Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style, best exemplified by his endless search for "le mot juste" ("the precise word"). In September 1849, he completed the first version of a novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. In 1858, he travelled to Carthage to gather material for his next novel, Salammbo (1862). It is now commonly admitted that he was one of the greatest writers who ever lived in France and his greatness principally depends upon the extraordinary vigour and exactitude of his style. His private letters show that he was not one of those to whom easy and correct language came naturally; he gained his extraordinary perfection with the unceasing sweat of his brow. Many critics consider Flaubert's best works to be models of style. His other works include Over Strand and Field: A Record of Travel Through Brittany (1904), Herodias (1877) and A Simple Soul (1877).
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From Chris Kraus’s Introduction to Madame Bovary
Flaubert has often been credited as being the Father of Realism. Madame Bovary, his first and most classically plot-driven novel, has been labeled as “realist” because of—as many critics would have it—the author’s choice to depict “mediocre” and “vulgar” protagonists circling around a subject as “trite” as adultery. Like much criticism, these readings tell us a great deal more about the critics than the novel. Implicit in such statements are the assumptions (a) that there is anything “trite” about the conflict between human desire and the social demand for monogamy—which, as we will see, was applied selectively in Flaubert’s time to the lower reaches of the French middle class; and (b) that the author himself was immune to the trashy and fickle illusions embraced by his characters.
Writing in 1964, critic and novelist Mary McCarthy describes Emma Bovary as “a very ordinary middle-class woman with banal expectations of life and an urge to dominate her surroundings. Her character is remarkable only for an unusual deficiency of human feeling” (“Foreword”; see “For Further Reading”). Sensing, perhaps, a need to distance herself from the proto-feminist implications of Emma’s dilemma, the brilliant, prolific McCarthy could only describe her as “trite.” Instead, she chooses to valorize Charles for his unfailing love of his wife—a love that is no less misguided and false than Emma’s romantic illusions.
Except for the brief deathbed appearance of Dr. Lariviere, a man who “disdainful of honours, of titles, and of academies . . . generous, fatherly to the poor, and practising virtue without believing in it, . . . would almost have passed for a saint if the keenness of his intellect had not caused him to be feared as a demon” (p. 265), all of Flaubert’s characters are equally flawed and deluded. There is the rapacious, progressive pharmacist Homais and the dull-witted Charles, who loves his young wife for all the wrong reasons. Pleased with himself for possessing such a fine wife, Charles is so completely seduced by Emma’s well-rehearsed feminine wiles—her new way of making paper sconces for candles, the flounces she puts on her gowns, her little wine-red slippers with large knots of ribbon—that he cannot see her unhappiness. There is Emma herself, whose suffering never opens her eyes to the misfortunes of others. Her affairs, and her two lovers themselves, Rodolphe (the seducer) and Leon (the poet of adultery), prove to be equally untrustworthy and disappointing. There is Lheureux, the usurious loan-shark and salesman, and a large cast of pompous officials and idiot villagers. In a novel that is so technically modern and ground-breaking, it is interesting to note that Flaubert draws on the medieval slapstick tradition of naming his characters after their foibles: the Mayor Tuvache (“you cow,” in translation); the booster-ish technocrat Homais (“what man could be”: “homme,” the noun “man,” cast, like a verb, in the future conditional tense); and Lheureux, the purveyor of expensive false dreams, his name taken from the French word for “happiness.”
Finally, it is the very idea that romantic love could be conducive to happiness that is most deeply discredited. When Rodolphe makes Emma fall in love with him at Yonville’s agricultural fair, it’s not exactly Rodolphe she falls in love with. When she is caught in his gaze, the little threads of gold in his eyes and the smell of pomade in his hair sets off a rapture of memories of all of the men she’s been in love with. Because she is in love with love, Rodolphe merely serves as a trigger, and at the time this is marvelous. But as the novel moves on, Emma behaves more and more like an addict. By part three, chapter six, when the novelty of her affair with Leon begins fading, Emma summons an imaginary Leon in a letter-writing delirium. “But while she wrote it was another man she saw, a phantom fashioned out of her most ardent memories, her finest reading, her strongest lusts, and at last he became so real, so tangible, that she palpitated wondering, without, however, the power to imagine him clearly, so lost was he, like a god, beneath the abundance of his attributes” (p. 241). After this free-basing binge, Emma “fell back exhausted.” These “transports of love” gave way to a “constant ache all over her.” (In Crack Wars: Literature, Addiction, Mania, philosopher Avital Ronell extrapolates from this metaphor with wild perfection.)
“There is no goodness in this book,” wrote Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, the most eminent critic of Flaubert’s time, in an otherwise favorable review of the novel. And yet the book breathes with compassion. Preparing to write the scene of Emma and Leon’s first meeting, Flaubert describes a strategy that informs the whole book in a letter he wrote in the early 1850s to his sometime-lover and literary confidante, Louise Colet: “My two characters . . . will talk about literature, about the sea, the mountains, music—all well-worn poetical subjects. It will be the first time in any book, I think, that the young hero and the younger heroine are made mock of, and yet the irony will in no way diminish the pathos, but rather intensify it” (The Selected Letters of Gustave Flaubert).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Between the devil and the deep blue sea, Madame Bovary drenches herself in poisonous pact.,
By Sammi Zeder (Florida) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Madame Bovary (Barnes & Noble Classics) (Paperback)
This novel by Gustave Flaubert is shorter compared to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina but in no manner subordinate. While both stories are analogous in theme, Flaubert establishes his main characters such as Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault from their childhood and focuses on them. Hence, the reader gets to know them almost personally as they develop within the story.
Charles Bovary is a timid red head boy whose father, a failed physician, leaves all decision making to his wife including Charles' upbringing and education. After his second attempt in medical school, Charles finally becomes a full pledged doctor. Mediocre in expertise nonetheless conscientious, Charles by chance effectively puts a splint on Monsieur Rouault's broken leg. Stunned by this miracle, the elder Rouault convinces his daughter Emma to marry the dilettante surgeon. Fresh from convent school and lethargic from living in the province, Emma jumps to her father's idea as quickly as a sleeping canine that rouses at slight whistle of its master. The young bride soon realizes that her husband is far from the stylish heroes she read about in romance books. To compensate for her dog's life she embarks in numerous affairs. Flaubert's amorous language coupled with his tender sense of humor make this novel a titillating read. In contrast to Tolstoy's allegorical yet repetitive novel Anna Karenina, Flaubert's Madame Bovary overflows with rich poetry. I suggest reading both books to examine the works of these two savants and to scrutinize their aberrant woman at work.
0 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hideous excuse of a classic - a dreadful story.,
By MAB (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Madame Bovary (Barnes & Noble Classics) (Paperback)
"Madame Bovary" is flawed in every way. The plot is one dimensional and not completely developed. Gustav Flaubert could not decide where he wanted to go with his plot - a risqué affair or how debt destroyed a family. With the shifting of the plots, I lost interest in the story, as I thought only the affair was the principal plot. The debt storyline felt like it was just thrown in, without a thought; I found it confusing and tedious. The writing was appalling, and I lost respect for Flaubert as a writer because of it. Such poor grammar and sentence structure! The characters were underdeveloped and lacked motivation. I had no idea why the characters were the way they were, and because of it, I didn't care about them. Chapters were devoted to irrelevant narratives that did not further develop or advance any storyline or character. The entire story was much too long, and I could not see where it was going (even if I did predict the ending). Overall, this so-called "classic" needs to be retired, as it does not stand the test of time, and its author was horrible in his thought process. I do not recommend.
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