Rating: 
Summary: Looking for love in all the wrong places
Review: "Madame Bovary" is a terrific novel. I just read it for
the first time, at the age of 57, in the excellent
Steegmuller translation, while dipping into the original
French from time to time in a battered old Livre du Poche.The novel is superb on many levels. It is supremely well-
written; Flaubert slaved over his prose as poets slave over
their poetry. Every sentence, every word, and every detail
is deliberately chosen, and the result is admirable.
Students of writing do well to spend time with Flaubert.
He took five years to complete this novel. It's about
150,000 words long, so Flaubert was only turning out some
80 finished words per day (!) -- and his writing was a
full-time job. Second, the novel succeeds in its goal of presenting a
portrait of provincial life -- a provincial life which is
tedious, cramped, and boring. Flaubert's eye for detail is
wonderful here, as well as his ear for cliche. There is a
fantastic seduction scene during a provincial Agricultural
Fair which amounts to "Duelling Cliches" -- outside,
political cliches boom from the mouth of a pompous speaker,
while inside, romantic cliches emerge from two lovers who
can only think in terms of received ideas. Third, the novel succeeds in showing us a woman whose
entire imaginative life has been inspired by cheap
sentimentality. Whether it's superficial, pasteboard
holiness at her early convent, or her expectations of
lightning and thunder during her first kiss, Emma Bovary
does a superb job of living in a fantasy world. Fourth, the novel is just a thrilling story. It seems to
take a while to get underway, but don't be fooled. Look at
Flaubert's first description of Charles Bovary's father,
and see just how detailed (and devastating) Flaubert can be
-- in one single page! Emma rebels against her stifling
provincial life and her dull, reliable husband, and sets
out to find "true love" -- in all the wrong places. How
this quest turns out makes for truly absorbing reading, and
it would be unfair to say more. Novels just don't get much better than this! Highest
recommendation!!
Rating:
Summary: On the vexed issue of a summer reading list . . .
Review: its midsummer, so let those of us interested in literature and the refinements and devoloping appreciations it has to offer us, consider ... One of the best ways to regard the choice of reading as recommendation, is to know what the recommender has on his/her past and present reading list for the time being, and what they intend to pursue along with any given recommendation. It is useful to know what any given 'recommender' has up his literary sleeve. Any given reader has a background. This is as useful a source of information to the knowing, shedding light as a general overview of the recommendation itself. I therefore present, for consideration by the experienced and insightful, that I have read over three hundred basic western and eastern classics, yet essential titles are missing from my familiarity. Madame Bovary is, therefore, on my summer reading list, along with Zeno's Conscience by Svevo, Penguin Island by Anatole France, more Proust, some Checkhov stories, the Decameron, Geo. Eliot's Middlemarch, Thomas Love Peacock in general (John Fowles looms large as a modern promoter of Peacock for serious readers in spite, or perhaps because of, the comicality,) potentially a re-read of Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Jane Eyre, Jude the Obscure, Wuthering Heights, Dostoevsky's Princess Diary (assuming I can find a copy,) Ellison's Invisible Man( the only American volume I consider worth reading at the present time,) and some completist dipping into Pascal's Pensee's, as well as the beginning pursuit of a lengthy association with Kant's Critique. I am rather big on Madame Bovary right now, and personally recommend it this summer, for anyone's reading list. A classic ought to have universal usefulness, and there are qualities I can ascribe to the fifteen or so pages I have begun with recently, that artistically parallel our times. Consider it a worthy and useful addition. Considered by many the greatest novel ever written, get a copy, and Read It Soon !
Rating: 
Summary: Patterns of the petit bourgeoisie
Review: Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life by Gustave Flaubert; translated by Francis Steegmuller. Recommended. Surprisingly, Madame Bovary begins with a look at the painful childhood of the seemingly dull and plodding man who will become the title character's longsuffering husband, Charles Bovary. The novel commences with a mysterious "we"-the identity of the narrator who tells the story of Bovary's ignominious entry into school is not known-but then changes to third-person omniscient. Charles is a conscientious, yet average, student, whose school, career, lodgings, and even first wife are selected by his mother. His marriage to Emma Bovary, the daughter of an apparently prosperous farmer, is the first major decision he makes for himself about his life and borders on an act of rebellion. That this act of independence should have such tragic consequences only adds to their effect. Like many of her class, Emma is a romantic dreamer-but one who expects others to make those dreams into reality. Within a short time of her wedding, perhaps even on the day after, "the bride made not the slightest sign that could be taken to betray anything at all." For Charles Bovary, however, marriage to Emma-following as it does on the heels of his first marriage to a thin, complaining huissier's widow whose financial assets prove to be negligible-seems to be the culmination of happiness. "He was happy now, without a care in the world." Every moment spent with her, each of her gestures, "and many other things in which it had never occurred to him to look for pleasure-such now formed the steady current of his happiness." When her marriage proves to be a plunge into a provincial life devoid of the romance promised by books, arts, and a naïve imagination, Madame Bovary blames her average, unambitious husband, Flaubert writes, ". . . following formulas she believed efficacious, she kept trying to experience love . . . Having thus failed to produce the slightest spark of love in herself, and since she was incapable of understanding what she didn't experience, or of recognizing anything that wasn't expressed in conventional terms, she reached the conclusion that Charles's desire for her was nothing very extraordinary." With that inescapable conclusion in mind, Emma is free to find "love" elsewhere-for example, in a recurring fantasy about a count who dances with her at an aristocrat's party; with the worldly Rodolphe Boulanger for whom she is little more than another in a string of mistresses; and for the young student-clerk Léon Dupuis for whom she is a brilliant, sympathetic flower among the colorless bourgeoisie. Although Steegmuller mentions in the "Translator's Introduction," "Flaubert's supposed conception of his heroine as a character too sublime for this world," Emma is neither sublime nor sympathetic. Rather than seek happiness within or to improve herself, or to appreciate the value of even her uninspiring husband, she blames others for the monotony of her life and its lack of excitement and passion. She cannot find consolation in her daughter ("she wanted a son"), and neglects and even mistreats her. She tries to bolster herself through Charles's position, at the cost of a young man's leg. The village abbé, Bournisien, is oblivious to her emotional turmoil and pain and advises her to "drink a cup of tea" as a remedy. His nemesis Homais, a pseudoscientific pharmacist who is the archetype for the petit bourgeoisie, drowns out all around him with his droning theories and ideas, including Madame Bovary and his hapless assistant Justin. There are no kindred spirits for Emma in either Tostes or Yonville l'Abbaye. As her actions lead her into a downward emotional and financial spiral, Emma finds nothing around her to which to turn and no one to help, except if she is willing to prostitute herself. Her life, built on her dreams and her sacrifice of others, is doomed. By the end of the novel, she has been reduced to little more than a scheming adulteress and petty debtor. Ironically, her husband's passion and grief for her bring out the personal nobility to which she was purposely blind. He has always had that to which she aspired. Although Emma Bovary is certainly impossible to forget, equally memorable are all the novel's supporting characters, from Tuvache and his lathe and the lovesick Justin to Homais, whose banality throughout may be summed up by his award of the cross of the Legion of Honor. This last is a suitable ending for this study of the patterns of provincial life. Diane L. Schirf, 13 June 2003.
Rating: 
Summary: Average at best
Review: The story is somewhat interesting, and the ending makes for some interesting discussions; however, this definitely wasn't the best book I've read. Flaubert liked to describe everything in extraordinarily boring detail. In this book, not only will you read five pages about a wedding which could be summarized in a paragraph, but you will also Homais talk for pages on end about what amounts to nothing. At any given point in the novel, one could skip five pages and not miss a thing. I'd suggest the Awakening by Kate Chopin to people interested in this book. It has a similar plot and was written better in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: The French Masterpiece Of Romantic Tragedy
Review: Gustav Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary to establish a modern form of literature. Because it touched a nerve to so many people with its shocking portrayal of a bored housewife who commits adultery and escapes her misery through suicide, it was initially banned from the bookstores. The French at the time of Napoleon III's Second Empire considered themselves strictly Catholic Republicans. They thought the novel was graphic, immoral and unsuitable for French literature. Of course, that was back in the 19th century. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the classic masterpieces of French literature, akin and almost the equivalent to the Russian tragedy by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Because so much has changed, we know see this beautiful, touching tragedy as a great work of fiction and in the wake of feminist movements, a great reminder that women are not objects nor property for men to have as housewives, that they are free-willed, independent and right in their decisions. Everything about this novel is a considerately written work of great art. The technique Flaubert utilizes is superb. He uses precision and photographic detail to transport us convincingly to a time and place, full of realistic characters and ideas that were true in their time. It began a movement away from the fluffy, romanticized fiction of historic past to more modern themes that are more real. A lot of the novel has so much going on, so much activity, that although the provincial, rustic life bores Emma Bovary, it captivates us. Emma Bovary, obviously out of her affinity to her family's tradition, marries a country doctor and becomes a housewife in Normandy, the French countryside. Emma's boring life is so accurately portrayed, that we truly feel for her desperate situation. Her husband does not seem to be the type who understands her either. The bored housewife will appear later in such modern novels as "The Bridges Of Madison County." Emma Bovary escapes through reading romance and adventure novels. This is believable because there were such novels at this time- those of Alexandre Dumas, Stendhal and not mention all the Gothic fiction that had been written. Emma wants to live a glamorous life, away from the demanding dullness of country life. She engages in adultery, and later, when her husband is about to discover her infidelity, she is stricken with guilt and emotional suffering that she overdoses and dies. The fate of Madame Bovary will not be so for women today, thank God. Still, reading the suffering, torn feelings of love and domestic duties, and her entire psychological deterioration is what makes this a classic, ranking right up there with Leo Tolstoy's tragic novel, Anna Karenina.
Rating:
Summary: flaubert is wonderful
Review: Madame Bovary is wonderfully written, and those who say that Flaubert is no Zola or Balzac , are surely unsure of true masterpieces or critics of an unruly nature. Flaubert's writing style is amazingly unique, and his sense of description are wonderful. If you enjoyed Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, this is a superb novel to read. It deals with tragedy, and the main character a woman- falling into trenches of unforseen complications and sorrow. He describes the character emotions through an accurate and capitavitng medium of language. His style is what most attracted me to continue reading him. If you enjoy literature, this is a good book to read.
- another random reader
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: As a second year literary studies student I have been getting ahead of next years reading list and have had the pleasure of reading this magnificent story. While the plot is somewhat understated, the sheer power and majesty of the prose is often breathtaking. I would turn back and reread sentences, parapgraphs and sometimes entire pages just to relive the the life in the words. I would critique the 'blurbs' I have read that implied that Emma's second lover 'led her to financial ruin' which implied to me that he deliberately robbed her of money, which was certainly not the case once I read the book. I was left feeling far more sorry for 'boring' old Charles than I was for Madame Bovary, who got everything she deserved. After having to read awful Wuthering Heights, this book was a breath of fresh air.
Rating:
Summary: a european masterpiece
Review: If you ever take the time to discuss the truly great masterworks of world literature, almost without fail, Flaubert's Madame Bovary will be mentioned as one of the finest examples of literature available (even Nabokov's *lectures* on the novel have become famous). So many of our great writers use Bovary as an example of the novel at its finest. I don't think I'd go quite that far, but it is a great novel. The characters are really nothing special--which is what makes this novel so special. Flaubert manages to write a novel about ordinary people, and yet captivates us. It is a story about love and happiness, or lack thereof. It is a story of adultery, though not as racy as I expected, considering all the controversy it caused. And it is the first story of credit card debt (ah yes, the story of my life). It's well written, though it slows in the beginning and ending of the novel. It's a great work of art.
Rating:
Summary: Madame Bovary- A GREAT READ!!!
Review: This book is about a woman named Emma Bovary and her husband Charles Bovary. They are married and she becomes bored with his love and he doesn't satisfy her anymore. She becomes very depressed with life because what she imagined her love life to be is not at all what she is actually getting out of her marriage with Charles. Because of this fact she becomes attracted to other men she meets along the way. She meets a couple men and can't seem to stop thinking about them. Instead of trying to forget these other men she ends up having affairs with 2 of the men. She is affaid of what her husband will do but has the affairs anyway. She does end up seeing how much she does love Charles in the end. During Emma's deep quest for love I felt for her. She was a hopeless romantic in search of passion and a love like that towards herself. I feel as if Emma did not care enough to see the love that she did have for Charles until the very end of the novel.
Rating:
Summary: April Bose
Review: I think that this book is a very realy interpitation of what goes on in the world around you. this story talks alot about Love, Affair and what happends when things like that get out of hand. its sad to see how Emma Bovary gets so wrapped up in "love" since she was a child she always wanted to fall in love and get married, when this didnt seem to work out for her she tried many other things, other men to make her happy. it is also sad to see how Charles Bovary was so obliviouse to what was going on. i dont want to give away the book so i will not say more, but you should go read it for yourself it is a real eye opener.
|
