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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had really high hopes for this one. I had read all the hype, reviews, etc. all of which raved about how wonderful and moving this book was. When I started reading I felt the same sinking disappointment that I encountered when I watched ... gasp Citizen Kane. I know these "works of art" are standard classics and people will continue to be inspired by them but both were very slow moving and seemingly without point in my opinion. I love many classics but this was not one of them.
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Madame Bovary is one of the classics of the Realist movement, and so how you feel about it is going to depend on how you feel about detailed depictions of the lives of people who aren’t terrible monsters but who do kind of… well, suck. I’m always torn on this period of literature because I can appreciate the skill involved in creating such fully-fleshed out and believable characters, but I don’t at all enjoy reading about them.
Madame Bovary follows Emma, a beautiful and romantically-inclined woman who, wanting desperately to experience great love and passion, falls into a series of poor decisions. As a young woman, believing herself to be in love, she marries Charles Bovary, a doctor and frankly a bore of a person, and when her life quickly becomes dull and mundane, she turns to extramarital affairs for passion and purpose. Despite the book’s scandalous reputation, Emma only has two lovers, and in both cases she does for a time believe she truly loves them (and in one case, the man seems to love her back, at least at first.) But Emma’s idea of love is based on novels (Madame Bovary being also part of that odd genre of 19th century literature, in which a novelist decries the effects of a different type of novel on usually female brains), and it is too shallow to withstand the realities of life. Even as her loves disappoint her, Emma also fights against the dullness of middle class life, and it is ultimately not her infidelities, but her extravagance, that brings about the book’s tragic end.
It is actually this last trait that saves the book for me. If this were an example of a moralistic story, where a woman is punished for daring to want more than the little society deems acceptable for her, I would hate it, but that’s not really Emma’s problem. Yes, she is jealous of what she sees as the greater freedoms accorded to men, and Flaubert even seems sympathetic to her complaints about the restrictions on women, but what Emma is really jealous of is the freedom of wealth. Emma and her husband are middle-class, and Flaubert, while setting them in contrast to the extreme poor, also shows the ways in which Emma’s love of romance exposes her not just to wild ideas about love, but about the sensual life, and how her desire for a life that is more than the practicalities destroys her. One of my favorite parts of the book is a scene in which Emma is seduced by her aristocratic lover while, in the background, a village fair goes on, with speeches extolling the virtues of agriculture and other industries. It is this solid, practical and useful life that Emma disdains; this, not her desire for love, is her real character flaw.
But the real strength of Flaubert is in the description of his characters. Even in their most tragic moments, like the somewhat melodramatic ending, they feel extremely real,to the point that when Emma was panicking over her financial situation and not wanting to face Charles, I actually found myself thinking “she’s going to decide to kill herself” before the thought occurred to her. The details of Emma’s dissatisfaction and recklessness, Charles’ placid contentment, Leon’s own romantic illusions, etc all feel true to life. Even the secondary characters like the ambitious pharmacist Homais are carefully crafted.
Madame Bovary follows Emma, a beautiful and romantically-inclined woman who, wanting desperately to experience great love and passion, falls into a series of poor decisions. As a young woman, believing herself to be in love, she marries Charles Bovary, a doctor and frankly a bore of a person, and when her life quickly becomes dull and mundane, she turns to extramarital affairs for passion and purpose. Despite the book’s scandalous reputation, Emma only has two lovers, and in both cases she does for a time believe she truly loves them (and in one case, the man seems to love her back, at least at first.) But Emma’s idea of love is based on novels (Madame Bovary being also part of that odd genre of 19th century literature, in which a novelist decries the effects of a different type of novel on usually female brains), and it is too shallow to withstand the realities of life. Even as her loves disappoint her, Emma also fights against the dullness of middle class life, and it is ultimately not her infidelities, but her extravagance, that brings about the book’s tragic end.
It is actually this last trait that saves the book for me. If this were an example of a moralistic story, where a woman is punished for daring to want more than the little society deems acceptable for her, I would hate it, but that’s not really Emma’s problem. Yes, she is jealous of what she sees as the greater freedoms accorded to men, and Flaubert even seems sympathetic to her complaints about the restrictions on women, but what Emma is really jealous of is the freedom of wealth. Emma and her husband are middle-class, and Flaubert, while setting them in contrast to the extreme poor, also shows the ways in which Emma’s love of romance exposes her not just to wild ideas about love, but about the sensual life, and how her desire for a life that is more than the practicalities destroys her. One of my favorite parts of the book is a scene in which Emma is seduced by her aristocratic lover while, in the background, a village fair goes on, with speeches extolling the virtues of agriculture and other industries. It is this solid, practical and useful life that Emma disdains; this, not her desire for love, is her real character flaw.
But the real strength of Flaubert is in the description of his characters. Even in their most tragic moments, like the somewhat melodramatic ending, they feel extremely real,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Ein sehr gutes Buch. Bin froh, dass ich diesen Klassiker endlich gelesen hab.
Madame Bovary, c'est moi!
Até então eu só conhecia Emma Bovary de suas adaptações cinematográficas que não chegam mesmo a um patamar raso da obra escrita, mas ler Balzac me incitou a finalmente ler Madame Bovary, já que passei boa parte de A Mulher de 30 Anos pensando se Flaubert não o havia lido e para descontar sua frustração com o mesmo não teria resolvido dar a sua versão do desenvolvimento feminino através do casamento no século XIX. Para a minha pouca surpresa parte dos devaneios de Emma são nutridos pela leitura da protagonista de a Comédia Humana de Balzac como consta no livro.
Enfim, Madame Bovary é uma obra prima sem tamanho e me arrependo muito de não tê-la lido antes, especialmente na minha faixa dos 20 anos que foi um período em que legitimamente sofri de “Bovarismo”assim como boa parte da juventude imatura o sofre nesse momento. Flaubert esquarteja todos os níveis da sociedade, do machismo ao capitalismo, da religiosidade à intelectualidade, tudo é alvo de suas críticas mordazes elegantemente escritas.
E nunca esqueçam de agradecer hoje o divórcio, o sexo antes do casamento e o casamento aberto, quer dizer, o casamento aberto ainda estamos lutando para difundir, mas um dia a gente chega lá... Já pensou quando o casamento aberto for normal que delícia nunca se preocupar com o comprometimento dos outros? Pena que estarei morta ou muito velha quando isso ocorrer, mas só então Emma Bovary terá sua vingança!
PS: Tenho que parar de me identificar com essas mulheres do século XIX e passar a me identificar com uma literatura mais contemporânea... O problema que a literatura hoje não tem o desenvolvimento de personagens como tinha naquela época.
Até então eu só conhecia Emma Bovary de suas adaptações cinematográficas que não chegam mesmo a um patamar raso da obra escrita, mas ler Balzac me incitou a finalmente ler Madame Bovary, já que passei boa parte de A Mulher de 30 Anos pensando se Flaubert não o havia lido e para descontar sua frustração com o mesmo não teria resolvido dar a sua versão do desenvolvimento feminino através do casamento no século XIX. Para a minha pouca surpresa parte dos devaneios de Emma são nutridos pela leitura da protagonista de a Comédia Humana de Balzac como consta no livro.
Enfim, Madame Bovary é uma obra prima sem tamanho e me arrependo muito de não tê-la lido antes, especialmente na minha faixa dos 20 anos que foi um período em que legitimamente sofri de “Bovarismo”assim como boa parte da juventude imatura o sofre nesse momento. Flaubert esquarteja todos os níveis da sociedade, do machismo ao capitalismo, da religiosidade à intelectualidade, tudo é alvo de suas críticas mordazes elegantemente escritas.
E nunca esqueçam de agradecer hoje o divórcio, o sexo antes do casamento e o casamento aberto, quer dizer, o casamento aberto ainda estamos lutando para difundir, mas um dia a gente chega lá... Já pensou quando o casamento aberto for normal que delícia nunca se preocupar com o comprometimento dos outros? Pena que estarei morta ou muito velha quando isso ocorrer, mas só então Emma Bovary terá sua vingança!
PS: Tenho que parar de me identificar com essas mulheres do século XIX e passar a me identificar com uma literatura mais contemporânea... O problema que a literatura hoje não tem o desenvolvimento de personagens como tinha naquela época.
Remarkable to me because for every issue I had with Flaubert's intent his prose is so immaculate, so fully realized that there's no way I couldn't be enamored with the work. Such a textured novel, I can understand why this appealed to Duras so much.
This is a fantastic read - not the happiest of endings. Kind of a cautionary tale about unwise marriages - perhaps why someone people should never get married - and certainly why some people should never have credit cards - ok, this is historical, so it's just credit, but it all boils down to the same thing - merrily spending money you haven't got for things you don't need in the mad belief that they will fill a hole in your life and make you happy. Ultimately it's the money that is Emma Bovary's downfall, and it's this that drives her to take her own life. And she leaves her husband to live in the mess she's left. I did feel sorry for her at the beginning of the book, but by the time she was getting to the point of extreme overspending and getting bored with her second lover, I found her self-centered, irrational, in desperate need of a reality check and deserving of all the bad luck that came to her. And then she commits suicide rather than facing up to all the crap she did. And I didn't feel sad when she died - oh how harsh I am!
At the start I did feel sorry for her. She made an unwise marriage with a guy who wasn't going to make her happy. He idolised her like some little doll, but I don't think they were ever equal partners who were interested in one another as people; and she wanted something more from life than the mediocrity he had to offer. To be fair, she's the kind of woman who should have been able to develope herself, have a job, earn her own money, learn to enjoy her own company and not be so dependent on men and those exciting feelings of first falling in love - because as she finds out, these feelings can't last in any relationship. And she's in a period of history when she can't do this - she's there to run her husband's home (and before that her father's), and as she's reasonably well to do, she gets these traditional six weeks after giving birth when she can rest up and the baby lives with the wet nurse. There's nothing real for her to do or aim towards in her life for herself. Which would drive anyone nuts.
But at the same time we've all got our problems with life, and the way to survive in a way is to become disillushioned - to realise that this romantic love and passion from novels doesn't actually exist, that the world doesn't owe you a living or a happy ending. You've got to make what you can from what life hands you. Emma is quite dumb in a way, well, not developed as a person in her own right and always reliant on men - her father keeps her, then her husband. And it's not actually her that iniates the affairs, but the two men she's attracted to. Even with the living on credit, she's originally persuaded by the money lender and salesman to buy all these things and take out all these credit notes. But once these men have put these ideas in her head, she takes them all to the extreme, expecting these passionate, quite frankly ridiculous sounding love affair, spending far too much money, taking out credit to clear old credit etc etc... and eventually falls into a great mess of her own making.
It is a really great read.
At the start I did feel sorry for her. She made an unwise marriage with a guy who wasn't going to make her happy. He idolised her like some little doll, but I don't think they were ever equal partners who were interested in one another as people; and she wanted something more from life than the mediocrity he had to offer. To be fair, she's the kind of woman who should have been able to develope herself, have a job, earn her own money, learn to enjoy her own company and not be so dependent on men and those exciting feelings of first falling in love - because as she finds out, these feelings can't last in any relationship. And she's in a period of history when she can't do this - she's there to run her husband's home (and before that her father's), and as she's reasonably well to do, she gets these traditional six weeks after giving birth when she can rest up and the baby lives with the wet nurse. There's nothing real for her to do or aim towards in her life for herself. Which would drive anyone nuts.
But at the same time we've all got our problems with life, and the way to survive in a way is to become disillushioned - to realise that this romantic love and passion from novels doesn't actually exist, that the world doesn't owe you a living or a happy ending. You've got to make what you can from what life hands you. Emma is quite dumb in a way, well, not developed as a person in her own right and always reliant on men - her father keeps her, then her husband. And it's not actually her that iniates the affairs, but the two men she's attracted to. Even with the living on credit, she's originally persuaded by the money lender and salesman to buy all these things and take out all these credit notes. But once these men have put these ideas in her head, she takes them all to the extreme, expecting these passionate, quite frankly ridiculous sounding love affair, spending far too much money, taking out credit to clear old credit etc etc... and eventually falls into a great mess of her own making.
It is a really great read.
This book was written more than 150 years ago, but the message of the book doesn't get old. You find yourself wishing Emma (Madame Bovary) would not shop for more and more stuff..would stop making new little loans to afford a more lavish looking life that they can afford..would stop seeking more drama in her life. You wish she could just appreciate the home, friends and family she has got and not run after meaningless things. I think there are some reality-tv shows these days starring modern day Madame Bovarys :D
This classic novel is about a sensual woman in search of herself. Parts of it are beautiful, and still hold up over time. Others, not so much. I got glimpses inside Madame Bovary's head, I got the idea that the author was trying to understand women, or at least, one woman (notes suggest similarities to a relationship between Flaubert and his mistress). Sometimes she is sympathetic, sometimes she is despicable, sometimes she is simply a cipher.
The tragic ending is inevitable, as Emma Bovary never knows what, exactly, she is seeking. Not sure if there isn't some slightly revengeful satisfaction by the author in the many pages of the character's long, agonizing death throes, but... *shrugging*
I am not sure what the takeaway message is, what I am supposed to have learned about life, but as a classic, it is worth reading at least once, and I am sure parts of it will continue to haunt me.
The tragic ending is inevitable, as Emma Bovary never knows what, exactly, she is seeking. Not sure if there isn't some slightly revengeful satisfaction by the author in the many pages of the character's long, agonizing death throes, but... *shrugging*
I am not sure what the takeaway message is, what I am supposed to have learned about life, but as a classic, it is worth reading at least once, and I am sure parts of it will continue to haunt me.