Madame Bovary

Rating:
Summary: Lovable Character
Review: Flaubert's masterpiece is the story of Emma Bovary, a woman who grew believing that love should be as intense and passionate as in books. Not wanting to settle for anything less, she was destined to living an unhappy life, always bitter about her situation and hoping to find her concept of "true love" someday, somewhere. The book is based entirely in the main character, so whether you like it or not depends on how much you care for Emma Bovary. And she is, or may be, charming, adorable, dreamer, selfish, egocentric; but always interesting. Flaubert succeeds while portraying Emma Bovary, both her physical and personality description build a woman that everyone is forced to love or hate, or both.

Madame Bovary is a masterpiece considered a classic of literature that everyone should read. I agree.

Rating:
Summary: One of the better versions available.
Review: There are many versions of Madame Bovarie available in the English language, which is both a blessing and a curse for those looking to read this important work outside of the original French. With many translations we can compare and try to get at the meaning of the original, but this type of work is not what most of us want to do. We want to be able to sit down and read one version of a text and be done with it, not chase down the parts we miss because we cannot read French.

As far as I understand, this Bantam version offers a better translation of the original that does most others. Specific portions relating to the way the story is told, to the choice of words during descriptions are all closer to the spirit of the original. If true, then the handicap of being unable to read the original can be kept to a minimal with this version of the text.

Another advantage this version has over others is the inclusion of letters and essays written about both Flaubert and Madame Bovary, which will be interesting both to the student and casual reader alike. Through the added information it is possible to get a better look into the utter complexity and genius of the "second-start" of the modern novel.

As for the content, there are many other reviews which have covered the subject. There is much inside which no amount of writing could cover, and it is best to be discovered by one's self.

Rating:
Summary: a true classic
Review: What surprised me about rereading Madame Bovary was not how much I enjoyed it, but how much many of my AP English students enjoyed it. Unlike other "older" novels, this one held much more allure for its feminine perspective and for its many "modern" themes. I think fellow reviewer Mitchell does an excellent job going over some different perspectives we can appreciate, but I'd like to amplify his last perspective: young people do find the book startlingly modern. What other "classic" protagonist is so bold in seeking personal pleasure over convention? As for the writing, I wish I could read it in French -- often I got the feeling that the writing would be even better in the original, but to Flaubert's credit (and the translator's), its literary qualities are still intact. We had many lively debates regarding Emma's morality and her selfishness -- many in the class felt sorry for Charles. Students who are good readers enjoy Madame Bovary more than other more moralistic tales like the Scarlet Letter often read in the same course. They find Flaubert much "hipper" than his American counterpart Hawthorne.

For anyone who has been saving the reading of this book, wait no more -- even though Flaubert claims not to have been that interested in plot or character, the book is still a lively and compelling read on every front. One of my all time favorites.

Rating:
Summary: Dated Period Piece or Classic Tragedy?
Review: Depending on your perspective, this book is hopelessly dated and has little relevance to today, is an important step forward in the French novel, or is a classic depiction of tragedy in the Greek tradition. You should decide which perspective is most meaningful to you in determining whether you should read the book or not.

The story of the younger Madame Bovary (her mother-in-law is the other) is presented in the context of people whose illusions exceed their reality. Eventually, reality catches up with them. In the case of Emma Bovary, these illusions are mostly tied up in the notion that romantic relationships will make life wonderful and that love conquers all. She meets a young doctor of limited potential and marries with little thought. Soon, she finds him unbearable. The only time she is happy is when the two attend a ball at a chateaux put on by some of the nobility (the beautiful people of that time). She has a crisis of spirit and becomes depressed. To help, he moves to another town where life may be better for her. She has a daughter, but takes no interest in her. Other men attract her, and she falls for each one who pays attention to her in a romantic style. Clearly, she is in love with romance. Adultery is not rewarded, and she has a breakdown when one lover leaves her. Recovering, she takes on a younger lover she can dominate. This, too, works badly and she becomes reckless in her pursuit of pleasure. In the process, she takes to being reckless in other ways and brings financial ruin to herself and her family. The book ends in tragedy.

Here is the case for this being dated and irrelevant for today. A modern woman would usually not be trapped in such a way. She would separate from or divorce the husband she grew to detest, and make a new life. She would be able to earn a decent living, and would not be discouraged from raising a child alone. So the story would probably not happen now. In addition, the psychological aspects of her dilemma would be portrayed in terms of an inner struggle reflecting our knowledge today of psychology, rather than as a visual struggle followed mostly by a camera lens in this novel. The third difference is that the shallow stultifying people exalted by the society would be of little interest today. You find few novels about boring people in small towns in rural areas.

The case for the book as important in French literature is varied. The writing is very fine, and will continue to attract those who love the French language forever. This is a rare novel for its day in that it focused on a heroine who was neither noble by class nor noble in spirit. The book clearly makes more of an exploration into psychology than all but a few earlier French novels. The story itself was a shocking one in its day, for its focus on immoral behavior and the author's failure to overtly condemn that behavior. Emma pays the price, as Hollywood would require, but there is no sermonizing against her. So this book is a breakthrough in the modern novel in its shift in focus and tone to a personal pedestrian level.

From a third perspective, this book is a modern update of the classic Green tragedy in which all-too human characters struggle against a remorseless fate and are destroyed in the process. But we see their humanity and are moved by it. Emma's character is a hopeless romantic is established early. To be a hopeless romantic in a world where no one else she meets is condemns her to disappointment. She also seems to have some form of mental illness that makes it hard for her to deal with setbacks. But her optimism that somehow things will work out makes her appealing to us, and makes us wish for her success. When she does not succeed, we grieve with her family. Flaubert makes many references to fate in the novel, so it seems likely that this reading was intended.

My own view is that the modern reader who is not a scholar of French literature can only enjoy this book from the third perspective. If you do, there are many subtle ironies relative to the times and places in the novel that you will appreciate, as well. The ultimate ascendence of the careful, unimaginative pharmacist provides many of these. The ultimate fate of Madame Bovary's daughter, Berthe, is another. Be sure to look for these ironies among the details of these prosaic lives. The book positively teems with them.

If you are interested in perspectives two or three, I suggest you read and savor this fine classic. If you want something that keeps pace with modern times, manners, mores and knowledge, avoid this book!

If you do decide to read Madame Bovary, after you are done be sure to consider in what elements of your life you are filled with illusions that do not correspond to reality. We all have vague hopes that "when" we have "it" (whatever "it" is), life will be perfect. These illusions are often doomed to be shattered. Let your joy come from the seeking of worthy goals, instead! What worthy goals speak deeply into your heart and mind? In this way, you can overcome the misconceptions that stall your personal progress.

Rating:
Summary: The best novel of all time.
Review: That's not hyperbole--I truly believe it is the best book written. In Emma Bovary, Flaubert has created a complex, infuriating woman who is incredibly, utterly real. The reader learns so much about human nature--not only through Emma's illusions and despair, but through the peculiar quirks of all the other supporting characters. A masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Critical Edition
Review: This review is specific to the Norton Critical Edition titled "Madame Bovary: Backgrounds and Sources Essays in Criticism."

This edition combines an excellent English translation of the original French text with some of the best literary criticism of the work over the 125-odd years since its publication. (Note: just in case anyone doesn't know, literary criticism isn't where someone complains about the book - it's where he/she analyses it.)

Madame Bovary belongs on anyone's list of the most influential novels of the 19th Century - as anyone reading through the influential novels of the 20th century soon learns from the many references to it - but anyone wanting to understand what that influence has been and why it has had so much influence needs to read some of the critical analysis of the work.

In this volume, you can read the book for yourself and then learn what other authors have thought about the work over time, plus see Flaubert's notes and get an insight into what alternatives he considered when constructing his book. This not only enhances your own appreciation of the work, it gives insights into how the book influenced those other authors and suggests other books to read.

Madame Bovary is a great book, but she isn't an island; the Norton Critical Edition is a great way to understand her position in literature.

Rating:
Summary: The Hope Diamond of Novels
Review: Making a statement like Madame Bovary is the "greatest" novel ever written would be superfluous. It could be argued that it is the most perfectly written novel in the history of letters and that in creating it, Flaubert mastered the genre. What can't be argued is that it is one of the most influential novels ever written. It changed the face of literature as no other novel has, and has been appreciated and acknowledged by virtually every important novelist who was either Flaubert's contemporary or who came after him.

It's interesting to see the range in opinion that still surrounds this novel. Some of the Readers here at Amazon are morally affronted by the novel's central character, viewing her as something sinister and "unlikeable," and panning the novel for this reason. Such a reaction recalls the negative reviews Bovary engendered soon after its initial publication. It was attacked by many of the authorities of French literature at the time for being ugly and perverse, and for the impression that the novel presented no properly moral frame. These readers didn't "like" Emma much either, and they took their dislike out on her creator.

But this is one of the factors making Madame Bovary "modern". One of the hallmarks of modern novels is that they often portray unsympathetic characters, and Emma certainly falls into this category. How can we as readers "like" a woman who elbows her toddler daughter away from her so forcefully that the child "fell against the chest of drawers, and cut her cheek on the brass curtain-holder." After this pernicious behavior, Emma has a few brief moments of self-castigation and maybe even remorse, but very soon is struck by "what an ugly child" Berthe is. Emma's self-centeredness borders on solipsism. For readers looking for maternal instincts in their female characters or for a depiction of a devoted wife, they had better turn to Pearl S. Buck and The Good Earth, perhaps, rather than to Flaubert.

Much has been made of Flaubert's attempts to remove himself from the narrative, that he was searching for some sort of ultimate objectivity. His narrative technique is much more complex than that, however. It is his employment of a shifting narrative, sometimes objective, sometimes subjective, that again is an indicator of the novel's modernity. At times the narrator is merely reporting events or is involved in providing descriptive details. Yet often the authorial voice makes rather plain how the reader is to look at Emma and her plebeian persona. When she finally succumbs to Rodolphe and thinks she is truly in love, Flaubert becomes downright cynical: " 'I've a lover, a lover,' she said to herself again and again, revelling in the thought as if she had attained a second puberty. At last she would know the delights of love, the feverish joys of which she had despaired. She was entering a marvelous world where all was passion, ecstasy, delirium."

Emma is a neurasthenic, in the modern sense, but in the 19th century she would have been said to suffer from hysteria, a mental condition diagnosed primarily in women. When her lovers leave her, she has what amounts to nervous breakdowns. After Rodolphe leaves her she makes herself so sick that she comes near death. Her imagination is much too powerful and too impressionable for her own good. This is part of the reason for Flaubert's oft-repeated quote, "Bovary, c'est moi." Flaubert was a neurasthenic as well and could easily work himself into a swoon as a result of his imaginative flights. There is even conjecture that he may have been, like Dostoevsky, an epileptic, and it is further intimated that this disorder was brought on by nerves, though this may be dubious, medically speaking.

Madame Bovary is not flawless, but it comes awfully close. It is one of the great controlled experiments in the fiction of any era. It even anticipates cinematic technique in many instances, but particularly in the scene at the Agricultural Fair. Note how Flaubert juxtaposes the utterly mundane activities and speeches occurring in the town square with Rodolphe's equally inane seduction of Emma in the empty Council Chamber above the square:

"He took her hand and she did not withdraw it."

"'General Prize!' cried the Chairman.'"

"'Just now, for instance, when I came to call on you...'"

"Monsieur Bizet of Quincampoix."

"'...how could I know that I should escort you here?'"

"Seventy francs!"

"'And I've stayed with you, because I couldn't tear myself away, though I've tried a hundred times.'"

"Manure!"

This is representative Flaubert. With a few deft strokes, he lays the whole absurdity of both the seduction and the provincial's activities bare.

If you have read this book previously and have come away feeling demoralized and even angered, please try reading it again, this time concentrating on the richness of its metaphors, Flaubert's mastery of foreshadowing, symbolism and description. Maybe you will come away with your viewpoint changed. For those who have not yet read this classic of classics, I know that if your mind remains open, you will come away with an appreciation for this master-novelist and for this monumental work.

Rating:
Summary: a book that marks a transition in novel writing
Review: Madame Bovary is a stand-out novel more for how and when it was written than for any virtues imbedded within the text. What was novel writing before Flaubert? Actually, it was very much like the flowery novels that Emma feeds on--Victorian in the high-flown ideals of romantic love and perhaps not too far off from the Harlequin Romances of today's marketplace, but without the sexual innuendo.

Flaubert wrote perhaps the first novel that frankly discusses a married woman's disenchantment, and while he is not a sympathetic author, his landmark novel was part of a movement that changed the way writers write about their characters. For that reason alone it is worth the read--it must have been a breath of fresh air in a marketplace full of novels that featured limpid-eyed damsels and sensitive, altruistic and well-dressed heroes.

This is also a surprisingly modern cautionary tale about the dangers of getting in over one's head monetarily--Emma's dramatic fall from financial grace is not that far off from stories that are so common they don't even make today's newspapers.

Read Madame Bovary for the story alone, and you will have read only a story of one woman's tragic life. Read it with an eye towards its place in the history of novel writing, and you will come away with something to mull over and compare with any other book you read that features a strong-minded female.

Rating:
Summary: In Love With Love and Doomed From the Start
Review: In this masterpiece of French literature, Gustave Flaubert tells the tale of Emma Bovary, née Roualt, an incurably romantic woman who finds herself trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage in a prosaic bourgeois French village, Yonville-l'Abbaye.

Her attempts to escape the tedium of her life through a series of adulterous affairs are thwarted by the reality that the men she chooses to love are shallow and self-centered and thus are unable to love anyone but themselves.

In love with a love that can never be and dreadfully overstretched financially, Emma finds herself caught in a downward spiral that can only end in tragedy.

Part of the difficulty, and the pleasure, of reading Madame Bovary comes from the fact the Flaubert refuses to embed his narrative with a moral matrix; he refuses, at least explicitly, to tell the reader, what, if any, moral lesson he should draw from the text.

It is this lack of moral viewpoint that made Madame Bovary shocking to Flaubert's contemporaries, so much so that Flaubert found himself taken to court for the novel's offenses to public and religious decency. Although today's readers will find no such apparent scandals in the book, they will still be challenged to make sense of both Emma and her story.

It is quite common to see Emma Bovary as silly, extravagant and much too romantically inclined. An avid consumer of romantic literature (a habit into which the heroine was indoctrinated in her convent school upbringing), Emma has made the morbid mistake of buying into the notion of romantic love in its fullest sense, and the mortal mistake of believing she can reach its fulfillment in her own life.

As such, Emma Bovary becomes a tragic figure of almost mythic proportion. Far from being foolish and self-indulgent, Emma is the victim of her own fecund imagination. A lesser woman would have been satisfied in the constrained world Emma inhabits, a world of sewing and teas and parties. But Emma is possessed of both splendid passions and tremendous energy; an artist and a rebel in her challenge to the priorities and ideals of her age.

Madame Bovary is an unusual novel in the sense that it has given its name to its own psychological condition: bovarysme, the condition in which we delude ourselves as to who and what we really are and as to life's potential to fulfill.

In this sense, Madame Bovary becomes the story of one woman's faulty perception of reality. In an early version of the novel, Flaubert included a scene at the ball at La Vaubyessard in which Emma is seen looking out at the landscape surrounding the house through colored panes of glass, a scene clearly meant as a representation of Emma's projection onto the world of an illusory and faulty model of reality.

Emma cannot, or will not, see the world as it is, since she is constantly imposing onto it, and herself, the criteria of romantic literature. Flaubert has thus written a supremely romantic novel about the dangers of reading supremely romantic novels!

Romantics, Flaubert seems to be saying, have no reasonable hope of ever seeing their fondest dreams come to fruition.

This is, indeed, a recurrent pattern in the novel: Emma dreams of one thing but gets something else entirely. Marriage, motherhood, and ultimately, adultery, all fall short of Emma's expectations and she appears to be a woman doomed to one disappointment after another.

Although Emma believes her marriage will fulfill her romantic expectations, Charles certainly fails to live up to Emma's hopes, and even Rodolphe, with his expensive riding boots, gloves and substantial income is eventually considered coarse and vulgar by Emma. Léon, the very essence of the young, romantic artist, leaves Emma when he is made premier clerc, and Emma finds she much come to the realization that even adultery contains "toutes les platitudes du mariage."

The foregoing certainly begs the question: are Emma's expectations too high or is life fundamentally deficient?

The society portrayed in Madame Bovary is one stratified in terms of class, and this is a book about the bourgeoisie, a portrait of class in the process of finding and defining itself and its role in society.

The novel is filled with scenes of buying and selling and even personal relationships fall under the sway of financial considerations.

What is particularly notable about Emma is her extravagance: she spares no thought for expense and consumes far beyond her means. Rejecting good economic management, thrift and hard work, Emma dedicates herself to style extraordinaire and lavishes expensive presents on her "man of the moment."

The world described in Madame Bovary is an extremely enclosed and restricted one and images of entrapment are abundant throughout the book. Emma's first marital home is described as "trop étroite;" her marriage to Charles is likened to "l'ardillon pointu de cette courroie complexe qui la bouclait de tous les côtes."

These restrictive images clearly demonstrate how confining Emma finds her world. Trapped in the dusty and damp home with its "éternel jardin," the highly imaginative Emma sees no escape.

It is interesting to note that when Emma does attempt to escape the confines of femininity, society and marriage through adultery, many of the scenes take place al fresco. (The first act of adultery with Rodolphe takes place in a forest and her later relationship with Léon contains a scene on a river.)

Later scenes, however, reveal the degradation inherent in Emma's acts and she finds herself confined to bedrooms that are sorely reminiscent of the restrictions of her married life. The fiacre ride with Léon in Rouen, in particular, is anticipatory of entrapment. For Emma, adultery eventually becomes as much of a prison as is marriage and family life.

Another recurrent image is that of the window. This can be interpreted as Emma's desire for escape or as a reaffirmation of her entrapment and powerlessness. The window opens onto a space of which poor Emma can only sit and dream; it serves as a frame for both her dissatisfaction and her fantasies.

In order to enjoy Madame Bovary to the fullest extent, it must be read in the original French. This is an absolute for Flaubert was an author who made full use of the potential offered by his native tongue. Although many translations are superb, nothing can match the original French in its poetic prose and lush descriptions.

Many interpretations of this wonderful and timeless novel are possible and all, no doubt, hold some validity. Therein lies the book's genius. Of one thing, though, we have no doubt: luscious Emma Bovary was, indeed, a victim. Whether of herself or of a repressive society matters little.

Rating:
Summary: Outdated Classic
Review: Why is Madame Bovary a classic? It is the story of a whiny French woman obsessed with living a life above her bougeoisie station. Is this the example that our English teachers are giving us: Whine about what you don't have, do everything in your power to destroy the life of yourself and your family, all while flittering from lover to priest to lover to her final suicide.

Not only is Madame Bovary the worst of all heroines to be studying, Flaubert's fine and painstaking writing has been lost in it's flowery English translation. There are only three reasons to read a novel: to enjoy the story, to learn from the characters, or to emulate the writer's style. This story was a dated tale, limited only to provincial France, dry and only useful to induce sleep. Maybe I didn't gain all of what Flaubert intended, but perhaps it is Blair's fault for burying it under his mangled descrpitions of the French countryside rather than Flaubert's wonderfully rich characters, that with proper treatment, could have made the novel more than dreaded summer reading, but a thought-provoking character study that brought more to my mind than, "Yay! Only three hundred pages left!"