Customer Reviews

Madame Bovary

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Let's begin with Nabokov's "Lectures on Literature," where he introduces "Madame Bovary" as follows: "The book is concerned with adultery and contains situations and allusions that shocked the prudish philistine government of Napoleon III. Indeed, the novel was actually tried in a court of justice for obscenity. Just imagine that. As if the work of an artist could ever be obscene." Written over a five-year period, "Madame Bovary" was published serially in a magazine in 1856 where, despite editorial attempts to purge it of offensive material, it was cited for "offenses against morality and religion." Fortunately, Flaubert won his case and "Madame Bovary" remains to this day one of the masterpieces of French and world literature. Indeed, in Nabokov's view, the novel's influence is notable: "Without Flaubert, there would have been no Marcel Proust in France, no James Joyce in Ireland. Chekhov in Russia would not have been quite Chekhov."

The story of Emma Bovary is well known and uncomplicated. Set in the provincial towns of Tostes and Yonville (it is subtitled "Patterns of Provincial Life"), with adulterous interludes in Rouen, "Madame Bovary" narrates the life of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault. Charles, an "officier de sante"--a licensed medical practitioner without a medical degree--meets Emma while tending to her injured father. Charles is married at that time to the first Madame Bovary, also called Madame Dubuc, a widow and thin, ugly woman who dominates the mild-mannered Charles from the very beginning. "It was his wife [Madame Dubuc] who ruled: in front of company he had to say certain things and not others, he had to eat fish on Friday, dress the way she wanted, obey her when she ordered him to dun nonpaying patients. She opened his mail, watched his every move, and listened through the thinness of the wall when there were women in his office."

When Madame Dubuc dies a few short years after their marriage, it appears that Charles is fortunate, for he is not only freed from the shrewish oppression of his wife, but enabled to court and marry the beautiful Emma. It is the eight-year marriage of Charles and Emma that embodies the tale of "Madame Bovary," a tale marked by Emma's ennui, her dissatisfaction with the unsatisfied yearnings of bourgeois marriage in a small provincial town, her steadily growing sensual insatiability, her adulteries with a series of men. It is this marriage, too, that gives us one of literature's great cuckolds, Charles Bovary.

"Madame Bovary" has often been described as a realistic novel and, insofar as it tells a seemingly ordinary tale of sensual longing and adultery while, at the same, time depicting characters and sensibilities typical of bourgeois, philistine rural France during the reign of Louis Phillipe, it is grimly realistic. It is also, however, a deeply psychological novel, one in which Flaubert brilliantly probes the feelings, the sensations, the romantic longings and dreamscapes of Emma Bovary. Above all, "Madame Bovary" is the apogee of the French novel prior to Proust's Parnassian achievement, a novel whose poetic language and artistic rendering transcend mere narrative and elevate Flaubert's work to that of high literary art, a novel for the ages. Read it in the original French if you can; if not, then read it in Frances Steegmuller's outstanding English translation.

Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life by Gustave Flaubert; translated by Francis Steegmuller. Recommended.

Surprisingly, Madame Bovary begins with a look at the painful childhood of the seemingly dull and plodding man who will become the title character's longsuffering husband, Charles Bovary. The novel commences with a mysterious "we"-the identity of the narrator who tells the story of Bovary's ignominious entry into school is not known-but then changes to third-person omniscient. Charles is a conscientious, yet average, student, whose school, career, lodgings, and even first wife are selected by his mother. His marriage to Emma Bovary, the daughter of an apparently prosperous farmer, is the first major decision he makes for himself about his life and borders on an act of rebellion. That this act of independence should have such tragic consequences only adds to their effect.

Like many of her class, Emma is a romantic dreamer-but one who expects others to make those dreams into reality. Within a short time of her wedding, perhaps even on the day after, "the bride made not the slightest sign that could be taken to betray anything at all." For Charles Bovary, however, marriage to Emma-following as it does on the heels of his first marriage to a thin, complaining huissier's widow whose financial assets prove to be negligible-seems to be the culmination of happiness. "He was happy now, without a care in the world." Every moment spent with her, each of her gestures, "and many other things in which it had never occurred to him to look for pleasure-such now formed the steady current of his happiness."

When her marriage proves to be a plunge into a provincial life devoid of the romance promised by books, arts, and a naïve imagination, Madame Bovary blames her average, unambitious husband, Flaubert writes, ". . . following formulas she believed efficacious, she kept trying to experience love . . . Having thus failed to produce the slightest spark of love in herself, and since she was incapable of understanding what she didn't experience, or of recognizing anything that wasn't expressed in conventional terms, she reached the conclusion that Charles's desire for her was nothing very extraordinary." With that inescapable conclusion in mind, Emma is free to find "love" elsewhere-for example, in a recurring fantasy about a count who dances with her at an aristocrat's party; with the worldly Rodolphe Boulanger for whom she is little more than another in a string of mistresses; and for the young student-clerk Léon Dupuis for whom she is a brilliant, sympathetic flower among the colorless bourgeoisie.

Although Steegmuller mentions in the "Translator's Introduction," "Flaubert's supposed conception of his heroine as a character too sublime for this world," Emma is neither sublime nor sympathetic. Rather than seek happiness within or to improve herself, or to appreciate the value of even her uninspiring husband, she blames others for the monotony of her life and its lack of excitement and passion. She cannot find consolation in her daughter ("she wanted a son"), and neglects and even mistreats her. She tries to bolster herself through Charles's position, at the cost of a young man's leg. The village abbé, Bournisien, is oblivious to her emotional turmoil and pain and advises her to "drink a cup of tea" as a remedy. His nemesis Homais, a pseudoscientific pharmacist who is the archetype for the petit bourgeoisie, drowns out all around him with his droning theories and ideas, including Madame Bovary and his hapless assistant Justin. There are no kindred spirits for Emma in either Tostes or Yonville l'Abbaye.

As her actions lead her into a downward emotional and financial spiral, Emma finds nothing around her to which to turn and no one to help, except if she is willing to prostitute herself. Her life, built on her dreams and her sacrifice of others, is doomed. By the end of the novel, she has been reduced to little more than a scheming adulteress and petty debtor. Ironically, her husband's passion and grief for her bring out the personal nobility to which she was purposely blind. He has always had that to which she aspired.

Although Emma Bovary is certainly impossible to forget, equally memorable are all the novel's supporting characters, from Tuvache and his lathe and the lovesick Justin to Homais, whose banality throughout may be summed up by his award of the cross of the Legion of Honor. This last is a suitable ending for this study of the patterns of provincial life.

Diane L. Schirf, 13 June 2003.

This book was a challenge initially, with many peaks and valleys to overcome. During the first half of the novel, Flaubert's overt word-painting on every trivial object nearly made me put it down. I marched on because there was a weird thread that kept telling me he was gathering for a big push. The second half of the novel was the most incredible description of this woman's self-destructive behavior in literature. I kept thinking, "God, how far is she blindly willing to go." Francis Steegmuller's translation captures the vernaculars and mood of Flaubert's intent. I compared three separate translations at the bookstore and read passages side by side to gauge the use of straightforward language. Steegmuller floored the rest; having sublimity the others did not posses. The book is on my shelf with pride.

This is a well written tale about an old story: a woman gets married and finds out that marriage is overrated. She turns to adultery and finds out that this does not satisfy either. It reminds me of the Kate Chopin tale, The Awakening, of a woman in similar circumstances with similar characteristics. Emma Bovary is a pre-cursor to the modern woman: bored, self-centered, and unrealistic. She is not interested in raising her child, helping her husband, or making friends with other women. She has servants to do the housework, so she has a lot of time to feel sorry for herself.

Emma Bovary pursues happiness but never quite catches up to it as she indulges in her passion for romance as an escape from the dullness of life in provincial towns. Even though she gets the romance she wants, she becomes dissatisfied with it later. Her pleasures are fleeting and she is ultimately dissatisfied whether she is bored or trying to escape boredom. She could not handle the mundane routines of life well. Bovary's romantic nature and her desire to live out her fantasies to relieve boredom leads to her downfall.

During her honeymoon days with Charles she imagines that she would be happier if she could travel to a far off place and live out some romantic fantasy: "Why couldn't she be leaning over a balcony in some Swiss chalet? Or nursing her melancholy in a cottage in Scotland, with a husband clad in a long black velvet coat and wearing soft leather shoes, a high crowned hat and fancy cuffs?" Charles is not the husband she dreams of. She finds out early on that he is rather dull and pragmatic. He has no interest in going to the theatre while he lives in the city of Rouen. His dress, learning, and personality cannot inspire any passions in her. He is a man with simple desires married to a woman with elaborate longings for romantic experiences, which is a classic rift in male/ female relationships: "He took it for granted that she was content; she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness that she herself brought him."

Her attempts to stir up passionate love from Charles do not work as she recites amorous verses and sings romantic songs to him. She takes strolls with her dog for "...the sake of a moment's solitude, a momentary relief from the everlasting sight of the back garden and the dusty road." She imagines what it might be like to be with another man who is unlike Charles had her life turned out differently. He would have a magnetic, witty, charming personality and they would live in the city where there would be opportunities to go to balls and theatres and to have "...opportunities for deep emotions and exciting sensations." Beyond this daydream, "...her life was as cold as an attic facing north and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving in the shadows, in every corner of her heart."

Looking at magazines about Paris, she imagines scenes of artists and writers who live life on a higher plane than the mundane level that she lives on. She longs to experience love with "elegant living" and "sensitive feeling" in a romantic place such as the Paris of her dreams. She tries to overcome her boredom this way, but it only leads to more desire for the finer things. Becoming despondent, she gives up playing music, embroidery, and reading. She quits music because she will never perform in front of an approving crowd in a beautiful dress: "There wasn't a chance of her giving a concert in a short sleeved velvet gown, skimming butterfly fingers over the ivory keys of the piano, feeling the public's ecstatic murmur flow around her like a breeze..."

Emma eventually sees through the illusions of her lovely dreams of finding the perfect husband and attributes it to art making things more beautiful than they are: "Ah! If only in the freshness of her beauty, before defiling herself in marriage, before the disillusionments of adultery, she could have some great and noble heart to be her life's foundation! Then virtue and affection, sensual joys and duty would all have been one; and she would have never fallen from her high felicity. But the happiness was doubtless a lie, invented to make one despair of any love. Now she well knew the true paltriness of the passions that art painted so large."

Soon after her night at the opera, she meets Leon and has an affair with him. She goes through the same pattern of disillusionment as the passion wears down as time goes on: "She continually promised herself that the next rendezvous would carry her to the peak of bliss; but when it was over she had to admit that she felt nothing extraordinary." Her passions were the sole concern of her life and she was not careful with money as she pursued her affair. As she spends more money to keep up her romantic illusions, she still does not have happiness and she remarks that adultery is as banal as marriage.

But for all her striving to fulfill romantic passions to relieve her boredom, there is moral condemnation of Emma as the priest does the final rites: "First he anointed her eyes, once so covetous of earthly luxury, then her nostrils, so gluttonous of caressing breezes and amorous scents; then her mouth, so prompt to lie, so defiant in pride, so loud in lust; then her hands, that had thrilled to voluptuous contacts, and finally the soles of her feet, once so swift when she had hastened to slake her desires, and now never to walk again."

There isn't a lot of argument: "Madame Bovary" is considered one of the great novels of all time. It's well worth your time. And since you're looking for an English translation, the important issue isn't "should I read Flaubert?" The issue is: "What translation?"

The first thing you need to know is that you should avoid the Eleanor Marx Aveling translation published by Dover and others (it's out-of-copyright, so it's popular with budget publishers). The Aveling translation is incredibly clumsy--so bad that I actually looked up the translator's biography to make sure she was a native English-speaker.

The translator of a newer edition, Francis Steegmuller, is an authority on Flaubert and an exceptionally sympathetic translator. While no translation will truly do justice to Flaubert's treatment of Norman dialects and his mastery of the French tongue, Mr. Steegmuller's work is sensational and preserves much of Flaubert's vibrant prose (I read excerpts in college, but am unwilling to take six months reading the original in my indifferent French). His translation is also highly readable, making this edition an easy choice--and worth the extra money over the other translations.

That 'Madame Bovary' is one of if not the best novel of its kind I have no doubt. Critics have parsed Flaubert's prose far better than I could, but it is apparent that Flaubert intuitively grasped what many writers struggle their whole lives learning, and in the pages of 'Madame Bovary' there is a lifetime's worth of instruction. For that reason, and for its influence on what followed, I'd definitely recommend Flaubert's work to any student of literature, which is the reason for the four star rating.

Having tipped my cap to Flaubert the stylist, I'd also say that Emma Bovary's story is such an unsparing study of obsession's downward spiral that I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone who usually reads simply for content. Emma's reckless pursuit of material and sexual gratification she believes she is entitled to while callously discarding her real responsibilities is no period piece. Instead, it is a well-told tale of behavior that I'm as familiar with in my time as Flaubert probably was in his. Then as now, the results of unchecked self-absorption are ruinous and depressing.

I found 'Madame Bovary' ultimately disappointing. After reading some critical build up, I may have expected something it wasn't intended to be. Despite some absolutely excellent passages, I had trouble sustaining interest in Emma Bovary's willful descent, and her unrealistic expectations. Perhaps, as some critics suggest, I should be able to celebrate skillful prose over and apart from a personally unsatisfactory plot, but evidently I'm not enough of an aesthete for that. Additionally, and what may be most unfortunate, 'Madame Bovary' surely suffers from the hordes of pale imitations that followed it, and when returning to the source, unique as it once was, it seems unremarkable now.

This edition's translation by Francis Steegmuller certainly seemed adequate to me (as I can't read French), but it may be worth noting to some that it was done in 1957. There are other, newer translated versions available, and while I didn't detect anything that dated this edition, had I known this beforehand, I probably would have opted for the updated version.

AS I reach the end of my career, I've begun reading "classics, that I had skipped to concentrate on my major then my field.
I found Madame Bovary to be lacking a plot...simply: a bored housewife who feels entitled to a White Knight to rescue her, who is entranced by her romance Novel, has no idea how to BE romantic to those who deserve her affections: her husband, her child, and her servants. She abuses all as she dreams of impossible idealism, then begins adultrous affairs in her quest for romance, never understanding that her lovers are interested in her body, not her romance.
Thus said, this was one of the most incredibly perfect novels to read from a language standpoint. As there truly was no plot, it was not unusual for me to re-read the previous few chapters again and again for the flow of the words, the beauty and the perfectly chosen words (wouldn't Flaubert be proud?)
I don't believe Flaubert's raison d'etre was to present a tale, rather it was to use the tale as an excuse to present an exquisite display of subjective descriptions of French life, French people and individual foibles. Nobody is spared from the clergy to the merchant class, and most particularly to Emma herself.
I could FEEL and SMELL and TASTE Yonville. Sometimes I would re-read a particular sentence or paragraph in wonderment at the talent required to write so perfectly. I found myself wanting to call my High School English Teacher, Ms. Celina Rios-Mullins to discuss the book. Had I been forced to read this in High School, it would have been wasted on me as I would have skimmed frantically trying to find a story. This is a novel that needs to be slowly tasted, digested, followed by a fine wine of discussion.
As with the first time I saw "Gone With the Wind," I was surprised to find the heroine the villain. That very selfishness gives Flaubert his means to convey the failings of Emma. I found it interesting that Emma never understood her paradoxical concept of life....that to find love, you must give it,....to be romanced, you must be romantic. It's similar to one's one married life...that once the honeymoon phase is over, the true work is in making the mundane romantic, to find love in lasting another week, another year.
Emma never had unrequited love....she loved herself.
Had Rodolphe not been a pre-determined cad, she had a vague chance of success, but when she went on to Leon, she had begun to lie even to herself.
Poor Charles was unsuited for her ideals, but surprisingly was quite in love with her. He would have been happier with a simple country maiden who was content to sit in the the "eternal garden."
I found the ending a tad melodramatic and somewhat surprising, but then again, I must remember that foul play was rarely rewarded in the older novels.
I contrast this novel greatly with the Scarlett Letter and find the two heroines utterly distinct.....with Saintly Hester at one end and Cold Emma at the other. Scarlett's trangression was one of genuine love whereas Emma's was idealistic selfishness.
I do find this to be a magnificent novel, but I pity youths who are forced to read this for class, but am excited for those who can embrace the power of the narrative and the beauty of the subjective descriptions of the simplist aspects seen only to the eye of a true novelist: a bird angling in flight, a clerics cloak fluttering as he thinks he has found a source of revenue from a wealthy person who has entered the church for refuge, a redezvous room of unromantic romance.

so Nabokov's father said. And I suppose he was right. This is a work with a simple plot - a beautiful farmer's daughter yearning to bust out of a boring marriage - that can be read on innumerable levels, which is one of the marks of genius.

Emma Bovary appears differently to everyone who reads about her: as a brutal narcissist, an artist without a medium, an early feminist, a clueless provincial, a great romantic, a unique lover. Perhaps the only thing that she could not be is a good wife and mother. I have read this novel many times, both in ENglish and French, and its layers and themes continue to peel away, always revealing something richer. The langugae is simply exquisite, perfectly articulated and as descriptive as Nabokov, yet spare and full of despair. It is a snapshot of one of the most realistic and complex characters in early modern lit.

A must read.

I ordered this Large Print version of Madame Bovary for an elderly friend after watching the movie with him. He was delighted to see this book and immediately began reading. The book arrived in reasonable time and in excellent condition.

I knew what to expect---the story that is. But the condition of the book is great and I appreciate it.
BTW--I prefer the book and author, Pere Goriot by Balzac. Better story but my book club picked this so------
Louise