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juniperd 's review for:
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
i kinda don't know what i think right now. the first bit i loved. then....it's just all so sad. so i feel really melancholy at the moment. but it's also a bit ridiculous, isn't it? like, over-the-top. i get that at the time this came out, it was scandalous. and poor flaubert had to go on trial to defend against obscenity charges (it's okay! he was acquitted!) so i am trying to put myself back in 1856. and trying to grasp the relativity of emma's problems.
emma's quest, constantly, to find happiness through money - living beyond her means (which were pretty good), buying and acquiring stuff to compensate for sadness or a perceived lack/hole in her life, coupled with some ideal of love that probably could never exist in reality just makes for a fraught and impossible life.
i am also trying to figure out if emma was just that misguided, like, truly and utterly misguided in thinking money and real love would bring her happiness. or, if there were underlying issues? heh, that's right, a little psychoanalysis with your fiction! why not?! whee!! but really - how could i not? emma's mental and emotional abilities are so disconnected from reality in a way that is far beyond any sort of dreamy romanticism...i think, anyway.
for me...i would have liked a little more on charles bovary to round out the story. and i am not sure the point of berthe? why introduce the child at all?
i suspect i will be thinking on this one a while and it may be a book whose rating increases as i get further out from the read. maybe. i am so glad i finally read it!
emma's quest, constantly, to find happiness through money - living beyond her means (which were pretty good), buying and acquiring stuff to compensate for sadness or a perceived lack/hole in her life, coupled with some ideal of love that probably could never exist in reality just makes for a fraught and impossible life.
i am also trying to figure out if emma was just that misguided, like, truly and utterly misguided in thinking money and real love would bring her happiness. or, if there were underlying issues? heh, that's right, a little psychoanalysis with your fiction! why not?! whee!! but really - how could i not? emma's mental and emotional abilities are so disconnected from reality in a way that is far beyond any sort of dreamy romanticism...i think, anyway.
for me...i would have liked a little more on charles bovary to round out the story. and i am not sure the point of berthe? why introduce the child at all?
i suspect i will be thinking on this one a while and it may be a book whose rating increases as i get further out from the read. maybe. i am so glad i finally read it!