Gemma Bovery [Hardcover]

Posy Simmonds (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 2005

It a coincidence that Gemma Bovery has a name rather like Flaubert’s notorious heroine? Is it by chance that, like Madame Bovary, Gemma is bored, adulterous, and a bad credit risk? Is she inevitably doomed?

Gemma is the pretty second wife of Charlie Bovery, the reluctant stepmother of his children, and the bête noire of his ex-wife. A sudden windfall and Gemma’s distaste for London take them across the Channel to
Normandy, where the charms of French country living soon wear off.

Gemma’s neighbor, the intellectual baker Joubert, is consumed by fascination for her. Denying voyeurism but nonetheless noting every change in the fit of Gemma’s jeans, every addition to her wardrobe, all of her love bites and lovers, Joubert——with the help of the heroine’s diaries——follows her path toward ruin.

Adultery and its consequences. Disappointment and deception. Fat and slim. Then and now. Familiar ingredients of the novel are given new life in Gemma Bovery’s unique graphic form.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This clever, satirical graphic novel reimagines the Flaubert classic Madame Bovary through contemporary mores and attitudes. Simmonds's unique approach includes the usual panels and balloons, but also voluminous amounts of text on each page. The result is a graphic novel that reads like an actual novel. Simmonds tells the story through the eyes of Raymond Joubert, a baker in Normandy. Gemma herself is a complex character—an unsatisfied young woman who marries Charlie Bovery, a lumpish carpenter, out of apparent boredom, and then persuades him to move from London to a farmhouse in Normandy, to escape his clinging ex-wife and two children. Here, the rather unlikable Gemma begins to come into focus, her loneliness and isolation leading to her affair. Joubert, who mixes genuine concern with denial about his voyeurism, is convinced Gemma's headed down the same tragic path as Flaubert's original. Since we learn in the first paragraph that Gemma is dead, the question is who will be responsible for her demise. Simmonds's art recalls the elegance of New Yorker cartoonists mingled with the goth charm of Edward Gorey (Gemma herself is all restlessly darting pinpoint pupils). The perceptive writing is as revealing as the art, concisely capturing the monotony of Gemma and Charlie's life, the shallowness of London yuppie society and the moments of happiness that are doomed from the start. A hit in England, Gemma should hold equal charms for American readers.
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Review

"A delightfully clever satire on British yuppies and contemporary mores. . . combining large passages of text with amusing line drawings and uproarious comic strips sequences. Ms. Simmonds’s drawings completely embody the tone of this book: bemused affection for her characters combined with delicately barbed sarcasm and fresh, cheeky, wit." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Be prepared to laugh for days on end. This is a masterpiece of visual wit, subversion, and terrible honesty, with Posy Simmonds’s cartoon hand matched only by her prose.”
––Elizabeth Buchan, The Times (London)

“Hilarious . . . Gemma Bovery deliciously exploits Posy Simmonds’s talent for observing, in words and pictures, the absurdities of life among the aspiring metropolitan middle class at home and abroad.”
––Lisa Jardine, The Times (London)

“Gemma Bovery is an original masterpiece. Posy Simmonds’s brilliant drawings and perfect ear for speech make every page pure pleasure.”
––Chris Woodhead, The Sunday Telegraph

“Posy Simmonds has found witty contemporary equivalents for Flaubert’s characters, plot, irony, and even literary devices, and much of the fun of reading about Gemma is decoding the parallels . . . Simmonds makes her cartoon characters three-dimensional and creates a Flaubertian ironic compassion for their suffering and stumbling.”
––Elaine Showalter, The Observer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (February 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375423397
• ISBN-13: 978-0375423390
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 0.6 x 12.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #830,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars New take on an old classic March 14, 2005

By Eileen Rieback

Format:Hardcover

This graphic novel begins in Bailleville, Normandy with the death of 31-year-old Gemma Bovery. Narrated alternately by the French baker Raymond Joubert and through excerpts from Gemma's diary, Gemma's story slowly unfolds. The beautiful British decorator marries Charlie Bovery, becomes caught up in a dead-end career, and is reluctantly involved in Charlie's domestic conflicts with his ex-wife and children. She decides to flee her dreary London life, and she talks Charlie into buying a home in the rural French countryside. Small town life seems no better for her, however, as her charming country cottage develops water leaks and is infested with pests. She tries to escape her boredom through adulterous love affairs and a spending spree that causes financial problems. Joubert, her next-door neighbor, becomes obsessed with Gemma, spies on her, and becomes jealous of her lovers.

If you have any familiarity with French literature, the title "Gemma Bovery" should immediately remind you of the Flaubert novel "Madame Bovary." And if that's not enough, the parallels in the two story lines should make it obvious that this is not mere coincidence. But this story is more than a retelling of the classic novel, and there are as many differences from as there are similarities to the original. It is a witty modernization of a timeless tale that satirizes the aspirations and foibles of the yuppie middle class as well as the cultural differences between the French and British. In no way are the similarities between Emma Bovary and Gemma Bovery subtly presented. Author Posy Simmonds revels in them through the observations and machinations of Joubert, who warns others of parallels between the two and tries to prevent Gemma from coming to the same tragic end as Emma did.

For a graphic novel, there is a lot of text. But the cartoon panels are interspersed with the text, diary entries, and snippets of partially translated French dialog in a wonderfully layered fashion and are rich in detail. There are twists in the story as the details about Gemma's death are revealed. Whether you have read the original French classic or not, and whether you are a graphic novel fan or not, this is a creative and entertaining story you will enjoy.

Eileen Rieback

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over Flaubert! June 3, 2011

By Devil's Advocate

Format:Hardcover

I gave this book as a gift to two sets of friends who moved to France following le dream des Anglais. Its pisstake of middle class pretensions they thought so close to the mark as to be uncomfortable. The script and drawings border on genius at times.
The book is "tray, tray joyeux" as the characters here might say.
Having just read Emma Bovery I loved this take which is confident enough to reconfigure the original tale but savvy enough to closely echo its classical predecessor.
Neither Emma or Gemma are likeable but they both drag you willingly into their unhappiness. Emma Bovery left me sad. Gemma Bovery had me laughing for weeks. Flaubert would be proud!

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Art & a Great Story May 22, 2011

By Battle Cry Creek

Format:Hardcover

I was so surprised that anyone gave this brilliant book a negative review that I figured I had to weigh in a little. It is true that the title character may not be sympathetic (she has affairs, seems manipulative & flighty), and one either likes that or not. But the real strength of the story is in how the story is told. There is a lot of distance from Gemma since a lot of the narrative is from Joubert the baker point of view.

This engages the reader a lot since you don't really know where he's coming from until the end and then you realize how really sad the whole thing was especially since the final part (no spoilers) and his culpability was minor and unintentional.

Also I thought the art work was just grand. It reminded me a lot of Shel Silverstein's early ink cartoon work. There's just a lot of wonderful detail and expression. Overall I would recommend this to anyone both for the story and the art.