manorclassics 's review for:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

3.25

emotional sad medium-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

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Madame Bovary is about an unfaithful wife. I don't usually read books with this subject but I was interested in the character study of Emma Bovary and curious to read a book that gets such mixed reviews, especially as it scandalised people at the time it was published.

I actually quite enjoyed two thirds of the story; I disliked Emma and found her hard to empathise with but at the same time I found her motivations interesting as well as the question of was she clinically depressed or just chronically dissatisfied. I kept hoping she would find some kind of peace because it was clear she was heading for a crash.

The final few chapters really killed the book for me. Emma was a pretty melodramatic char cter all the way through but the last part descended fully into melodrama and I wasn't really on board with that.

Emma's suicide was powerful but Flaubert seemed to want to suck all hope from the story by killing off or ruining the rest of the Bovary family, I don't see why Charles couldn't have recovered and had a happier life with his daughte, but no: Charles dies of a broken heart after discovering Emma's affairs and his daughter, who is hinted to be suffering with consumption, ends up working in a cotton mill.

The story finally took a shift to focus on the pharmacist, who I think was meanr to be the comic relief and perhaps also provide some irony, but I never was that interested in him.

So overall something of a miss for me, but I am glad I read it as I've always been curious. I plan to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon's retelling, The Doctor's Wife, which I've heard is similar but also different. I'm looking forward to comparing the two.