Reviews

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

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sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

5.0

Those who go out looking for happiness are the unhappiest lot. (All of this particular unhappy lot can be classed as narcissist.) I think this is called paradox of hedonism. Emma Bovary is one of this lot. She has this very fixed idea of happiness - which must come from passionate love; and it is this very idea she tried to bring to truth. The problem with having such very fixed ideas of happiness is that nothing else could satisfy her. Her husband whom she had willingly married disgusted her. The routine life bore her, she must seek best of everything:

“She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among ruins. She had to extract a kind of personal advantage from things and she rejected as useless everything that promised no immediate gratification — for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery.”

If it wasn't for this particular idea she had conceived of love, she could have find happiness in what she already had. It isn't she didn't tried to make herself happy with what she already had but it didn't work. There were probably no help groups.For a large part you can sympathize; may be, you say, it is society. I don't think divorces were allowed in law back in her time - and not to forget social prejudices she may have to face if she tried to break the marriage.

Thus she did finally fell to adultery and you could understand. Aren't we all slave to our passions? What annoys you is that she shouldn't see the errors of her ways; not only in adultery but also her extravagances. It is her ingratitude towards Charles that she carried to the last which made me judge her. She also took Charles and her own daughter in her fall.

Instead of its title character, the book starts with a focus on Charles' life (there are introduced, in fact, two other Madame Bovary before Emma is introduced). Through out the book he was that sort of follow which gods enjoy playing jokes on. He was not the smartest but through sheer hard work was able to rise on social ladder. There was though a time in his first marriage when he too unconsciously played in his mind with the idea of adultery but managed not to cross the line. Although he would occasional get excited and was happy with his imagined perfect marriage with Emma; Hardships and routines had killed much of his spirits. Unlike Emma he chose to resign to them and was no better in the end.

The prose read more like poetry to me, the author refused to take sides or judge his characters; although he id make it a point that the characters must be understood. You are left at liberty to choose whether or not to like them. It was a perfect mixture of romanticism and realism. Like all Shakespearean tragedies, its last sentences were about side-characters going on with their life.

jojodoug55's review against another edition

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2.0

Unoriginal. Stereotypical French literature: search for the meaning of happiness through love, luxury, money, repeated affairs, a romanesque life. Realization that happiness doesnt come from these things, but it comes too late as one dies. I will not read this again.