Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully written, provacative story...
Review: I wish I HAD been required to have read this book in school, because I would have been able to discuss it with others who had read it. There's a lot going on here, with vivid characters (my favorite is actually the pharmacist) who are very human. I'm not sure who the people are who don't like this book. One doesn't have to endorse the heroine's activities; I certainly don't. Highly recommended for those who like great literature, and complex, ambiguous characters. For those who like books that are described as "good reads" there's plenty of Sidney Sheldon and Tom Clancey out there (not that there's anything wrong with such books -- if you think they're real literature, though, refrain from reviewing authors such as Flaubert).
Rating:
Summary: A Woman's Pain
Review: A wonderful study on the female condition: her loves, her passions, her fears and her inner, silent sufferings.
Rating: 
Summary: Madame Bovary
Review: This is a pretty good book. It is a satire about the absurdity of people. It is also about how reading corrupts people. Flaubert uses very inovative writing for his time. The narrator is all but invisable, there is no editorializing; the reader can make his/her own opinions and judgements about the characters. All the narration takes place from inside the characters' minds rather than from the outside. It is a dark comedy that reads like a soup opera.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible Woman
Review: My lasting impression of Emma Bovary is that of a spoiled brat. When she and Charles first marry she is rather happy. But as the story progresses she becomes more displeased with her husband and life. I understand that French women of her day did not exactly have many opportunities outside of the home. However, this lack of opportunity can never excuse Emma Bovary's behavior and lack of care for her family. Flaubert would have us believe that none of what Emma has done has really been her fault. She is just a victim of society. Not true. Many women in similar circumstances did not act as Emma Bovary did. They instead worked to improve their lot in life. The fight for equality of any oppressed group is a long and arduous battle. People like Emma Bovary tend to set back the progress of that struggle. Her husband Charles suffered the same fate as many men in his position do. His wife blamed him for her unhappiness and she never once told him of her displeasure expecting him to be able to read her mind. When he was unable to so, she would become even more depressed. But she never once talked to her husband about her unhappiness. Her treatment of Charles, while callous, can be accepted because he is a grown man. However, her handling of her daughter is what really turned me against Madame Bovary. Once you bring a child into the world you have an obligation to care for her regardless of your own situation. Emma was too immature and self-involved to care much for her child. In the end I found myself rooting for everyone in the story so long as their benefit was to Emma's detriment.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS IS THE MOST AWFUL BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Review: When the Bill of Rights was written, cruel and unusual punishment was banned. The cruel and unusual punishment invisioned was not as cruel and unusual as being forced to read this book!
Rating:
Summary: extremely good! wonderful writing on flauberts part
Review: i loved madame bovary because it had so much detail about the unimportant things, but they were the things i wanted to know. this book was very interesting because it gave all the aspects of emmas life, from what fruit rodolphe sent her, to what color flowers she was holding.
Rating:
Summary: recommended (not required!)
Review: "This was an awful book and no one with...the courage to have a different opinion could admit otherwise." I hope most of us can see that this sentence contradicts itself. (It appears that a lot of people are being made to read "Madame bovary" and greatly resent it. This circumstance is not Gustave Flaubert's or "Madame Bovary"'s fault.) I happen to have thoroughly enjoyed this book. My opinion of it I admit (how very courageous of me) is different from some opinions of it (see below) and approximately the same as others--I suppose. I read it in English translation (that of Karl Marx's daughter). No doubt the French language version is better, but not all of can shamelessly boast of residing in Angers. (On the other hand, it is said that the reason the French are so taken with Edgar Allen Poe is that the French translations of his stories improve upon the English originals--there's no accounting for Jerry Lewis.)
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Summary: BORING?????
Review: Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and just because something is considered a classic doesn't necessarily mean one has to like it. We aren't robots. What appalls me however, is how often I hear many young people and adults for that matter, using the word boring when reviewing a book. I am so grateful that my parents didn't allow me to use that word without a reprimand. My mother, a voracious reader, always told me "David, if you're bored your're boring". I always got on the defensive when told this. As I grew older I began to understand what she meant. On a planet with so many books to read and so many ways of looking at what the books are saying, how can anyone ever be bored? If a book doesn't interest you, put it aside and don't read it, but please, never call it boring.
Rating:
Summary: one the best french literature novel
Review: ...that is to say : this is one the books that can't be translated, becauses it uses all potentialities of french language. Those who admire in this book the cruelty and truth of the psychological portraits mustn't forget that Flaubert's dream was to write a "book about nothing, that would be held only by the force of the style". The story didn't interest him and in his correspondance you see how he got bored while writing it. Personnaly I don't like this kind of "feminine life in the country and loss of illusions that is to entail" but the style is just amazing. Proust said that Flaubert had "a grammatical genius". That's why anyone who can read french might throw his english version. Also, don't be obsessed by the famous "Madame Bovary, c'est moi". Flaubert wrote this book to get rid of his romantic tendancies : hence this mix of sympathy and deep cruelty about the stupidity of his heroin. This cruelty is reinforced by the use of the "focalisation interne" (when the writer writes from the point of view of the character) and the perfect neutrality : we live from the inside Emma's dreams and feel how ridiculous they are, and then, from the outside, we see them being slowly destructed. Read this masterpiece, and focus your attention on the style, and the construction (otherwise the book has little interest!)
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Summary: Madame Bovary, c'est moi.
Review: My headline quotes Flaubert of course, but Madame Bovary is me too and very likely you. So be forewarned: "Madame Bovary" will matter-of-factly divest you of your illusions. It is not a cheery book. It is a book of dry wit and one, by way of compensation, that lets you wallow in your self-pity as it teaches a valuable lesson. It is of moderate length and very readable, not at all "difficult" or abstruse. I don't know if it deserves its status as a classic, and I really don't care. (I also recommend--for what it's worth--"Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz Rock Keyboardist" by Jeff Burns, a different kind of thing, but it might have interested Emma the pianist, and, of course, Madame Emma Bovary, c'est moi.)
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