mlautchi's review against another edition
5.0
I devoured this. Artfully written, despite the ugliness of the events that take place.
Flaubert paints a grim picture of what life was like for women of the time, constrained by society and its expectations and morality. Emma is under the false illusions that marriage equals fulfillment and that love is the be-all and end-all, which can hardly fail to result in disappointment. Yet I failed to empathize with her, as she is egocentric beyond comprehension, and ludicrously unrealistic. But then I've always been a realist and have never quite understood enthusiasitc romantics.
Quotes
"One moment she would be gay and wide-eyed; the next, she would half shut her eyelids and seem drowned in boredom, her thoughts miles away." (p37 Vintage Steegmuller translation with Princess de Broglie cover)
"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." (40)
"She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among the ruins." (42)
"And now she could not bring herself to believe that the uneventful life she was leading was the happiness of which she had dreamed." (46-7)
"Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe." (57)
"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart."
"Spring came again. She found it hard to breathe, the first warm days, when the peartrees were bursting into blossom." (73)
" 'What's more delightful than an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book, listening to the wind beating against the windows?' " (99)
"She refused to believe that things could be the same in different places; and since what had gone before had been so bad, what was to come must certainly be better.” (102)
"The river ... ran silently, swift and cold-looking; long fine grasses bent with the current, like masses of loose green hair streaming in its limpid depths. Here and there on the tip of a reed or on a water-lily pad a spidery-legged insect was poised or crawling. Sunbeams pierced the little blue air bubbles that kept forming and breaking on the ripples; branchless old willows mirrored their gray bark in the water in the distance the meadows seemed empty all around them." (112)
"The light seemed to glide down her forehead to her arching brows as on a marble statue. And there was no way of knowing what she was gazing at on the horizon or what her deepest thoughts might be." (141)
"She remembered summer evenings, full of sunshine." (202)
"But how to speak about so elusive a malaise, one that keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction like the wind? She could find no words; and hence neither occasion nor courage came to hand."
"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars." (224)
"She was finally blooming in the fullness of her nature." (228)
"She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague "she" of all the poetry books." (313)
"We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands."
"Our duty is ... not to accept all the social conventions and the infamies they impose on us."
Flaubert paints a grim picture of what life was like for women of the time, constrained by society and its expectations and morality. Emma is under the false illusions that marriage equals fulfillment and that love is the be-all and end-all, which can hardly fail to result in disappointment. Yet I failed to empathize with her, as she is egocentric beyond comprehension, and ludicrously unrealistic. But then I've always been a realist and have never quite understood enthusiasitc romantics.
Quotes
"One moment she would be gay and wide-eyed; the next, she would half shut her eyelids and seem drowned in boredom, her thoughts miles away." (p37 Vintage Steegmuller translation with Princess de Broglie cover)
"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." (40)
"She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among the ruins." (42)
"And now she could not bring herself to believe that the uneventful life she was leading was the happiness of which she had dreamed." (46-7)
"Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe." (57)
"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart."
"Spring came again. She found it hard to breathe, the first warm days, when the peartrees were bursting into blossom." (73)
" 'What's more delightful than an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book, listening to the wind beating against the windows?' " (99)
"She refused to believe that things could be the same in different places; and since what had gone before had been so bad, what was to come must certainly be better.” (102)
"The river ... ran silently, swift and cold-looking; long fine grasses bent with the current, like masses of loose green hair streaming in its limpid depths. Here and there on the tip of a reed or on a water-lily pad a spidery-legged insect was poised or crawling. Sunbeams pierced the little blue air bubbles that kept forming and breaking on the ripples; branchless old willows mirrored their gray bark in the water in the distance the meadows seemed empty all around them." (112)
"The light seemed to glide down her forehead to her arching brows as on a marble statue. And there was no way of knowing what she was gazing at on the horizon or what her deepest thoughts might be." (141)
"She remembered summer evenings, full of sunshine." (202)
"But how to speak about so elusive a malaise, one that keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction like the wind? She could find no words; and hence neither occasion nor courage came to hand."
"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars." (224)
"She was finally blooming in the fullness of her nature." (228)
"She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague "she" of all the poetry books." (313)
"We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands."
"Our duty is ... not to accept all the social conventions and the infamies they impose on us."
readcover2cover's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. To be honest, I did not finish it. I started it because I had it forever. I actually enjoyed it more at first than I expected to, and I did like Flaubert's writing style. However, I have many other things to read and it didn't grip me enough to keep going. I googled the ending, and all I can say is . . . geez. It made me glad I didn't finish it. I wouldn't have wanted to read it.
My understanding is that it is supposed to be a criticism of society, not necessarily of Emma's behavior. I got that from the tone throughout. The message is basically about the importance of being content and not always wanting or needing more. I think it is a good message for today's society as well, but I just didn't feel the need to get all the way through this one. I'm glad I finally picked it up, but I only feel a tiny bit sorry that I'm not finishing it.
My understanding is that it is supposed to be a criticism of society, not necessarily of Emma's behavior. I got that from the tone throughout. The message is basically about the importance of being content and not always wanting or needing more. I think it is a good message for today's society as well, but I just didn't feel the need to get all the way through this one. I'm glad I finally picked it up, but I only feel a tiny bit sorry that I'm not finishing it.
suvata's review
5.0
#ModernMrsDarcy book club flight pick for March 2023 #MMDBookClub
#OUABC 2023 Reading Challenge: 40 Prompts
(38. A Book published before you were born)
#StoryGraph: fiction classics emotional reflective sad
372 pages • first pub 1857
DESCRIPTION
Emma Bovary, daughter of an uneducated farmer and wife of a dull doctor in northern France, harbors a passion for everything beyond her grasp—sophistication, romance, love, and deliverance from her banal provincial life. Motivated by the primal, idealized, and vain, she seeks adventure. And with each new endeavor, Emma sets for herself an inevitable and inescapable trap.
Condemned as an affront to public morals, Madame Bovary’s obscenity trial made it notorious. Today, Emma stands as one of fiction’s greatest most famous figures, and the novel itself, among the most pioneering and influential in world literature.
#OUABC 2023 Reading Challenge: 40 Prompts
(38. A Book published before you were born)
#StoryGraph: fiction classics emotional reflective sad
372 pages • first pub 1857
DESCRIPTION
Emma Bovary, daughter of an uneducated farmer and wife of a dull doctor in northern France, harbors a passion for everything beyond her grasp—sophistication, romance, love, and deliverance from her banal provincial life. Motivated by the primal, idealized, and vain, she seeks adventure. And with each new endeavor, Emma sets for herself an inevitable and inescapable trap.
Condemned as an affront to public morals, Madame Bovary’s obscenity trial made it notorious. Today, Emma stands as one of fiction’s greatest most famous figures, and the novel itself, among the most pioneering and influential in world literature.
icecubecat's review against another edition
5.0
Madame Bovary is a classic not just in the excellence of Flaubert's writing creating a vivid depiction of rural 19th century France but also in his excellent exploration of ideas through slightly stereotyped characters.
Flaubert confronts the way the mind is affected by Romantic longings and fantastical dreams, Emma shakes between visions of herself from dutiful wife to adulteress to saint to a gluttonous duchess. In doing so she shakes the world around her as the people around her unaffected by such high-mindedness are left to pick up the pieces of her fancies.
She is trapped in a world too mundane, too normal, too real to ever furnish even the simplest happinesses and dreams she imagines. The tension between her imagination and the world around her swings violently as we experience this change in her perceptions and desires as she influences the way the narrator approaches other characters and places.
Flaubert has you sucked in by her like everyone else in her life and soon you find yourself quickly orbiting her even if by the end you want to break free from her pull.
The book remains ever pertinent in a world where we are so consumed by images and ideals of things from Pinterest boards to clichéd films and music. Flaubert grounds us by showing us what a life too focused on image can result in but also how a life focused on the mundane (such as Charles') can leave us bored and unaware of impending problems.
There's a bit of Emma in all of us and that's what makes her story all the more alluring, after all Flaubert famously said of the book "Emma is me, I am Emma".
Flaubert confronts the way the mind is affected by Romantic longings and fantastical dreams, Emma shakes between visions of herself from dutiful wife to adulteress to saint to a gluttonous duchess. In doing so she shakes the world around her as the people around her unaffected by such high-mindedness are left to pick up the pieces of her fancies.
She is trapped in a world too mundane, too normal, too real to ever furnish even the simplest happinesses and dreams she imagines. The tension between her imagination and the world around her swings violently as we experience this change in her perceptions and desires as she influences the way the narrator approaches other characters and places.
Flaubert has you sucked in by her like everyone else in her life and soon you find yourself quickly orbiting her even if by the end you want to break free from her pull.
The book remains ever pertinent in a world where we are so consumed by images and ideals of things from Pinterest boards to clichéd films and music. Flaubert grounds us by showing us what a life too focused on image can result in but also how a life focused on the mundane (such as Charles') can leave us bored and unaware of impending problems.
There's a bit of Emma in all of us and that's what makes her story all the more alluring, after all Flaubert famously said of the book "Emma is me, I am Emma".
laticsexile's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
It took me a while to engage fully with the book. While Emma is easy to understand, she’s just so unlovable. It’s only as things start to unravel that there’s a bit of light and shade.
The writing is magnificent and it’s peppered with excellent humour. I do see why it’s regarded so highly,
The writing is magnificent and it’s peppered with excellent humour. I do see why it’s regarded so highly,
debbeefrosty's review against another edition
4.0
Second time I’ve read this book - compelling reading ! Wondering what Emma Bovary will do next to satisfy her lustful needs - brilliant ending befitting of a film noir.
evosk89's review
4.0
Banned book is worth it
I didn't know what to expect going into this except that I knew that it is one of the most banned books in history. I guess a woman having an affair is and always will be scandalous! There's a lot of beautiful writing in this book, I definitely enjoyed it
I didn't know what to expect going into this except that I knew that it is one of the most banned books in history. I guess a woman having an affair is and always will be scandalous! There's a lot of beautiful writing in this book, I definitely enjoyed it
twilliamson's review against another edition
1.0
Let the record show that I do not doubt this book's artistic or historical significance; my low rating is entirely subjective based in what I tend to find interesting in a novel and is in no way intended to be taken as anything close to an objective appreciation of the book's artistic value.
Let it also be said that Lydia Davis, whose translation I read, is probably the best of the multiple translations I perused while reading this book. Her sense for prose was distinct, and I think her particular sense of Flaubert's voice was the most detailed of any I read. While I wouldn't call Flaubert's book beautiful, I do think Davis made the book as beautiful as she could manage while imaginably being true to the original French.
On the whole, then, I really liked what Davis managed with the book. I just happened to hate everything else about it.
Is there any character less sympathetic than Emma Bovary? The woman's craving for excess and desire to live beyond her means destroys the lives of her husband and daughter, alongside her own. She acts selfishly, foolishly, and her choices become thoroughly ruinous. I recognize that Flaubert used new philosophies of the world as it transitioned from antiquity to modernity--especially exhibited in the scenes involving members of the French government--to inform his story's conflicts, but the historical significance of his novel cannot outweigh how absolutely mind-numbing the book feels. What should be riveting drama set in a post-Reign of Terror France is instead one of the most boring pieces of literature I've had the displeasure of reading.
Perhaps that's the point--Flaubert definitely relies on the premise of a bored housewife to create his conflict, but I cannot help but feel that the quotidian nature of his plot bogs down the pacing excruciatingly, and that his protagonist is so thoroughly unlikeable doesn't help anything. I want to dig into the politics of possession here, especially as it compares to the philosophies developing through the 18th and 19th centuries, but I'd honestly prefer to just stop thinking about the book altogether. I'm just too damn fed up with it.
But whatever. Whether "great classic" or "total bore," the book clearly has its enthusiasts and admirers. I don't think anyone's going to be hurt when I say that I'm clearly not one of them.
Let it also be said that Lydia Davis, whose translation I read, is probably the best of the multiple translations I perused while reading this book. Her sense for prose was distinct, and I think her particular sense of Flaubert's voice was the most detailed of any I read. While I wouldn't call Flaubert's book beautiful, I do think Davis made the book as beautiful as she could manage while imaginably being true to the original French.
On the whole, then, I really liked what Davis managed with the book. I just happened to hate everything else about it.
Is there any character less sympathetic than Emma Bovary? The woman's craving for excess and desire to live beyond her means destroys the lives of her husband and daughter, alongside her own. She acts selfishly, foolishly, and her choices become thoroughly ruinous. I recognize that Flaubert used new philosophies of the world as it transitioned from antiquity to modernity--especially exhibited in the scenes involving members of the French government--to inform his story's conflicts, but the historical significance of his novel cannot outweigh how absolutely mind-numbing the book feels. What should be riveting drama set in a post-Reign of Terror France is instead one of the most boring pieces of literature I've had the displeasure of reading.
Perhaps that's the point--Flaubert definitely relies on the premise of a bored housewife to create his conflict, but I cannot help but feel that the quotidian nature of his plot bogs down the pacing excruciatingly, and that his protagonist is so thoroughly unlikeable doesn't help anything. I want to dig into the politics of possession here, especially as it compares to the philosophies developing through the 18th and 19th centuries, but I'd honestly prefer to just stop thinking about the book altogether. I'm just too damn fed up with it.
But whatever. Whether "great classic" or "total bore," the book clearly has its enthusiasts and admirers. I don't think anyone's going to be hurt when I say that I'm clearly not one of them.
thisisvaletrying's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5