Madame Bovary

By Gustave Flaubert and Adam Thorpe

A new translation by Adam Thorpe
 
Gustave Flaubert once said of his heroine, “Emma Bovary, c’est moi.” In this acclaimed new translation, Adam Thorpe brings readers closer than ever before to Flaubert’s peerless text and, by extension, the author himself.
 
Emma, a passionate dreamer raised in the French countryside, is ready for her life to take off when she marries the decent, dull Dr. Charles Bovary. Marriage, however, fails to live up to her expectations, which are fueled by sentimental novels, and she turns disastrously to love affairs. The story of Emma’s adultery scandalized France when Madame Bovary was first published. Today, the heartbreaking story of Emma’s financial ruin remains just as compelling. Translator Adam Thorpe, an accomplished author in his own right, pays careful attention to the “complex music” of Flaubert’s language, with its elegant, finely wrought sentences and closely observed detail. This exquisite Modern Library edition is sure to set a new standard for an enduring classic.
 
Praise for Adam Thorpe’s translation of Madame Bovary
 
“What leaves me reeling with each rereading (and Adam Thorpe’s new translation is, pardon the pun, to die for) is the use of language. There can be no doubt as to the reason for Flaubert’s brain popping at the top of the stairs when he was fifty-eight. He broke it scouring for perfect sentences, words, le mot juste.”—Russell Kane, The Independent
 
“Flaubert described his great work as a poem, so it is fitting that a poet and novelist of Thorpe’s stature should turn his hand to it.”—Robin Robertson, The Herald (Scotland)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9780812985214

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) was a French novelist who was best known for exploring realism in his work. Hailing from an upper-class family, Flaubert was exposed to literature at an early age. He received a formal education at Lycée Pierre-Corneille, before venturing to Paris to study law. A serious illness forced him to change his career path, reigniting his passion for writing. He completed his first novella, November, in 1842, launching a decade-spanning career. His most notable work, Madame Bovary was published in 1856 and is considered a literary masterpiece.

Reviews for Madame Bovary

[danielalgara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How many books can you say affected the way you think about the trifles that possess the flawed spirit of humanity?

I have read here something that digs deeply to the the nuanced depths of our common psychosis. The characters, obsequious to their ideal of being owed a certain amount of happiness, are prone to overlook the details that make them miserable and instead, with a series of self-agrandsing actions, attempt to make their lives something like tolerable.

The baseness of these characters lies in all of us. The desire to make our romantic ideals come true, and remain ignorant of the cost that might come along with their artificial manufacture, is eloquently laid out in a narrative that tells of people, real people (not that fake ones that pop up so often in the classic literature) struggling to get something out of life. Anything.

When I first picked up this book, I rolled my eyes and sighed, "Here we go." I was prepared to read about a poor, oppressed woman who through sexual exploits finds that life can be fine and romantic and less painful if only she would allow her feminine spirit reign to do whatever makes her happy. I thought it would be a sort of "Eat, Pray, Fuck" of the 19th century.

That ain't what it was.

Before I explain, I should make clear that I have many problems with Flaubert's story, but the trueness of the characters and the humanity that he makes them portray is not one of them.

Madame Bovary is a perfect expression of the oppositeness that IS human nature.

The woman whose life is summed up in this tragedy is selfish, rude, entitled, a terrible mother, and a willful manic depressive. I hated her. HATE. No matter what anybody says, Flaubert meant for her to be hated. This is not an oppressed woman. She is a brat who thinks herself worthy (simply because she exists) of a life of adventure and ecstasy that she read about in romance novels. She thinks life shouldn't be like life at all, but like the movies (as it were).

But above that theme (and who of use hasn't known a person like that) it is a novel of opposition, as I have said. A representation of the queasy vacillation with which all of us live our lives. Examples:

The lovers love Bovary, and when they do, she hates them.

The lovers hate her and when they do, she loves them.

A playboy confesses the purist human emotion, love, to her during the handing out of prizes for a pig and cattle competition. He eloquently tells her what kind of love he has while farmers praise their hogs in the background. It tells us something about the playboy's idea of love. But she eats it up!

Two men, a priest and an atheist argue over the existence of God and meaning of life while watching over a decaying corpse.

A woman, in order pay off her debts, begs a rich man to lend her money. He advances on her and she is repulsed. That same woman, minutes after, uses her wiles on another rich man offering herself up as a prostitute for some cash.

Some would say, that sounds ridiculous! And it is, but that is US!

How many of us have fantasized about a person, but then when we get in their presence we are somehow grossed out at the idea when we only minutes before pined after them in an impractical fantasy?

"We must not touch our idols, the gilt sticks to our fingers" - Flaubert.

The exhibition of truth and the duality that is in all of us is in this book. It is very much worth a critical read.

My problems:

Flaubert is not a very good storyteller. His narrative puts us on the outside and rarely involves them in the motion of the story in favor of melodramatic dialogue and an almost historic description of events. It's as if the whole thing is a back story and we are just waiting for him to pull us in.

Another problem is the author's ubiquity. He is everywhere present in this book. He flaunts himself at times, head-hopping and generally making us feel like he is a master manipulator of his characters that are moving about in his created world. There is a noticeable split in his ability at verisimilitude. He seems to be very good at dissecting the human spirit, but not very good at placing them in a real environment. I'm actually having a difficult time describing it here. Suffice to note that the entire story feels very second-hand.

When he does decide to use coloration, he is a master, but he uses it sparingly and rightly so. His descriptions are so perfect that to have them too often would tax the reader into a coma of quandary.

He also suffers from something we come to expect from all authors of that era, that is, convenience. Characters are always "chanced upon" at the right moment.

The ending was only slightly weak. We are made to think that Homais is somehow at fault for Bovary's suicide, and (as life would have it) that dirty, big-headed, big-mouthed bourgeois is to blame and because he's so well-off and lucky, he'll get away with it.

Because Homais had discovered that it was his store of arsenic that killed her and didn't say anything, the author suggests there is some culpability on Homais' part. It's a sort of "See! It's the guy who's most evil that always comes out alright in the end!" But clearly Homais is not to blame. Bovary attained the poison through her own devices and chomped on it like a big baby who couldn't handle all the trouble she caused. She was a coward and I was glad she was dead. Homais may have been made to look like a jerk, but he was not responsible for a suicide, by definition.

I presume that it was fashionable to hate the self-made man in France at the time and this was a childish political dig that made the common Frenchman (aren't they all so common anyway) feel a tinge of self righteousness, leaving him with an agreeable sentiment after such a morbid ending. It was also (in my opinion) an homage to Voltaire and his mindless brand of nihilism.

The tragedy (if you're wondering why I called it one) is that M. Bovary failed to see that it was her husband (he was the ONLY one) who really loved her, she was just too selfish and stupid to see it, taking him for a git, which he was. But the only thing she wanted was her own grand ideal of love and he, ultimately, was the one willing to give it to her unconditionally. It turns out she was the mediocrity at the very thing she desired most. Madame B was so consumed with herself it rendered her incapable of enjoying life's greatest gifts.

All told, it was a great read. Madame Bovary is an anthropological study through the art of writing, and also a prime example of fluid prose.


(P.S. I realize that this is a disjointed review, but this book has me reeling and I think that there is so much it has shown me, that a cohesive review would take thousands of words and a month or so to set them down.)

[katerobinson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ah, lovely greed and lust take Madame down the primrose path . . . I enjoyed reading Madame Bovary in the context of a course on modern and postmodern philosophy and literature.

[bhutton_10 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Had to force myself to finish it, but glad I did. The story may be about nothing but the prose and themes are brilliant and subtle. A book that has stayed with me far more than I thought it would.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story of a young woman who is filled with romantic dreams and discontent over the how her life has transpired.I didn't care for the story or the characters. It may have been about the period that it was written in.

[russellbittner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Flaubert’s care with language is legendary. Few people — even native English speakers — who pay serious attention to World Literature haven’t heard the stories of how Flaubert would work painstakingly at every sentence to make sure even the sound of it was as close to perfection as he could possibly get. While this characteristic is a given among most poets (a “given,” but not necessarily a “gotten” among many contemporary poets), it’s relatively rare among novelists. But then, even someone of François Mauriac’s authority once said that “every great novelist is first of all a great poet.”

Consequently, to translate Flaubert is a daunting task for any native English-speaker. While I had neither the benefit of the original nor other translations to compare with Alan Russell’s, his translation, in my estimation, does the job both ‘adequately and sufficiently.’ (‘Adequate and sufficient,’ by the way, is no small praise coming from a former philosophy student.)

Madame Bovary is a classic not only of French literature, but also of World Literature — and rightfully so. The story itself is not particularly extraordinary. It is rather Flaubert’s telling of it that makes it a classic.

Just as Anna is the eminently memorable focal point of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Emma is what remains behind in stark detail in the reader’s mind after feasting on Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

Your library will never be complete with a copy of Madame Bovary. And your reading pleasure will never be consummated without reading the book, start to finish.

RRB
04/16/11
Brooklyn, NY, USA

[nosajeel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first time I read Madame Bovary I neither enjoyed it nor particularly liked it. The issue was probably my expectations, the lack of any particularly sympathetic characters, a moral resolution, or the large canvas one gets with something like Anna Karenina.

This time, however, I I found it stunning: beautifully written, fascinating shifting of perspective, some of the most vivid and memorable scenes in just about any book, and a relentless logic that drives the entire book forward. This translation by Lydia Davis is excellent, although I don't have the Francis Steegmuller translation I read last time to compare the two.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An immoral wife sleeps around to escape the hum-drum of existence. Ho hum. Who cares? Still, well written.

[nbmars · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Generally acclaimed as one of the great 19th century novels, Madame Bovary lives up to its reputation. Even in translation, Flaubert’s efforts to find le mot juste comes through. Although many of the characters evidently are meant to be archetypes of common personalities, Flaubert limns each one with such specificity that they become lifelike even while performing their plot roles as the “rake,” the “religious skeptic,” the “aristocrat,” the “country cleric,” or the “great man from the City.” Flaubert’s vocabulary is elevated and vast, but his syntax is simple, direct, and lucid, making the novel an easy read.The plot revolves around adultery and the emptiness of bourgeois life, the former perhaps a symptom of the latter. Unlike many modern novels, the sex scenes are so terse and indirect that you may miss them if you are scanning too fast. Nonetheless, Emma Bovary comes across as very sensual and sexually alluring, if shallow and a bit of a ditz. She finds her husband boring and suffocating, but she is so self-absorbed we aren’t made to feel much sympathy for her. She believed when she married Charles that her life would be transmogrified into the fairytale that so often characterized the romances she read. The quotidian reality depressed her, and eventually drove her to desperation. The dénouement is tragic (more so for Charles than for Emma, the putative protagonist) and ironic. In Flaubert’s France, no good deed goes unpunished and many a bad one is rewarded.Evaluation: It is with good reason that Madame Bovary continues to be read 150 years after its publication.(JAB)

[bjh3038 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I am so thankful for finally finishing this book. The characters were either selfish, stupid, or weak.

[leandra53 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ein ganz großer Roman, sicher. Und eine abgeklärte und für ihre Zeit provokante Gesellschaftsanalyse. Aber mir war es dann doch zu sarkastisch, zu kalt, zu sehr "von oben herab". Wenn ich mich mit keiner einzigen Figur auch nur ansatzweise identifizieren kann, dann fällt es mir schwer, durchzuhalten. Spätestens ab der Szene, die (Achtung Spoiler!) den einzigen Zweck erfüllt, dass Madame Bovary weiß, wo genau der Apotheker das Arsen verwahrt, wartete ich nur noch darauf, dass sie es endlich benutzt und dem unwürdigen Schauspiel ein Ende bereitet.

[harmonyc-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Just because a book is a classic, does not necessarily mean a good read. I'm guessing that most of this book's success can be attributed to the fact that it would have been very scandalous in it's day. No matter when something is written, it helps if at least ONE of the characters is sympathetic...and I honestly could not root for any of them, not even remotely.

[ianmpindar · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I did not read this version I read a 'free' Public domain kindle book. It was a great version by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. You don't need to buy it, this version is great, but you will need a device to read it on!

[maryreinert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this for a book club. I have to admit that I'm not sure I see why it has received all this acclaim. There were pages that I just had to force myself to wade through. That being said, I can see for it's time that it was quite a thriller. The writing style is just so much different than what we as readers of most modern novels are accustomed to.I never felt any kind of sympathy for Emma Bovary, but yet I do believe she is representative of those individuals who are always looking outward to something or someone else to make them happy. Manners, customs, fashions, lifestyles have changed, but there are still plenty of Emma Bovarys today. Good literature lets us see human nature at its best or at its worst; this book does that.As the saying goes, "So many books, so little time" -- if you have lots of time, read this. However, if there's only so much time, there are many more modern novels that will be easier to read and relate to.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was assigned this in high school--and remember being decidedly unimpressed--bored. Well, I don't think I can blame that on the translation, I just think that there are some books you're incapable of appreciating, if not because you're too young, then maybe because you just haven't read enough. OK, and probably because you're too young at sixteen to really empathize with Emma and her disappointed dreams. She's a female Don Quixote driven to her ruin by reading too many romance novels. Or so it seems.This time around my magpie soul was entranced by the shiny prose. Even in translation (or maybe in this translation by Eleanor Marx Aveling) I was struck by the beautiful writing. Apparently some contemporaries complained of too much description--imagine that--in the 19th century a novel known for its "excessive details." I didn't feel that way--maybe some familiarity with Victorian verbosity helps. But I felt the descriptions weren't mere bagatelle but really did reveal character. And I was surprised at the sensuality of the prose:As it was empty she bent back to drink, her head thrown back, her lips pouting, her neck straining. She laughed at getting none of it, while with the tip of her tongue passing between her small teeth she licked drop by drop the bottom of her glass.ANDIt was the first time that Emma had heard such words addressed to her and her pride unfolded languidly in the warmth of this language, like someone stretching in a warm bath.Or this implied description of sex:From time to time the coachman, on his box cast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He could not understand what furious desire for locomotion urged these individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, and at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then he lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their jolting, running up against things here and there, not caring if he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, and depression.And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, and in the streets, at the corners, the good folk opened large wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about like a vessel.Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just as the sun beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, a bared hand passed beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, and threw out some scraps of paper that scattered in the wind, and farther off lighted like white butterflies on a field of red clover all in bloom.I know, by today's standards tame. But this is set in the 1840s and was first published in serialized form in 1856. Maybe the French were less restrained, but in England it's been claimed they were covering the legs of tables because for them to be bare was seen as indecent. The other complaint of contemporaries according to the book's introduction was Flaubert's "excessive distance"--his ironic tone. From what I gather contemporaries were disconcerted he didn't comment more in the narrative and explicitly condemn Emma. Yet Flaubert never struck me as cold. I remember as a teen dismissing Emma as a rather silly woman. This time around I felt a lot more sympathy for her--even when she does act like an idiot. Which doesn't rule out feeling sympathy for her wronged husband, either. Interestingly, Flaubert begins and ends with poor Charles Bovary. It's an unsparing, unsentimental novel, but not without a sense of intimacy and even painful empathy.

[chaosmogony · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant book.

Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois really shines through in his portrayal of provincial France, with Charles' meekness and his willing obliviousness of reality, and Emma's constant search for happiness which inevitably leads her to ruin.

You want to detest them both for their flaws; yet at the same time you realize that they're both human beings and operating from very real perspectives, keeping with Flaubert's ideas on limiting the author's influence.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I just finished Madame Bovary. Ok, I admit that I picked up this book because(according to Wikipedia!) a poll of modern authors listed this as the 2nd most important novel ever written. I'd like to have a conversation with whoever took that poll!! Does the book give an important social commentary about the lives of women? Yes. Is the book interesting? Uh, maybe. Was it earth shattering and changed my view of the world? No. But, I did find the audiobook enjoyable. Donada Peters does a wonderful job in the narration. Maybe I'm a bit jaded because I recently finished Anna Karenina and The House of Mirth - and I loved both books, but they also deal with a similar topic.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is Flaubert's seminal novel of adultery in provincial France in the early 19th century, the publication of which in 1856 caused outrage and led to the author's prosecution for obscenity (he was acquitted). The title character, married to a decent but (to her) dull provincial doctor Charles Bovary, commits adultery with two men, Rodolphe Boulanger and Leon Dupuis, for reasons of simple ennui with her life. Indeed, she almost seems to have an addiction for the ecstasy and lack of self control of love, and is at one point described by her lover Rodolphe as "gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen table". I found her an unsympathetic character, until her indebtedness leads to the novel's dramatic and tragic lifestyle. While the author's observations of French provincial life are no doubt acute, I didn't particularly enjoy reading the novel, and the other characters didn't interest me.

[kakadoo202 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

not sure what to expect but for sure a classic. she was very adventourous for her time and had lots of affairs but moneywise, she was not very smart and was also taken advantage of. it probably would been a better ending for her if she managed the money better. easier to read than expected.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps I've been reading too much classic literature lately, but I didn't find Madame Bovary all that special -- it probably didn't help that I read another novel with an affair of a similar nature in it, Anna Karenina, just now. In terms of characters, I found it quite realistic: I could believe in all of the characters. Emma, unable to find any satisfaction, quickly getting bored; Charles, a little dense, boring, loving; all the more minor characters. The descriptions of their lives felt realistic, too. But I found it hard to get absorbed in the story: probably because, despite recognising her as a well-written, realistic character, I don't identify with Emma Bovary at all.

[erickibler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had attempted this book a couple year ago, but was confounded by a bad translation. Then I heard about Lydia Davis's new, highly touted translation through the New York Times book review podcast. It's everything they say. Beautifully done.

This novel is so psychologically realistic, the result of such careful observation of human behavior, that it's amazing it came out in the mid-nineteenth century. Not only that, but it's an early feminist novel!

Emma Roualt is a farm girl who has been given a good convent education by her father. She longs for the finer things in life. Music, art, romance, the company of cultured people. She ends up marrying Charles Bovary, a barely competent physician, and a dull man in the bargain. With him she relocates to a small town where everybody knows everybody, has a child, and of course, becomes very unhappy.

Her unhappiness comes not only from her dissatisfaction with her dull, unambitious husband and the life they share, but also from her awareness of the lack of freedom experienced by women in her society. Her sadness allows to to place her hopes for a better life successively, in two adulterous affairs. Rodolphe, the gentleman farmer, has ignoble intentions toward her from the start. Leon, the young law clerk, is too immature to know what he wants.

Serving as sort of a Greek chorus is Homais, the apothecary, who is the Bovarys' next door neighbor. He's a pompous twit who has a number of comic monologues.

In order to finance the tissue of lies she's concocted to carry on her affairs, Emma makes an association with a dry goods merchant who plays with her like a fish on a line, loaning her sums of money and coaxing her to sign promissory notes which eventually come due.

The ending of the book is very dark, but realistic.

[snooksmcdermott · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

somewhere a reviewer called it a 'buddhist morality tale on the futility of desire' which pretty much sums it up for me.

[elizabethandrew-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I hated this book when it was assigned to me my senior year of high school. Assuming I'd changed since then, I gave it another go. Turns out I had good sense as an 18-year-old. I'm putting it down after 170 unsatisfying pages.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I found Emma Bovary to be a most unsympathetic character. I finished it, but not because I cared what happened

[wonderperson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Flaubert is flawless as a writer. It was Nabokov in his tome on Russian Literature which led me to discover him.
This is world reknowned famous story of the tragic lives of Madame Bovary and her husband Mousier Bovary, a double tragedy where unbeknowns to either of them their losses are reflected in the ways their lives end up in a state of tragic self-destruction. Well worth the read and I will definitely read more Flaubert.

[rubya_32 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I could not finish this book. I simply despised the main character.

[missizicks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What a selfish, charmless woman. There is nothing about her to recommend her.

[smiler69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What an incredibly unpleasant woman! I usually have nothing against an unlikeable protagonist, as they often make for interesting reading subjects, but this Madame Bovary had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Fickle, vain, selfish, materialistic, disloyal, unappreciative and self-delusional as she was, I kept waiting for something truly horrible to happen, other than her habitual small hypocritical cruelties to her husband and her constant infidelity. (slight spoiler here) Her tragic end was too long in coming and even there, she somehow didn't offer satisfaction. (end of spoiler) She is bored with her life, married to a husband who idolizes her but offers little intellectual or romantic stimulation, she is bored with her little daughter and her perfect little bourgeois home, even as her husband puts no restriction on her spending so she can decorate it with every possible amenity she might desire. She is bored with reading... bored with life. The kind of woman who, even were she to live in this modern world and have all the choices she might desire, would probably still marry a boring rich man so she could go right on being bored and insufferable. I only rated this book with three stars because it IS Flaubert who writes beautifully of course, but I was bored out of my mind throughout. Maybe it's catching?

[ursula_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am really enjoying diving into these books with only whatever vague notions about them I have picked up over the years. What I knew about Madame Bovary when I started it: she has an affair? So I was a little thrown when the book started with some boy named Charles who was going to school and being made fun of, and we followed him on to being a not-very-good student and a not-very-confident doctor. He marries a woman chosen by his mother, but although both of them have the same name, neither his mother nor this wife are the Madame Bovary. The wife is a widow who is supposed to be rich, but she is older and not very attractive. Finally, when Charles attends to a man on his farm and meets the man's daughter Emma, I realize she will become the title Madame Bovary.And so she does, after the widow dies and a decent amount of time has passed. Emma is beautiful and vivacious, and positive that married life will be incredibly romantic, just like in the novels. Soon, she realizes that she is not exactly swept away by a great love for Charles. She finds herself attracted to a young man in their town, and they do that dance of wondering if the other one is interested, but no one will come out and say it because it would be unseemly. Eventually, he leaves town. Emma tries devoting herself to being the best wife (and mother, there is a child in the book who is clearly not on Emma's radar and therefore not really on ours), but she finds that she now not only doesn't have that all-consuming love for Charles, she kind of can't stand him. What to do, what to do? Enter Rodolphe, who we are introduced to as a serial seducer. At this point, I started calling Emma "poor, stupid Madame Bovary." Of course, she falls for him. Of course, he is not nearly as committed as she is. And it doesn't end well for her. There's a lot more plot after that, but I really want to talk about what the book is saying. Two things stood out to me. One: adultery is just as boring as marriage if you carry it on long enough. Two: adultery is bad, but buying on credit is worse. I enjoyed the read, although the last 10% was sort of pointless to me. Some quotes:"Charles's conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and everyone's ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought.""But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers.""Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that always thins out the sentiment."

[imperfectcj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'll think I'll end up reading this one again. I really enjoyed the story and the found the progression of the plot to be realistic (if not always satisfying). I can't decide how I feel about Emma Bovary. I get the sense that I may get a different impression of this book if I read it in a more allegorical, more dispassionate frame of mind.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I felt obligated to read this novel since I had a used copy lying around free for the taking and Nabokov had praised it so highly, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. Because I had heard that the eponym was pretty unsympathetic, and the course of the plot was dreary and depressing. Well, it turns out I didn't hear wrong: Emma is horrible and nothing good happens for all 400 pages of it - but I hadn't been told the most important thing about the book, which is that it's a black comedy. The incredible pettiness and stupidity of all of the characters' (not just Emma's) self absorption and the way they hurtle towards their own ruin as if filled with zeal for the prospect make it an entertaining spectacle. An ironic anti-spectacle as everything about their fuckups is unrelievedly trite and banal. It's like watching a trainwreck, and then watching someone get the bright idea of clearing the wreckage from the tracks by ramming another train into them, and then following through on that idea by sending two trains one from each side. It's glorious in it's utter lack of gloriousness.I'm going to dock it a star though because in my current mood I really could have done with something a little more upbeat.