Gustave Flaubert

Raymond N. MacKenzie

In his Introduction, MacKenzie discusses Flaubert's life, the writing of Madame Bovary, the world in which the novel is set, and its publication and reception. Footnotes, a bibliography, and a chronology are also provided.

Provincial Lives

Madame Bovary

Mark Overstall

Margaret Mauldon

One of the acknowledged masterpieces of 19th century realism, Madame Bovary is revered by writers and readers around the world, a mandatory stop on any pilgrimage through modern literature. Flaubert's legendary style, his intense care over the selection of words and the shaping of sentences, his unmatched ability to convey a mental world through the careful selection of telling details, shine on every page of this marvelous work. Now the award-winning translator Margaret Mauldon has produced a modern translation of this classic novel, one that perfectly captures the tone that makes Flaubert's style so distinct and admired. Madame Bovary scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857. And the story itself remains as fresh today as when it was first written, a work that remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society. It tells the tragic story of the romantic but empty-headed Emma Rouault. When Emma marries Charles Bovary, she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is an ordinary country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, Rodolphe, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair. And Flaubert captures every step of this catastrophe with sharp-eyed detail and a wonderfully subtle understanding of human emotions. Malcolm Bowie, a leading authority on French literature, explores Flaubert's genius in his masterly introduction to this must-have book for all lovers of great literature.

Provincial Manners

Bethany Jenkins

“It yet seems to me,” said Emma, “that you have little to complain about.”

“Because in the end …” she went on, “you are free.”

They were invariably about love affairs, lovers, mistresses, harassed ladies swooning in remote pavilions. Couriers were killed at every relay, horses ridden to death on every page; there were gloomy forests, broken hearts, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, skiffs in the moonlight, nightingales in thickets; the noblemen were all brave as lions, gentle as lambs, incredibly virtuous, always beautifully dressed, and wept copiously on every occasion. For six months, when she was fifteen, Emma begrimed her hands with this dust from old lending libraries. Later, reading Walter Scott, she became infatuated with everything historical and dreamed about oaken chests and guardrooms and troubadours. She would have liked to live in some old manor, like those long-waisted chatelaines who spent their days leaning out of fretted Gothic casements, elbow on parapet and chin in hand, watching a white-plumed knight come galloping out of the distance on a black horse. At that time she worshipped Mary Queen of Scots, and venerated women illustrious or ill-starred. In her mind Joan of Arc, Héloise, Agnès Sorel, La Belle Ferronière and Clémence Isaure stood out like comets on the shadowy immensity of history; and here and there (though less clearly outlined than the others against the dim background, and quite unrelated among themselves) were visible also St. Louis and his oak, the dying Bayard, certain atrocities of Louis XI, bits of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the plumed crest of Henri IV, and, always, the memory of the hotel plates glorifying Louis XIV.

So ist das irdische Leben. Nichts kann uns vollkommen glücklich machen. Kein Vergnügen ist vollkommen. Flaubert hat es auf dem Punkt gebracht. Diejenigen die nur nach dem weltlichen streben werden irgendwann untergehen in der Unzufriedenheit. 

Zainab 

Alles war eitel Lug und Trug! Jedes Lächeln verbarg ein Gähnen der Langweile, jede Freude einen Fluch, jeder Genuß den unausbleiblichen Ekel, und die glühendsten Küsse hinterlassen auf unseren Lippen nur die unerfüllbare Sehnsucht nach einer höheren Wollust.

Trotz allem war sie nicht glücklich, war es nie gewesen. Woher kamn es nur, daß sie mit dem Leben so gar nicht zurechtkam, daß alles, worauf sie sich verließ, so rasch verweste?... 

Künftiges Glück wirft, wie ein tropisches Gestade, auf die unermeßliche Weite, die davorliegt, seine weichen Lockungen voraus, eine düfteschwere Brise, und man ergibt sich willenlos diesem Rausch, ohne sich Gedanken über den Horizont zu machen, der dem Auge unsichtbar ist.

Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Jessica Hische

Lydia Davis

Novel Ideas

…She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only when it grew up here and there among ruins. She needed derive from things a sort of personal gain; and she rejected as useless everything that did not contribute to the immediate gratification of her heart..

a story of provincial life

Flaubert. sagittarius, libéral enragé, bisexual

Lydia Davis. translator, spunky polyglot, works to include the definitive rendering of Swann’s Way

synopsis. small town beauty marries a physician of ordinary ability. begins a life of adultery and extravagance leveraged on his honest work. surrenders when the bank comes for her designer wardrobe

offers. forbidden love and hedonism spun French and erudite; names like “Hippolyte”

title. eponymous but could have as easily been “Lust and Consumerism” if styled as some its contemporaries

Jacob Kotlier

Madame Bovary

Flaubert. sagittarius, libéral enragé, bisexual

Lydia Davis. translator, spunky polyglot, works to include the definitive rendering of Swann’s Way

synopsis. small town beauty marries a physician of ordinary ability. begins a life of adultery and extravagance leveraged on his honest work. surrenders when the bank comes for her designer wardrobe

offers. forbidden love and hedonism spun French and erudite; names like “Hippolyte”

title. eponymous but could have as easily been “Lust and Consumerism” if styled as some its contemporaries

rating. 8.1/10

Pierre

So much Normandy :)
Took me a while to get into. The vocabulary is thick. The characters are exquisite.

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

Sarah Sammis

A classic I actually did enjoy in that book to film class.

The writing style was not always my favorite; the story dragged at times. But the narrative and Emma’s character were truly fascinating.

Read for book club.

The writing style was not always my favorite; the story dragged at times. But the narrative and Emma’s character were truly fascinating.

mic shulman

rip emma bovary you would’ve loved gwen stefanis ‘if i were a rich girl’

Virginia L

Ho rimuginato un po' sulla figura di Emma, specialmente sul come definirla. Il modo più sintetico ed esplicativo che abbia trovato si concretizza nell'idea del personaggio più cattivo che mi sia capitato sotto gli occhi. Cattivo, guasto, lontano da ogni mia personale aspirazione. Emma riassume i peggiori comportamenti femminili. Fantasia e sensibilità potrebbero emergere, se non venissero degenerate da questo personaggio avvilente e volubile. 
Intanto ho letto Madame Bovary proprio perché ho letto di Madame Bovary! In ogni dove, citata ovunque: mentre restavo totalmente estranea a Flaubert e del tutto ignara di cosa trattasse questo libro. 
La cosa più bella che ho potuto trarre è che un personaggio così fortemente delineato possa essere letto in maniera diversa col passare del tempo. Per me, donna degli anni duemila, Emma è quasi un esempio offensivo. E' l'idea di donna che personalmente voglio combattere e superare. Eppure fino a qualche tempo fa la nostra Madame doveva costituire l'esempio esuberante di una femminilità forte, una donna che asseconda le fantasie e le passioni per essere felice (e non rimanere a casa a fare la calza). Allora sì che noi oggi potremmo dire di essere Madame Bovary.

patterns of provincial life

esperanza 

Reminded me of Anna Karenina in many aspects

Emma, eine Frau, die große Sehnsüchte hat, große Begierden, sodass sie Grenzen überschritten, Leben zerstört und sich selbst in den Abgrund gerissen hat.

Eine labile, von ihren Gefühlen und Gelüsten gesteuerte Frau des 19ten Jahrhunderts. Sie ist sehr wechselhaft wie die Jahreszeiten, wendet sich wie das Blatt eines Baumes im Wind. Ihre Unzufriedenheit zieht sich durch das gesamte Buch.

Neben Emmas Geschichte thematisiert das Buch im Hintergrund das einseitige Provinzleben, die Klassenunterschiede, die Verehrung des Fortschritts, das Herabsetzen der Kirche und das Aufleben der Kunst und des Theaters zur Zeit der Romantik.

Die Geschichte nimmt ein trauriges Ende, was vorhersehbar war.

Hinter diesem Buch steckt viel mehr, als ich herausnehmen konnte. Ein sehr interessantes Buch, allerdings wurden einige Szenen sehr lange beschrieben und es wurde ab und zu langatmig.

Emma, eine Frau, die große Sehnsüchte hat, große Begierden, sodass sie Grenzen überschritten, Leben zerstört und sich selbst in den Abgrund gerissen hat.
Eine labile, von ihren Gefühlen und Gelüsten gesteuerte Frau des 19ten Jahrhunderts. Sie ist sehr wechselhaft wie die Jahreszeiten, wendet sich wie das Blatt eines Baumes im Wind. Ihre Unzufriedenheit zieht sich durch das gesamte Buch.

Neben Emmas Geschichte thematisiert das Buch im Hintergrund das einseitige Provinzleben, die Klassenunterschiede, die Verehrung des Fortschritts, das Herabsetzen der Kirche und das Aufleben der Kunst und des Theaters zur Zeit der Romantik.

Die Geschichte nimmt ein trauriges Ende, was vorhersehbar war.

Hinter diesem Buch steckt viel mehr, als ich herausnehmen konnte. Ein sehr interessantes Buch, allerdings wurden einige Szenen sehr lange beschrieben und es wurde ab und zu langatmig.

The bourgeoisie and all that plagues them. Quite depressing but interesting social commentary.

Offers a new translation of Flaubert's classic tale, in which the title character turns to spending and a series of affairs to combat the boredom of married life and, heartbroken and crippled by debts, takes drastic action that results in tragedy.

provincial ways

Andrew John Kinney

This is my third outing with Madame Bovary, the first being aborted somewhere around the halfway mark, the second being a reading without sufficient understanding. This time, I read Lydia Davis' wonderful translation, and I prepared by reading Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot, and also by reading the short novel A Simple Heart by Flaubert in order to better accommodate myself to his style. Although Flaubert would have hated this, I found it useful to understand, via Barnes, his attitude toward the people he wrote about, the French bourgeoisie in the reign of Louis Philippe. But more on that later.

Madame Bovary is a bit like Moby-Dick, in that there is a surface-level story that is straightforward; a feckless young bride becomes disillusioned with her provincial life and embarks on affairs and unsustainable spending in the pursuit of happiness. And, through her gullible nature, romantic illusions, and lack of self-awareness, it ends badly for her. But there is so much more than that in the book, and if one spends the time to understand, the reader sees the many varieties of human nature revealed by Flaubert; it should be noted that there are almost no sympathetic characters in the book, except maybe Pere Roualt, Emma's father. Also, Flaubert interleaves conversations in such a way as to be very funny, if you're paying attention. The delicate conversation between Emma and her lover-to-be, Rodolphe, while sitting in a mezzanine overlooking the county fair is an example; Rodolphe presses his case with Emma telling flattering her lie after flattering lie, while the prize for best manure is being awarded in the background.

It is said that Flaubert came to love his characters so much that as he wrote his ending, he was constantly in tears at the disaster he had invented for them. Whether true or not, this is emblematic of his attitude toward all these flawed characters; he looked on them as a benign, god-like observer who readily understood their failings, but felt sympathy toward their very human existences. He knew their flaws, their lies, their pedantry, and yet he had an affection for them all (well, perhaps not Lheureux), and he paints a believable picture of each of them as people caught up in the societal norms of their world. Flaubert saw the customs of his time with a clear eye, and he laughed at himself, as well as others, for following pointless rituals, and spending money on meaningless trifles or ornamentation. He is said to have laughed out loud at himself in front of the mirror once, while preparing to shave, saying that surely the risk of dying from tetanus was worth conforming to society's tonsorial expectations.

If you care to seek it out, there is ample symbolism in the book, like the blind beggar, but it is an enjoyable read even without thinking deeply about these meanings that Flaubert labored so hard to work into the story. Thanks again to Lori for encouraging me to read it again, in a better translation! And I would encourage prospective readers of Flaubert to read Julian Barnes' book (Flaubert's Parrot) which is a novel, but really tells much of Flaubert's personality and history, before reading Bovary, and also to read Nabokov's essay on the book, which explains much of the symbolic objects and characters Flaubert put into his novel. Flaubert said that the author should be like God, present everywhere but visible nowhere, and he truly disliked the idea of reading about an author to try to understand his work. But in his case, I do think the reader benefits from understanding him, and also, Flaubert is just an extremely interesting man, so the effort to understand him does not go unrewarded. 

Madame Bovary is a masterpiece; it is the work of a genius and is worth the attention is has received.

cher elle

charisa

me reading a french man? not another asian-american woman??

it's been a hot second since i've read anything vaguely labeled european lit. i'm not even really sure why i picked this one up, but i found flaubert's writing strangely magnetic. though the book is framed as a series of tragedies, the writing itself was pretty lighthearted and humorous, nearly satirical. 

truly, every character was insufferable in their own special way! emma was especially frustrating in her immense discontentment and romantic fantasies... which i guess made her an interesting foil to the larger bourgeois. we love a totally unself-aware protagonist.

Sanaa Shaltout

عارف احساس اللخبطة أو ممكن تقول المواجهة فلوبير بقى عمل كدا
أول حاجة الرواية تنفع لكل مجتمع لأن المرأة لا تختلف من دولة إلى أخرى كلهم في الآخر واحد 
وهكذا الرجل ...
إيما ما هذا الذي فعلتيه لا ألومك ولا أُبرر لكِ ولا أتقبل أو أرفض ما فعلتيه ولكني لم أتعاطف معكِ أنتِ من اختارت هذا الطريق سواء عن ضعف منك أو نقمة على وضعك
أنتِ اختارتي الزوج الغلط من البداية، وبدلا من تصحيح الوضع بأي طريقة اختارتي طريق الوهم والغواية 
فكان طبيعي إن مفيش حد يرضى غرورك حتى في عز أزمتك بتفكري في شهوتك ووهمك وضلالك في العز والفلوس والسُلطة والمكانة الإجتماعية ، لا ألومك فكان معكِ زوج ضعيف بل وضعيف جدًا أو ممكن تقولى غلبان ولو في مصر هيقولوا عليه عبيط وأنتِ استغليتي طيبته بطريقة قذرة
لم أحزن لموتك بل هنا اختار الكاتب الرحمة لكِ فأنتِ لم تتذوقي طعم العذاب نتيجة لأفعالك مع أول مشكلة تناولتي السم وانتهت حياتك، وتركتي رسائلك لكي تتسبب في موت زوجك شرل الضعيف الذي كان يتمنى لكِ الرضا لكي ترضي كما نقول في مصر بس أنتِ متستاهليش :) أه والله
بصرف النظر عن كل أحداث الرواية الرسالة اللي عايز يقولها جوستاف فلوبير هام جدًا 
اتركِ طريق الوهم والغواية فإنه مُهلك ونهايته عواقب وخيمة، ولا تأمني على نفسك مع رجل فالرجال أوغاد ياعزيزتي خاصة من يتعرف على امرأة متزوجة، ولا يغرنكِ الأموال فهي سراب والمكانة فهذا كذان وهم أمام عينك ولكنه خدعك وسقطتي في الرذيله.

You live through Madame Bovary. A yearning for love, and life straight from romance books without opportunity, without an idea of what to do.

Nota

Aylén Abril Costantini 

Enhorabuenaaaaa, al fin termino esta re lectura que me tomó bastante tiempo porque me subrayé todo. Te amo Emma gracias Flaubert. Que tragedia.

Beautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion, and romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary, begins to pay her attention, she imagines that she may be granted her wish. However, after their marriage, Emma soon becomes frustrated with the boredom of provincial life and finds herself seeking escape and contemplating adultery. As Emma’s efforts to make a reality of her fantasies become more dangerous, both she and those around her must face the shattering consequences of her actions. 

Causing widespread scandal when it was published in 1857, Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece is one of the landmark works of 19th-century realist fiction. This crisp new translation captures the psychological realism of the original and echoes the verbal precision for which Flaubert is rightly famed. This edition includes pictures and an extensive section about the author's life and works.
--back cover

Emmett

Not very used to Flaubert's impersonal style, I'm afraid, since this is my first time reading something of his.

nair

"¿De donde provenía aquella insatisfacción de la vida, aquella instantánea corrupción de las cosas en las que se apoyaba...? Pero si había en alguna parte un ser fuerte y bello, una naturaleza valerosa, llena a la vez de exaltación y de refinamientos, un corazón de poeta bajo una forma de ángel, lira con cuerdas de bronce, que tocara al cielo epitalamios elegíacos, ¿por que, por azar, no lo encontraría ella?"

Barbara Williford

Narration was excellent (for audible) and the author is EXTREMELY detail oriented almost to the point of boredom. I can understand how this book may have seemed “progressive” at the time and described Parisian practices of that day, but the book was about a spoiled, self centered, unappreciative woman who put her family through societal and financial ruin for her selfish indulgences. I read to see what all the hype was about and I love the classics but this one just fell short for me. I’m also baffled at the ending and the purpose of focusing so much on the chemist who played a minor role in the plot.

Alice

This book was not entirely my cup of tea, but it's well-written and intriguing. Also, I adored Leon's character very much.

Sarah Escorsa

J'ai toujours trouvé le personnage d'Emma Bovary totalement insupportable et n'ai jamais aimé ce roman de Flaubert...

jiaqi kang

** spoiler alert **
           (read in french) so obviously this is completely beautiful but GOD does it punish emma for just having the human desire for self-actualisation, for being a woman basically.... especially her death - i obviously knew she was gonna kill herself but i thought she'd die really quietly. the way she dies is just so pathetic, are you really gonna do that to her too? 

like yeah, emma sucks, but also: 

https://images.app.goo.gl/1H4qSy9Fosi... emma is mona lisa saperstein, i am her dad

Tasha Dykstra

had to read it for World Lit II still not sure about it leaning towards disliking it more so than like.

Arta

Mariel Adrianna de la Garza

Originally in French, the English still holds some of the most exquisite prose I've come across. The story, of course, is engaging: a woman seeking happiness outside herself, in men and in her surroundings; the pitfalls involved, the hearts broken. For me, it was the language that made this such a beautiful book.

Madame Bovary Provincial Lives

Reviews

Highlights