Book Review | ‘Madame Bovary’ – Gustave Flaubert

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1001 book list, 50 books a year, book review, Catherine Earnshaw, gustave flaubert, Madame Bovary, rory gilmore reading list

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Book Challenges: 1001 books (no. 887), 50 Books A Year (no. 48), Rory Gilmore Challenge.

“Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains. [We must not touch our idols, the gilt sticks to our fingers.]”

The most famous line from the book sums up the very heart of the matter; as it illustrates in good old-fashioned terms how romantic legends should be admired from the pages of a book but never acted upon. Unfortunately our ill-fated Emma Bovary doesn’t heed this lesson, and reaches again and again to touch the moth-winged fabric of love, only to have it fall around her like dust.

A controversial novel in its time, ‘Madame Bovary’ still continues to draw a significant amount of praise for its handling of a subject like forbidden love. It took me AGES to finished this, but it was well worth it. First of all ‘Madame Bovary’, for all it’s old-fashioned language could teach modern storytellers a thing or two about proper ‘character development’. There are many elegant phrases that stand out, but what I admired most was the beautiful descriptions of the countryside:

“The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their coping were hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers had sprung up between the bricks, and with the tip of her open sunshade Madame Bovary, as she passed, made some of their faded flowers crumble into a yellow dust, or a spray of overhanging honeysuckle and clematis caught in its fringe and dangled for a moment over the silk.”

Emma Bovary has to be without a doubt the most complex heroine I have ever read. Not even the enigmatic Rebecca de Winter, or the wild mistress-of-the-moors Catherine Earnshaw can come close to the depth and flexibility of this creation. Flaubert has rendered as complete an image of woman that can possibly be done in literary terms. She differs greatly from other heroines of her time, because Flaubert strived to depict a woman who was equally bad as she was good. You won’t find any of that ‘angel fallen from heaven’ malarkey here, oh no. Emma Bovary was greedy, needy and a thoroughly lustful lass to boot. She cuckolded her husband more than once, spent his money to the last centime and did not care an iota for her poor child Berthe.

Emma is a sensual creature despite her innocent looks; but it’s within the nuance of language and her character deconstruction that Flaubert saves his heroine from being taken as a total whore. Unlike his contemporaries he takes time to empathise with his characters. I was more fascinated by Flaubert’s sensitive wording of emotions than of the plot itself. Unhappy in her marriage, Emma seeks consolation in religion. But her convent days are over and she (despite having spent a great deal of time there) has never truly outgrown her romantic fantasies. Instead they fuel her bored mind until the unfortunate opportunity presents itself and the clandestine meetings with the suave Rodolphe begin. In fact I’ve clocked Flaubert accusing piety as the culprit for Bovary’s tragic end many times. It’s an interesting undertone that runs throughout the novel.

Emma’s unfaithfulness is just the beginning of a downward spiral designed to no doubt serve as a moral tale for young ladies. The ending results in the most tragic consequences, as Emma’s selfish actions have a knock-on effect to her husband and daughter. In short, the whole family is irreversibly ruined.

I say this is one of the more enjoyable reads out of the classics. Read it when you can.

View all my reviews

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (13/09)

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Anne Frank, Cara Lopez Lee, Cheri Laser, gustave flaubert, hubert selby jr, Its monday what are you reading?, meme, Robert Rankin, ursula le guin

Another Monday, another post! Okay, so this time there’s been some ‘movement’ in the way of reading. I’ve managed to finish one book, but I have another four lying about. This bumps my 50 books a year to a total of 47. It gets harder and harder as I get to the end! But I did have a weird week… in fact it got so bad I did a little rant about it.

Other bookish news include the fact that two bloggers I admire are getting their books published this year. That makes me very happy. Cheri Laser’s ‘The Truth About Cinnamon’ is currently on Amazon.com. You can check out her blog on the link provided. It’s pretty unique, as she’s been using it to track her road to becoming a published author. The insight she gives is invaluable to people who are also looking to follow that rocky path.

Another fabulous author is Cara Lopez Lee with her memoir ‘They Only Eat Their Husbands’. It’s about a journey around the world and ultimately to the centre of one’s being. It’s coming out from Ghost Road Press and Cara’s going to be doing some book signings too. You can find out more from her website.

I met these lovely ladies through the blogosphere. Their generosity with their experiences have inspired me to take up the pen yet again. hopefully this time I’ll follow through and be like them. I wish them every luck in the future.  

OK, so here’s the rundown folks. The titles are familiar now to everybody. You could recite them in your sleep!

1. ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert – (evil little book! Very good, but refuses to be finished!)

2. ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ by Anne Frank – (Just started after I finished ‘Lavinia’. So far so good.)

3. ‘Retromancer’ by Robert Rankin – (Should have had this finished 2 weeks ago. After it fell on the floor in a hospital, I didn’t pick it up again.) 

4. ‘The Room’ by Hubert Selby Jr. – (I want to finish Bovary before I get onto this. I need totally concentration!)

The book I finished was ‘Lavinia’ by Ursula K. Le Guin.

That’s it from me. Nothing exciting as of yet, but I might have something coming up in the following weeks. Fingers crossed :).

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 06/09

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50 books a year, gustave flaubert, Its monday what are you reading?, ursula le guin

Here I am, back from my weird, indefinite hiatus doing the Monday meme again, (though how long for I’m not sure). For the past 2 weeks there wasn’t much to report in the way of reading anyway, as the frenzy of real life kind of took over. You know how it is, in the quiet moments you squeeze in a page here or a paragraph there, but that kind of shallow reading leaves you confused as to what’s actually going on. So I left off altogether. There’s no point in doing it if there’s no joy in understanding what’s happening.  

For this week I am determined to complete the 50 Books A Year Challenge. I’m on no.46 at the moment, so I’m hoping September will be the month where I polish it all off. It’s my first attempt at a challenge to read so many books in a year. Previous years I’ve managed about 25-30 max, but I’m really proud that I can get so many under my belt. After I pass the 50 mark I’m going to continue to see just how many I can get till the end of the year. Next year’s challenge might very well be ‘100 Books A Year’. Here’s hoping!

OK, so here’s how my reading list looks like:

1. ‘Lavinia’ by Ursula Le Guin
 
I’m halfway through this amazing story about Lavinia, daughter and Princess of Latium and the Trojan warrior Aeneas. This fated tale of star-crossed lovers is told from a unique, sensitive perspective that questions the very fibre of ‘myth’, credibility of epic poetry and the concept of immortality through writing. Le Guin is a fluid, fluent writer whose ideas are easily absorbed by her readers. Lavinia’s tale is similar to that of Helen of Troy; and Le Guin wanted to explore what made Helen’s story survive throughout the ages, while Lavinia’s fate was passed over briefly in that Virgilian epic, ‘The Aeneid’, condemning her unjustly to a ‘long life, but a small one’.  

2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 

I can see how this work was a serious turn towards the contemporary. Flaubert tried hard to breathe life into Emma Bovary. She is full of complexities and what’s more, she is very much like us. It’s fascinating to see that after all these years a modern audience can still identify with her (even moreso now, I think), and that is the hallmark of a true classic. It never stops saying what it has to say. As I’m halfway through this one too, I’m not going to say much about it, except that Flaubert was a true master of description. His turn of phrase, his minimalist way of setting up a scene is a real breath of fresh air compared to his peers. There are no rambling paragraphs to be found here, just a story, a real story that he simply lets unfold.

 So, that’s it for this week. I hope I’ll have more to report back next Monday. Have a happy reading week everybody!

Teaser Tuesdays | Whereupon Madame Bovary Is Seduced By Court Life…

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gustave flaubert, meme, teaser tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This weeks teaser comes from ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert, page 37.

“Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by the warm air, a blending of the perfume of flowers and of the fine linen, of the fumes of the viands, and the odour of the truffles.”

“He had lived a life of noisy debauch, full of duels, bets, elopements; he had squandered his fortune, and frightened his family.”

This is no. 887 from the 1001 book list, and am surprised I never got to read it before. Even though it was on by bookshelf for years I seemed to have passed it by. A stonking good read. Fast-paced and not a dull moment so far. Highly recommended!