Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (October 7-17, 2005)
Madame Bovary is acclaimed as one of the best books ever written. It was a stunning read, and it certainly is lingering with me even now after I have put the book down. The story was so deliberately repulsive and grim. For me, the realism was hard to bare. There were no sympathetic characters, and while I could pity some and believe them to be true to life, I could not feel akin to any, at least not fully. When I finished the novel and went to bed last night, I felt ill about it.
While it is easy to understand and identify with dissatisfaction and boredom, Emma's behavior is so irrational, and her feelings of guilt so fleeting. She is never understood by the reader, and I wonder if anything could have satisfied her cravings in the end...clothing, riches, sex, words of love, lovers? It does not seem likely. Her expectations are so different from reality. She craves lovers who bore her. She believes fictional drama and romance are reality, and struggles with a banal existence, making her appear unreasonable and ridiculous.
At the same time, though Flaubert did not want the reader to fully understand her or sympathize with Emma Bovary, I did pity her. She asked so many for help, who turned her away or didn't recognize what she needed. But did she recognize what she needed? She was incapable of finding a direction that pleased her, and for asking directly for something she wanted. She was in charge of the household finances, but failed to understand business. Here, she has the power of a man, but squanders it. She’s upset when she gives birth to a daughter, Berthe, and would rather have a son, who is free. But she underestimates her own freedoms. Her husband Charles puts little restraint on her and tries to please her with affection, gifts, and relocating his practice, but Emma fails to appreciate his sacrifices. While Emma searches for endless, dramatic love outside of her marriage, she misses the constant love Charles lavishes on her until it is too late.
The story begins and ends with Charles. The beginning of the story introduces Charles as weak, and contrasts him with his father. While his father would probably be attractive to Emma, the young Charles is too helpless to even correct his name when it's being mispronounced and mocked. This set up shows what Emma can do to him by the end, when he finally learns how he has gone through his entire married life deceived. There were ironic touches throughout like the blind beggar, the tour guide in the church bringing up the fires of hell, and Homais winning the Legion of Honor. Emma’s multiplying problems, deceit, and lies foreshadow the ending, but she is unaware and lost as to where her choices are leading her.
Overall, though very sad, I found the book perfectly-paced, lush and sometimes so true to life that the dialogue and events seem ridiculous. The subject matter and plot are not unusual, but the book is. As a reader, you can simultaneously have both contempt and sympathy for the characters, which is a jarring feeling. With an adulterous as a heroine, Madame Bovary was unconventional. There is no good character in the novel to root for and sympathize with fully.
When asked who Emma Bovary represented in real life, Flaubert replied with
a puzzling response, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" (“Madame
Bovary, it’s me”). Publication of the novel in 1857 involved
a trial where the novel was attacked for glorifying adultery. It was cleared
of the charges against it and published. Considered by many the first “modern” novel,
its popularity continues to the present day.
