Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town (World's Classics) [Paperback]

Gustave Flaubert (Author), Gerard Hopkins (Translator), Terence Cave (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: World's Classics | Publication Date: March 17, 1989

A powerful nineteenth-century French classic depicting the moral degeneration of a weak-willed woman.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`This English translation conveys the mood and style of the original. Of all of Flaubert's work, this is perhaps the most accessible and memorable.' Good Book Guide

'You can learn something from it.' Company --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 17, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192815644
• ISBN-13: 978-0192815644
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,284,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the younger son of a provincial doctor, briefly studied law before devoting himself to writing, with limited success during his lifetime. After the publication of Madame Bovary in 1857, he was prosecuted for offending public morals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple Plot, Elaborate Details in This Masterpiece, January 28, 2006

By 

M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Madame Bovary (Penguin Popular Classics) (Paperback)

A simple story really: Charles Bovary, an insensitive, crude, socially awkward oaf, sleazes his way into the medical profession and becomes a doctor in small French provinces at the danger of the citizenry. Additionally, Charles marries a young, beautiful woman, Emma, who intoxicated on romance novels, expects her marriage to Charles to be as grand and splendid as the romances she has gorged on all her life. As one would expect, her marriage is hellish, isolating, and frustrating; Emma grows more and more irritable with her husband and looks to allay her frustrations by spending beyond her means and by engaging in affairs with fops, charlatans, and other mountebanks who seduce Emma with the illusions of romance she has read in her novels. Her growing debts and growing disillusionment with her lovers reaches a climax that I'll save for the reader.

The novel's plot is actually a vehicle for Flaubert's real agenda: to skewer the vulgarities and pettiness of the middle-class. He shows no mercy and is rather misanthropic in his portrayal of his characters. Nevertheless, his vision is a true and vigorous one. This is not a novel for people who want to sit back and enjoy a French period piece romance. To the contrary, this novel kills romance and in fact Flaubert was once dubbed "The Hang-Man of the Romantics."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Madame Bovary, September 7, 2008

By 

RRReviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madame Bovary (Penguin Popular Classics) (Paperback)

Destined for doom and misfortune, Madame Bovary, the female protagonist, falls down the wrong corridor in search for a life of luxury. She marries a country doctor in the hopes of living a better life that suits her elite tastes but instead becomes tangled and twisted in romances and extra marital relationships, betraying her family and her marital oath. Madame Bovary is never fulfilled, only full of distaste of the life that her husband has provided her. Her marriage is the ultimate source of unhappiness and Madame Bovary is unwilling and perhaps unable to turn their marriage around.

Her husband is an oaf at heart and is unwilling to help his wife out of her misery. But to do so would call for an entire change of heart and character. He is blind to his faults and perceives their marriage as a happy one. Until the bitter end, Bovary fails to see Madame Bovary as she really is, a frivolous and vain woman with dreams that he cannot fulfill.

One affair after another, one disappointment after another, Madame Bovary seeks happiness and fulfillment but finds none. She is wrong to expect from her husband what he cannot provide and wrong to find happiness elsewhere beyond the boundaries of their marriage.

Madame Bovary shows the wreckage of a marriage without hope. From the beginning, Madame Bovary expects too much and knows far too little about marital duties. Her expectations remain unfilled, her husband lost and
clueless.

Madame Bovary is a common housewife who runs amuck with their marriage and who never sees the wreck of an end in sight. Had she accepted her marital role then she would have never been part of the infamy bestowed upon her and might have found happiness. But she was seeking luxury and not happiness.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly timeless, February 3, 2002

By 

Patricia Horton "Hortonsbks" (St. Petersburg, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Madame Bovary (Audio Cassette)

It is such a pity that we have grown so jaded that this scandalous book now seems tame. It is the classic tale of adultery and what happens if you go astray and refuse to be contented as a cow. The writing was magnificent.
I can sympathize to an extent with Emma. She was a true romantic, trapped in a dingy provincial town. Of course, if one is too jaded, one might find the ending akin to a country western song where the woman dies, the child dies, the lovers desert, and the long-suffering (albeit boring) husband dies.
If for no other reason, read this one for the sheer brilliance of the written word.