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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
4/5⭐
«Yo en cambio, te lo hubiera dado todo, lo hubiera vendido todo, habría trabajado con mis propias manos y pedido limosna en los caminos por una mirada tuya, por una sonrisa, por oírte decir "¡Gracias"»
- Contraste entre ilusión y realidad. (Afición a la novelas)
- Preocupación por el dinero. (Mediocridad doméstica --> Lujo y derroches)
- Erotismo. (Tedio conyugal --> Adulterio)
Es tan fácil juzgarla y aun así no quiero.
«Yo en cambio, te lo hubiera dado todo, lo hubiera vendido todo, habría trabajado con mis propias manos y pedido limosna en los caminos por una mirada tuya, por una sonrisa, por oírte decir "¡Gracias"»
- Contraste entre ilusión y realidad. (Afición a la novelas)
- Preocupación por el dinero. (Mediocridad doméstica --> Lujo y derroches)
- Erotismo. (Tedio conyugal --> Adulterio)
Es tan fácil juzgarla y aun así no quiero.
challenging
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Emmalla on kova FOMO ja puoliso haluaa töitten jälkeen jäädä kotiin juttelemaan päivästään. Gustave Flaubert on miellyttävän armollinen kirjoittamilleen henkilöhahmoille, mutta sama tarina on jo kuultu ja nuo aikalaisia shokeeranneet irstailut ovat olleet monilla aiemmilla mestareilla, kuten Boccacciolla, järisyttävämpiä.
“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionizes it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”
It was in 2018 when I took a course of World literature in the period of Realism where I got a huge program including Stendhal, Flaubert, Balzac, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, etc – needless to say, it was an experience, one that changed my outlook on literature, and made me fall in love with this particular literary movement.
Stylistically an almost perfect piece of French realistic prose fiction.
Flaubert’s writing is a result of a lot of hard work, he would spend hours constructing the perfect sentence, passage, searching for the right words to express his vision of reality resulting in a finished product that glides as you read, like waves running into each other, natural and impeccable.
It’s the love of language and the beauty of it that make Madame Bovary special. Along with the psychological portrait of a woman who lived her life influenced by sentimental novels that were the product of romanticism, this novel is also a novel of lost illusions about life leading to disappointment and death.
What Balzac and Stendhal started with their social and political realism, Flaubert continued with his novels and even perfected the prose.
“Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow.”
Often claiming the title of one of the greatest tragic literary heroines in fiction, next to Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary is a character that is made to be destroyed, by both her society and herself.
She grew up in an environment mirroring one of the sentimental and gothic heroines, in a convent. Shadowed from the outside world, without any practical knowledge, Emma spent her days praying and reading the abovementioned novels. Those novels gave her an unrealistic and rose-colored vision of life and love, and she held them in such high regard that anything ordinary and mild was repulsive to her.
This highlights one of the points of the book, that is how big and encompassing the influence of a book is on a person, and on a grander scale, on society. If Emma had books that portrayed ordinary lives, then maybe she wouldn’t have such grand expectations later on.
“I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breathe with them.”
Emma is never really happy through this novel, the only moments of happiness she found in the situations that pulled intense emotions from her which often were negative situations like the death of her mother or her affair with Leon and Rodolpho.
“Before her marriage, she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words “bliss,” “passion,” and “rapture” - words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books.”
Her ordinary marriage to Charles greatly lets her down, leading her to seek that intensity of emotion somewhere else, be it with expensive gifts she buys for the house and herself or with her love affairs. Her life is a life wasted for something that doesn’t exist in real life.
“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."
Both criticizing Emma and the society around her, notice the only positive character in the novel was the conventional and boring Charles, who sincerely loved his wife; Flaubert made the love story of the novel be the least important aspect and overshadowed by the portrayal of everything wrong in 19th-century French society like delusion, usury, corruption, ignorance, adultery, profiteering on somebody else’s expense and glorification of feelings that lead to nowhere. People like Emma Bovary cannot survive in real life in a society like that, unlike other characters who were more adept for life.
Flaubert fluctuates between irony and compassion in his portrayal of the downfall of his heroine, with his precise eye he paints the social milieu of his time earning the place among the greatest realist writers.
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One of the finest works of French realism, review to come.
Madame Bovary... I don't know what to say.
While there are divorces frequently nowadays, Madame Bovary back in the midst of the 19th century feels trapped in her marriage. Unhappy and even in disgust regarding her own husband she flees out of this ever repeating boredom into a romantic relationship… or two. While that being published was a terrific scandal back then, you see men and women cheating in 95 percent of TV shows today.
How times have changed!
I could understand Emmas position, her longings, her fight for living her dreams and not being limited in her actions. But I could not understand all of her behaviour. It was difficult watching her greed for luxury and her reckless way of spending money (that she doesn't own). But at this point I seem to be trapped in my own century and education.
Additionally I kept comparing her to Lene in "Irrungen, Wirrungen", who has a similar problem, namely being caught in her social class. Lene accepts in contrast to Emma that reality and does not risk a bad ending. She behaves reasonable and still is kind of happy. But not every one is Lene.
Unfortunately I could not like any character in this story. My previous read "The Brothers Karamsov" let me see a range of personalities very deeply. I saw the lovely traits and the abysses of a character and fell pretty much in love with most of them. And Dostojevskij even clearly points out Alexej (the youngest brother) as the hero in the novel.
Whereas Flaubert sets no kind of relation to his characters. The Narrator is never ever appearing or commenting. You see everyone's actions, there feelings are described briefly and you have to judge by yourself. And I personally mostly saw the characters behave following there emotions. That in contrary to Dostojevskijs Brothers seemed to me like a weakness that I could not forgive.
Homais the pharmacist is driven by narcissism (and his love for science, believe in progress), easily degrading his fellow men.
Charles is actually lovely but naive to such an extent that his disappointment in his wife kills him, leaving his daughter to a miserable future.
Lheureux is driven by greed for money and does not back off being a hippocrat.
and so on.
I liked reading it though. I could find myself in a lot of situations. And it brought me the idea of a chart which shows the books I read sorted by the year in which it was first published. Because I can't keep those dates in mind unfortunately.
While there are divorces frequently nowadays, Madame Bovary back in the midst of the 19th century feels trapped in her marriage. Unhappy and even in disgust regarding her own husband she flees out of this ever repeating boredom into a romantic relationship… or two. While that being published was a terrific scandal back then, you see men and women cheating in 95 percent of TV shows today.
How times have changed!
I could understand Emmas position, her longings, her fight for living her dreams and not being limited in her actions. But I could not understand all of her behaviour. It was difficult watching her greed for luxury and her reckless way of spending money (that she doesn't own). But at this point I seem to be trapped in my own century and education.
Additionally I kept comparing her to Lene in "Irrungen, Wirrungen", who has a similar problem, namely being caught in her social class. Lene accepts in contrast to Emma that reality and does not risk a bad ending. She behaves reasonable and still is kind of happy. But not every one is Lene.
Unfortunately I could not like any character in this story. My previous read "The Brothers Karamsov" let me see a range of personalities very deeply. I saw the lovely traits and the abysses of a character and fell pretty much in love with most of them. And Dostojevskij even clearly points out Alexej (the youngest brother) as the hero in the novel.
Whereas Flaubert sets no kind of relation to his characters. The Narrator is never ever appearing or commenting. You see everyone's actions, there feelings are described briefly and you have to judge by yourself. And I personally mostly saw the characters behave following there emotions. That in contrary to Dostojevskijs Brothers seemed to me like a weakness that I could not forgive.
Homais the pharmacist is driven by narcissism (and his love for science, believe in progress), easily degrading his fellow men.
Charles is actually lovely but naive to such an extent that his disappointment in his wife kills him, leaving his daughter to a miserable future.
Lheureux is driven by greed for money and does not back off being a hippocrat.
and so on.
I liked reading it though. I could find myself in a lot of situations. And it brought me the idea of a chart which shows the books I read sorted by the year in which it was first published. Because I can't keep those dates in mind unfortunately.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a rather depressing and downhearted book. The main character, Emma Bovary, has to be one of the unhappiest characters ever. At first she’s enjoying her new marriage, but she quickly comes to regret marrying her husband, so in an effort to find the happiness she so greatly desires, she cheats on him with two different men. Plus she also tries to shop her way into happiness which drives her and her family deep into debt, which Charles, her husband, can’t seem to get out of. Emma takes no interest in her daughter either, ignoring her to concentrate on her affairs. Finally so deep into debt and so unhappy, she forces the apothecary’s apprentice to let her into his lab and she takes some of his arsenic and dies a slow, miserable death. Her husband is miserable because for some reason he loved her so, but not long after she is buried, he finds letters from both of her lovers and basically dies of a broken heart. Berthe, their daughter, is sent away and is eventually forced to spend the rest of her life as a servant. What a depressing “The End.” Despite this being such a classic, I give it a C--.
Non posso credere quanto antipatica sia Emma -.-
Occhio agli spoiler, anche sul finale.
http://nonsempreiosonodelmiostessoparere.blogspot.it/2016/08/madame-bovary-di-gustave-flaubert.html
Occhio agli spoiler, anche sul finale.
http://nonsempreiosonodelmiostessoparere.blogspot.it/2016/08/madame-bovary-di-gustave-flaubert.html