 In truth however, it seems that the protagonist is simply a woman who is unwilling to accept the reality of the world around her. She believes that she is owed an aristocratic life of great passion and opulence and consequently she feels justified in doing anything necessary in order to accommodate her lust for these sensations. Although Flaubert uses adultery and lavish spending to express these feelings, they are equally applicable to any person living to petulant excess whether they do it with sex, drugs, gambling, or myriad other vices. In the end, Emma Bovary escapes the hounding of her debtors as well as her own conscience through suicide. Even on her deathbed however, she is furious of the reality that the poison acts slowly and painfully instead of gracefully spiriting her off to an ethereal dreamland the way she romantically sees her fate unfolding. Like so often in real life, this escape is only effective for the perpetrator, and the innocent loved ones end up paying for her selfish life long after she has left it.
 
 Life isn’t always poetic. People often delude themselves with visions of grandeur. Visions in which they see their joys and travails as transcendent epics with much greater significance than anything in the lives of those around us. Eventually we all learn that this isn’t true, just as Emma Bovary realized it in the novel. “Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage.” In light of these discoveries, we can both grow up and move forward with our lives, or we can take our delusions to the next extreme in the hope that we will find the ecstasy we feel we deserve. Unlike Emma however, we would do well to realize that this pursuit shall never end in joy.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/237751?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Glen's review
rating:

** spoiler alert ** Madame Bovary is a cautionary tale. On the surface it appears to be an admonition against infidelity. It appears to be an age-old tale about a woman who is disappointed by the simplicity of her husband. In light of this, she looks outside of her marriage for something that will fulfill her desire for felicity and rapture which she has for many years read about in books.

In truth however, it seems that the protagonist is simply a woman who is unwilling to accept the reality of the world around her. She believes that she is owed an aristocratic life of great passion and opulence and consequently she feels justified in doing anything necessary in order to accommodate her lust for these sensations. Although Flaubert uses adultery and lavish spending to express these feelings, they are equally applicable to any person living to petulant excess whether they do it with sex, drugs, gambling, or myriad other vices. In the end, Emma Bovary escapes the hounding of her debtors as well as ...more Madame Bovary is a cautionary tale. On the surface it appears to be an admonition against infidelity. It appears to be an age-old tale about a woman who is disappointed by the simplicity of her husband. In light of this, she looks outside of her marriage for something that will fulfill her desire for felicity and rapture which she has for many years read about in books.

In truth however, it seems that the protagonist is simply a woman who is unwilling to accept the reality of the world around her. She believes that she is owed an aristocratic life of great passion and opulence and consequently she feels justified in doing anything necessary in order to accommodate her lust for these sensations. Although Flaubert uses adultery and lavish spending to express these feelings, they are equally applicable to any person living to petulant excess whether they do it with sex, drugs, gambling, or myriad other vices. In the end, Emma Bovary escapes the hounding of her debtors as well as her own conscience through suicide. Even on her deathbed however, she is furious of the reality that the poison acts slowly and painfully instead of gracefully spiriting her off to an ethereal dreamland the way she romantically sees her fate unfolding. Like so often in real life, this escape is only effective for the perpetrator, and the innocent loved ones end up paying for her selfish life long after she has left it.

Life isn’t always poetic. People often delude themselves with visions of grandeur. Visions in which they see their joys and travails as transcendent epics with much greater significance than anything in the lives of those around us. Eventually we all learn that this isn’t true, just as Emma Bovary realized it in the novel. “Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage.” In light of these discoveries, we can both grow up and move forward with our lives, or we can take our delusions to the next extreme in the hope that we will find the ecstasy we feel we deserve. Unlike Emma however, we would do well to realize that this pursuit shall never end in joy.
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