From the Bookshelf of 101 Books to Read Before You Die…

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert

Start date: January 1, 2017

Finish date: March 31, 2017

Discussion: Completed Reads

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 187 topics — 1,610 comments total

Completed Reads

March read - Ham on Rye
By Mike · 9 posts · 13 views

last updated May 10, 2020 04:29PM

April Read - What A Carve Up
By Mike · 2 posts · 4 views

last updated Apr 19, 2020 06:52AM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Oct 27, 2019 Anirban Nanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, tragic

Thinking of the time it was written, I could imagine its boldness in portraying adultery in light of a Christian marriage. And hence, religion is a significant part of the story. At times, I found the details breathtakingly real. But there are instances when the writing is straight dull. Standing in the present time, I found some expressions, amazingly offensive and repulsive.
Example:

“A trifle,” he answered, “a mere trifle; but there’s no hurry; whenever you like; we’re not Jews!"

But that doesn' ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 30, 2024 Danny Aldham rated it liked it

Reading a classic like Madam Bovary, there are expectations raised in the reader before they read the first word. This is a book that has been praised since 1857. Are we allowed to find fault with it? If we do, does that somehow reflect more on the character of the reader than on the work?
I already knew the rough plot of the story, so the ending wasn’t a surprise. And the prose of Gustaf Flaubert is great even if read in translation.
My knock against the book will be familiar to people who read Reading a classic like Madam Bovary, there are expectations raised in the reader before they read the first word. This is a book that has been praised since 1857. Are we allowed to find fault with it? If we do, does that somehow reflect more on the character of the reader than on the work?
I already knew the rough plot of the story, so the ending wasn’t a surprise. And the prose of Gustaf Flaubert is great even if read in translation.
My knock against the book will be familiar to people who read my reviews. I didn’t think Flaubert got close enough to his characters. I was watching them, listening to them, and sitting in the same room with them, but I never became them. I never felt that immersive element of close third person. As passionate as Emma Bovery is, I didn’t feel her passions. The falling in love, or lust, were there to see, but not to feel. The joy of fine clothing, furniture, plays and concerts in high society were all there to observe. I wanted to know how they made Emma feel. The horror of being jilted by Rodolphe I could imagine, but I only observed it.
The great power of a well-written novel is it allows a reader to experience feelings without the risks those feelings might engender. Feelings like intimacy, love, joy, fear, lust, anger, hatred, disgust, greed. This is the reason we read literature, and if that sharing of feelings is not experienced, the work falls flat.
I think the parallels with Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ are obvious. Both main characters commit adultery and then take their own lives. But with Anna, we feel with her, we experience her mental breakdown.
I am frustrated with Emma Bovary. I fell in love with Anna and am only shaking my head at Emma. Anna was in Love with Vronsky and readers experience that love with her. Emma is passionate about Leon and Rodolphe, but something is missing.

I enjoyed it, and I can feel for Emma Bovary, but I can see the train wreck coming, and wish that Emma had a little more self awareness. She doesn’t develop as I would hope a character would. She goes from a poor farm girl, educated in a convent, to living a better life with her doctor husband, but is never satisfied. She wants romance, passion, and a more luxurious life. She never considers what a better life might be. At the 80% mark, when she is having a passionate affair with Leon, I felt my experience with her was becoming strained. She is about to ruin her life, her husband’s, and her child’s. A little more self awareness would make her more relatable. She doesn’t need to be morally pure, but she just acts and reacts without consideration, which I find difficult to understand. I think of another great female main character, Becky Sharp. Nowhere near pure, but a joy to experience the reading with.
Emma Bovary is not stupid, I think. Is she? Is that part of Flaubert’s character creation? A less than self aware protagonist? Hmm? Maybe. Charles Bovary is a little dull and dim.
The pressure of the financial implications Emma and Charles put themselves in was stifling, as being in debt is, so that felt real. And another didactic message about living within one’s means, I suppose.
I have read that Flaubert was critical of some of the cheap romances people were reading at the time, and that Emma was a cautionary tail for those readers. People were getting false expectations of what life offered. I don’t share those ideas and it wasn’t obvious while reading ‘Madam Bovary’ that that was the message. ...more

Like · see review