Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Madame Bovary

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

10 reviews

zeynus's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.5

Content Warnings

destinyryan's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This will forever be one of my favorite books. You know when people ask who you would pick if you could have dinner/a conversation with a dead person? Flaubert. To talk about this book. I have read this in both French and English, and was struck each time by the sheer modernity of Flaubert’s commentary on debt, capitalism, and their impact on mental health. It is incredible how relevant the themes of this book remain.

Content Warnings

agnes_fr's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

4.75

Content Warnings

nineinchnails's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

i love this and surprisingly even loved charles which i did not expect going into this. he was naive and clueless when it came to his wife’s feelings but seemingly pretty sweet otherwise. it was ironic he had no clue about how miserable emma was in their marriage though, considering he had just been in a loveless marriage himself. this is pretty dense - it felt like so much happened but also nothing at all so it was a slog to get through occasionally. i loved the style of the prose and the flowery language it felt almost poetic in places - i wish i was fluent in french because i imagine the prose would flow even better in the original text.

i did get a little bored in the middle since i’d assumed the fun was over for our titular character (and the pacing of this was pretty strange) but she got a second wind and i ended up loving it!! emma had no redeeming qualities that i can recall but she was really engaging to read about and i found myself empathising with her, especially towards the end. she came across as quite naive and disillusioned so i had a lot more vitriol for rodolphe on account of his shameless manipulation of her. he wasn’t the only man to take advantage of her naïveté and it was both gratifying (because she was pretty awful) and frustrating to watch it happen as the reader.

the copy i read had a section at the end of “explanatory notes” which was referenced to constantly throughout and it massively contributed to my enjoyment since i ended up learning so much about 19th century france and flaubert himself. it was genuinely really interesting and i had no idea just how advanced medicine was in those times. i don’t think i agree with the moral of the story (from my interpretation) but i still really enjoyed this. no plot little character development just vibes but the vibes were gorgeous. i loved the setting and the prose was incredibly pretty.

Content Warnings

alinas_library's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional 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

3.5

J’étais surprise de l’actualité de quelques caractères et actions. Rodolphe est un « fuckboy » typique et Emma est super « delusional » et rêve de l’amour profonde comme dans ses romans. C’était très amusant pour moi. Quand-même, quelques remarques seront problématiques dans le contexte moderne.
« Madame Bovary » est parfois persistant, mais c’est très clair, pourquoi on considère ce roman comme un classique. La langage est très poétique et magistrale, la critique de la société, qui était un scandale pendant cette époque, est claire et ironique.
Un livre bien compréhensible même pour les apprenants du français, comme moi (à l’aide des traducteurs ;)).

Content Warnings