Rating: 
Summary: Victims of Circumstance
Review: As noted by many previous reviewers Flaubert's style is stark and direct, he simply tells us a story in chronological order of events without any moral judgement. Morality in this novel is left open to the reader's judgement and interpretation. Set in the 19th century French countryside it is a tragic tale of a marriage between Emma Rouault and Charles Bovary told in three parts.
Begins with a brief but thorough look at the early life of Charles - his education, career as a "health officer", first marriage, his wife chosen by his mother for her money, a sickly unappealing widow much older than he, then meeting Emma through a call to her father, his wife's timely death. Emma is young and inexperienced, her head filled with romantic fantasies and an active imagination. Their courtship is brief and the story really begins with the marriage of Emma and Charles. Quickly Emma finds herself stuck in a dead existence, not only does Charles lack imagination he is as dull as a post. Flaubert explicitly tells us just how stupid Charles is such as when he goes to a ball and stands for 5 hours watching a card game not knowing what else to do or in the case of the horrible operation on the man with the club foot. Doomed from the start by incompatibility the relationship spirals downward from disillusionment, to an unrequited attraction, a nervous breakdown, move to another town to get away, affairs, child neglect, debt and suicide.
Still a timeless classic worth reading for anyone who feels trapped in circumstances beneath their capacities, in a world too small for them. There was little choice for a woman in the 19th century countryside as Emma reminds her lover, she cannot make her own living in the world or choose to court who she wants. Her great imagination and feeling nature with no outlet for it dooms her to eternal loneliness, controlled by passions that are never satisfied and eventually leads to delusions and debauchery.
Rating:
Summary: The Original Desperate Housewife
Review: This book will never make it on the Oprah Classics Booklist...too dark--which is shame. It is an amazing story of a woman, and more amazing--it was written by a man. Where did he get this knowledge? How did he understand Emma? This was in the days before therapy groups and tell-alls. It is also a masterful book about lust and the cult of idols. Since I first read this book I remember what Flaubert warned us of...do not touch the gilt (the gold leaf) on our idols, it comes off on our hands. A warning as we worship at the altar of celebrity. This is a book for today.
Rating: 
Summary: buy the book...but buy a different edition
Review: With the emotional maturity of a fourteen or fifteen year old girl or possibly just the sociopathic tendencies, Emma (Madame Bovary) is at the same time fascinating and detestable. She is remarkably similar to many stories of ex wives I have heard over the years and, if living in this century would certainly have had a string of husbands, using and abusing each one while they loved her. This story does not have the repentant air of Moll Flanders (Defoe) and I would not recommend it to a young girl. That being said, it is not the `dirty' book I expected. Emma is the kind of person who idealizes what she does not have, expects love to come with thunderbolts and poetry and to stay that way for all time. From her education at the convent to her life on her father's farm, to her marriage to Charles Bovary and through two prolonged affairs with other men, reality can never live up to Emma's expectations of what it should be like. Once the novelty wears off, she thinks there is something wrong with where she is or who she is with. In her mind, she feels that she deserves this imagined ideal and directs her hatred on whomever she feels is standing between her and the experience of the ideal. This, unfortunately, is most often her loving husband, Charles (although her parents, lovers and money lenders are not immune from her contempt either). Charles continually gets a bad rap from reviewers for being stupid and cowardly. I found him to be neither extreme. Not a dullard, he is naïve and trusting. He is very much a middle of the road man in my eyes - not the cream of the crop but not the dregs either. Just your average everyday man making a living and supporting a wife who he thinks the absolute world of. There is a strong possibility that this is a fictionalized account of a real woman and this is an important point for me. If simply fictional, it is so realistic it is depressing. There is no author's invention to make the reader feel better about what has happened.
Rating: 
Summary: A woman of your dreams?
Review: A beautiful, brilliant book with one large flaw: it was too easy for Emma to cheat on Charles. Charles is a good-hearted, well-meaning but stupifyingly boring person. The book would have been better (and more believable) if the choice to cheat on him would have been more difficult. I love Flaubert, but Charles Bovary is possibly the most uninteresting person in all of literature.
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