Madame Bovary (Classic Fiction)

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Summary: Emma's dilemmas
Review: "Madame Bovary" is considered a masterpiece by historical context, but it's easy to see why it holds up well today. As much a social comedy as a personal tragedy, it taps into the same kinds of emotions and desires that have shaped Western society for the past 150 years -- ambition, lust, escapism. It is a depressing novel whose heroine is so thoroughly unsympathetic that you read it to find out if she gets what she deserves.

Emma Rouault's misfortune is that she grew up with unrealistic expectations about life. As a girl, she indulged herself in romantic novels and developed maudlin and almost fantastical notions of what love and marriage must be like. She accepts the proposal of a socially awkward widower and doctor named Charles Bovary, even though she does not seem to have much genuine love for him. In accordance with her fantasies, their wedding is straight out of a fairy tale.

The fairy tale doesn't last long. Emma soon finds herself bored by her husband's spartan lifestyle and annoyed by his occasional professional ineptitude. Shameful of what she perceives to be her low social status as a country doctor's wife, she is attracted by the glamor of big cities and high society she reads about in the fashionable magazines. She dutifully takes care of her household, but she is selfish, temperamental, and mean to her servants and her baby daughter. What's pathetic about her is that she wants to experience the kind of love she's read about in her books, but her personality is so antithetical to what love is that she will never be able to understand or appreciate it in its purest form.

After the Bovarys move to a small rural town called Yonville, Emma's beauty and charm attract the flirtatious attentions of several men in town, including two with whom she succumbs to adultery: Leon, a young law clerk, with whom she carries on an affair in the nearby city of Rouen under the guise of taking piano lessons; and the suave but sleazy Rodolphe who, impudently (and correctly) calculating her husband to be a naive dullard, uses her and throws her away like the tramp that she is. In the course of her webs of deceipt and her taste for expensive, fashionable things, she drives herself and her husband into irreparable debt with morbidly tragic conclusions.

The characterization of the Yonville townsfolk is so rich that whole other novels could be written about them. In particular there is the garrulous pharmacist Monsieur Homais, a neo-Voltaire type of character who disdains the clergy and has faith in science and a morality based on common sense. Such characterization provides a comic counterbalance to Emma's majestically tragic figure; I've seen the same kind of thing in novels by Balzac and Thomas Hardy, where the unwashed masses are always there in the background, reassuring us that the world, on average, goes on the way it always has even while the main characters are front and center playing out their little dramas.

Rating:
Summary: A Plotless novel with Poetic Prose
Review: AS I reach the end of my career, I've begun reading "classics, that I had skipped to concentrate on my major then my field.
I found Madame Bovary to be lacking a plot...simply: a bored housewife who feels entitled to a White Knight to rescue her, who is entranced by her romance Novel, has no idea how to BE romantic to those who deserve her affections: her husband, her child, and her servants. She abuses all as she dreams of impossible idealism, then begins adultrous affairs in her quest for romance, never understanding that her lovers are interested in her body, not her romance.
Thus said, this was one of the most incredibly perfect novels to read from a language standpoint. As there truly was no plot, it was not unusual for me to re-read the previous few chapters again and again for the flow of the words, the beauty and the perfectly chosen words (wouldn't Flaubert be proud?)
I don't believe Flaubert's raison d'etre was to present a tale, rather it was to use the tale as an excuse to present an exquisite display of subjective descriptions of French life, French people and individual foibles. Nobody is spared from the clergy to the merchant class, and most particularly to Emma herself.
I could FEEL and SMELL and TASTE Yonville. Sometimes I would re-read a particular sentence or paragraph in wonderment at the talent required to write so perfectly. I found myself wanting to call my High School English Teacher, Ms. Celina Rios-Mullins to discuss the book. Had I been forced to read this in High School, it would have been wasted on me as I would have skimmed frantically trying to find a story. This is a novel that needs to be slowly tasted, digested, followed by a fine wine of discussion.
As with the first time I saw "Gone With the Wind," I was surprised to find the heroine the villain. That very selfishness gives Flaubert his means to convey the failings of Emma. I found it interesting that Emma never understood her paradoxical concept of life....that to find love, you must give it,....to be romanced, you must be romantic. It's similar to one's one married life...that once the honeymoon phase is over, the true work is in making the mundane romantic, to find love in lasting another week, another year.
Emma never had unrequited love....she loved herself.
Had Rodolphe not been a pre-determined cad, she had a vague chance of success, but when she went on to Leon, she had begun to lie even to herself.
Poor Charles was unsuited for her ideals, but surprisingly was quite in love with her. He would have been happier with a simple country maiden who was content to sit in the the "eternal garden."
I found the ending a tad melodramatic and somewhat surprising, but then again, I must remember that foul play was rarely rewarded in the older novels.
I contrast this novel greatly with the Scarlett Letter and find the two heroines utterly distinct.....with Saintly Hester at one end and Cold Emma at the other. Scarlett's trangression was one of genuine love whereas Emma's was idealistic selfishness.
I do find this to be a magnificent novel, but I pity youths who are forced to read this for class, but am excited for those who can embrace the power of the narrative and the beauty of the subjective descriptions of the simplist aspects seen only to the eye of a true novelist: a bird angling in flight, a clerics cloak fluttering as he thinks he has found a source of revenue from a wealthy person who has entered the church for refuge, a redezvous room of unromantic romance.

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Summary: Madame Bovary is us
Review: I read the Oxford (Gerard Hopkins) translation which I didn't actually think was very good. Despite its 1981 copyright date the language had a stilted, perhaps "nineteenth century" feel to it. If you have to translate something anyway, may as well translate it into the modern idiom! The good news is that the book itself is so good, it shines through a few odd English words or confusing sentences.
Madame Bovary is wonderful precisely because Madame Bovary is so very unheroic and even despicable. Who hasn't wanted to escape his or her own life at one time or another? Madame Bovary is a woman deeply unhappy with her lot in life, and while we may sympathize with her alienation at times, she most certainly does not achieve the wisdom or heroism so often found in tragic characters. Flaubert describes a world in which all the characters are a little ridiculous (the book is frequently witty) and sometimes horrible and yet, very unusually, there seemed to be no character or even authorial voice that was somehow "above" this world, rather we are all intimately of it.

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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.

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Summary: Emma Bovary is closer than you think. (Check the mirror.)
Review: It's amusing to read the few negative reviews of this book. One wonders what the readers would possibly consider GOOD literature!

As soon as I finished reading it the first time, I promptly started again from the beginning - something I've never done before. The bare plot is deliberately banal. It's Flaubert's execution, his insight into some of the more complex aspects of human nature and society, and the creation of Emma that mark this as one of the finest (and most engrossing) novels ever written.

What makes Emma tick is perhaps more relevant to our own culture and society - revolving, as it does, so entirely around consumerism, escapist entertainments and a credit-based economy - than it was even to Flaubert's. And I have to wonder about anyone who could get through this book and miss that point entirely.

To be sure, Emma is an extreme case - but there are plenty like her walking around. (I even saw myself in her, to some extent.) The syndrome is common, but seldom described as lucidly as here. I can see Emma, Mastercard in her hot little hand, fitting right into contemporary American society.

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Summary: Fantasy versus Reality
Review: The language of Madame Bovary lingers on the tongue long after the final page has been read. It is true poetry. Madame Bovary is an entertaining book mixed with adultery, secrecy and arsenic. The two main characters, Emma and Charles, are true opposites. Charles represents a mind based solely in reality, lacking imagination. He is a dimwitted country doctor who remains happy as long as he makes everyone else happy. He has no desire for riches and merriment. His wife, though-- Emmma Bovary-- contradicts him. She embodies a romantic, head-in-the-clouds soul. As the book carries on, her soul flickers like a flame, and every time she catches a glimpse of finery, that flame conflagrates; every time she attends a dance or visits Paris, that flame builds inside her-- hungry, wanting more. She reads romance novels and believes that is how life really should be. When she commits adultery, it is not about the adultery to Emma. It is about the fantasy she believes she is fulfilling. But, to Emma, it seems that no matter what she does, she cannot feel fulfilled. That flame just rises and rises in her and she cannot control it with any amount of trinkets and satin curtains. She is tragic because she is destined to be unhappy; her dreams are too high out of reach. Her only option is to be engulfed in a flame she cannot squelch. In the meantime, Charles is increasingly upset by her as well. After all, he only wants to make others happy, and his dearly-loved wife is not happy. This book truly represents two worlds at odds: reality versus fantasy. It is fascinating and I would truly recommend it.

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Summary: Still Luscious
Review: The writing style Flaubert employed in Madame Bovary may be dated today, but the greatness of the book is proven through the title character of Emma Bovary, herself. All the weaknesses and faults Flaubert ascribed to Emma when he created her are still just as recognizable now as they were in 1856. I'm sure many women see aspects of Emma in themselves today, just as they did in the 19th century. While Emma Bovary may be an unconventional literary heroine, I think she's unforgettable, in part, because she really is so completely human.

Emma Rouault is a lovable woman, but she certainly has her flaws. When she leaves her father to marry Charles Bovary and live in the small country village of Yonville l'Abbaye, these faults come to light in a very glaring way. Charles is a good man, but emotionally he's rather cold as well as being a very insignificant doctor. Emma, who fills much of her time with the reading of sentimental romance novels, soon finds Charles dull and impoverished. She's come to believe that true love must encompass gallantry, high romance and constant infatuation.

Convent educated, Emma is pious and devout even though she feels herself attracted to a man she finds more exciting than Charles, a man she feels will finally fulfill all her frivolous desires and more (exactly what she felt about Charles before she married him). How Emma Bovary comes to grips with her conflicting emotions forms the basis for this story.

Madame Bovary is a book that can seem to move along at a snail's pace. The more sophisticated reader will find this gradual buildup a joy; the "thoroughly modern" reader may, sadly, find the book too slow. Flaubert's writing sparkles, however, and it's easy to find yourself engrossed in the story.

Although many people find several symbolic references in Madame Bovary, Flaubert, himself, denied that the book had any meaning beyond being a thoroughly engrossing story.

Madame Bovary is one of my ten alltime favorite books and I reread it on an almost yearly basis. I believe "the proof is in the pudding." Emma Bovary is still as luscious as she was 146 years ago. That says a lot for any woman...or any book.