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    Madame Bovary: Édition abrégée (Reclams Rote Reihe – Fremdsprachentexte)
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    Madame Bovary: Édition abrégée (Reclams Rote Reihe – Fremdsprachentexte)
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    Madame Bovary: Édition abrégée (Reclams Rote Reihe – Fremdsprachentexte)
    Ebook226 pages3 hours

    Madame Bovary: Édition abrégée (Reclams Rote Reihe – Fremdsprachentexte)

    By Gustave Flaubert

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Einer der ganz großen Romane der Weltliteratur wird jetzt in Reclams Roter Reihe in einer Auswahlausgabe vorgelegt: Der ansonsten unveränderte Text wurde auf etwa die Hälfte gekürzt und mit Überleitungen in französischer Sprache versehen.

    Textausgabe in der Originalsprache, mit Übersetzungen schwieriger Wörter, Nachwort und Literaturhinweisen. Mit Seitenzählung der gedruckten Ausgabe: Buch und E-Book können parallel benutzt werden.
    LanguageFrançais
    PublisherReclam Verlag
    Release dateFeb 5, 2014
    ISBN9783159604787
    Unavailable
    Madame Bovary: Édition abrégée (Reclams Rote Reihe – Fremdsprachentexte)
    Author

    Gustave Flaubert

    Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was born in Rouen, France. Published in 1857, Madame Bovary gained popularity after a failed attempt to ban it for obscenity. Salammbô (1862), Sentimental Education (1869), and the political play The Candidate (1874) met with criticism and misconceptions. Only after the publication of Three Tales in 1877 was Flaubert's genius publicly acknowledged.

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    Reviews for Madame Bovary

    3.5/5

    126 ratings133 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Written in 1857. Emma, a doctor's wife, is lonely and bored and has affairs with Rodolphe and Léon which are both ill-fated. In her disillusionment she has a taste of arsenic with the usual outcome. Okay, but showing it's age.
    • 4/5
      The kind of book that uses "spaded" as a transitive verb and it works. (How to judge classics in translation? The voice is so far from Davis' own work (as well as her Proust) that one assumes the translation is impeccable. What struck me most was how idiotic, provincial, and fixed the characters were regarded by the narrative voice. Still, pretty good for a first novel circa 1856. The structure is, of course, flawless. Worth it for the opening scene of poor Bovary in school.)
    • 4/5
      I have been reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert by installments from Daily Lit since November, 2018. I was very happy to reach the end of this book although it certainly held my attention throughout the reading, but there was an inevitable sense of doom building. The story, set in 1840’s Normandy, is of a doctor’s unhappy and unfaithful wife. I found this a very sad tale, as to me, it was obvious that Emma was married to a dull man and had no outlet available for her other than adultery. Women of a certain class did not work, or really have much to occupy their time, other than oversee the servants. Emma Bovary was a woman of passion, in fact shopping excited her every bit as much as sex. Yes, she was beautiful, somewhat selfish and immature but I still felt a great deal of sympathy for her. It was hard not to emphasize with a woman whose happiness was so out of tune with her situation.Did I have sympathy for her husband, Charles, yes, indeed. He tried to provide Emma with what he thought he wanted and she carefully never revealed her unhappiness in the life he provided her. Charles was not the brightest of men, he was quiet and easily satisfied, didn’t have a romantic bone in his body and apparently never questioned their life or situation until it was too late. The Boyarys were a mismatched couple and the marriage, right from the start seemed doomed to failure.Flaubert has written an excellent morality tale that still stands today. Our happiness does not rely on anyone or anything other than ourselves. Emma Bovary paid a heavy price for her longings to escape the caged life that she lead and this book reminds me that woman can still fall into the same patterns as Emma Bovary even though we have more choices today in our search for a fulfilling life.
    • 5/5
      English translation by Merloyd Lawrence. Fantastique.
    • 4/5
      For a classic novel written by a man, about a fallen woman in European traditional society, this was a surprisingly readable book. There are a lot of topics embedded in the story that would be great for book club discussions and class papers, and the writing style is smooth enough that younger readers may not get too bogged down by the length of this novel.
      While I didn't particularly like Emma or any of the other characters in the story, they are well-rounded characters. Emma is a bit of the female equivalent of a playboy, constrained by society but still quite good at dodging responsibility and attracting extra-marital partners. Eventually her lifestyle catches up with her, as it does for many others, male and female, who approach their relationships and their lives the way Emma does, and rather than finally accepting responsibility publicly for her decisions, she takes poison, dying in a rather long, drawn out death scene as overdramatic as much of Emma's other adventures.
    • 3/5
      Lydia Davis is magnificent: she is as precise as Flaubert was obsessive. I read this just for her, to see if I could understand more about Flaubert's claim that writing, and not plot, was all that mattered in "Madame Bovary."Flaubert's sense of what counts as ambitious writing -- his meticulous prose, where every sentence displays the work it took to make it, where each adjective is the only possible choice, and never hides its perfection as simple inspiration -- has hypertrophied into hyper-realism or atrophied into rote realism. He had a constant and deliberate sense of responsibility to mimesis, which gives the book an unremitting, pressurized attachment to what he considers as real life. His laborious search for the right word or image sometimes makes him perfunctory and mechanical, like the pharmacist Homais -- a parallel he seems not to have noticed at all (he enjoyed the character, so presumably he saw parts of himself in Homais, but there is no evidence he saw his own daily struggles for the perfect word as anything like Homais's grandiloquent misuses of language). The constant continuous attention to the perfect word, the dogged myopic search for the perfect image, the oppressive sense of the pages he discarded, creates a dull humming in my ears. It can't ever be realism again.And then of course there's the story. It's often said that Emma is a prototypical modern bourgeois woman, or even a prototype of contemporary experience, because she lives out of joint with her time (and because she never knows her desires). She has been said to be the prototype of many alienated, disaffected, emotionally unconnected characters, right up to Tom McCarthy's "Remainder." Contemporary readers admire Flaubert's capacity to despise so much of bourgeois life, and to write with such sarcasm ("irony" is the word Davis prefers in her introduction). But he doesn't despise everyone equally. The book is deeply sexist, for example. Emma notoriously ignores her daughter; but so does Flaubert. Emma famously fails to appreciate her husband, but Flaubert doesn't have anything very bad to say about him: he's almost as innocent and unformed as a child.But at least now I have a clearer sense of Flaubert's writing, and I can see enough of it to know it is not a model for the contemporary novel. It does not correspond clearly to any viable contemporary sense of realism, the reality effect, mimesis, or descriptive skill. The novel is sunk in history.
    • 3/5
      This book is supposed to be a classic, but I believe the only reason it was popular back in its day was because it was so scandalous compared to anything else published. The book dragged on and on and the lead character was simply not all that like-able. Sometimes, a person gets what they deserve. Other times they don't. This book exemplifies this, only it takes way too long to do it.
    • 4/5
      Finally got to this one after being on my to-read list for some time. I enjoyed it much more than I expected and was struck by how modern Flaubert's narrative structure and prose was in the novel (helped no doubt by the skilled translation by Steegmuller). The narrative focus seamlessly shifts from character to character and the reader is left with no solid empathetic foundation under any of these unhappy characters. It's difficult to completely admire or condemn any of them- each exhibits qualities of greed, love, selfishness, determination, apathy, and hopeful yearning. In short, Falubert has provided a cast of truly human characters.
    • 5/5
      This savage character tears you apart as it drives herself to her ugly death. An astounding account of Emma Bovary's journey through her desires amongst beautifully painted characters to showcase the mortality of not just the woman, but all frailty of mankind.
    • 2/5
      Clearly the only way I can get myself to read one of the books in my continually growing to-be-read pile is for there to be a movie coming out. Get on it Hollywood, there are about 60 books I still need to get through.

      Disclaimers: I read a translation due to my French being nonexistent, but the original is supposed to be exquisite. I don't have to warn about spoilers in a review about something published in 1856, do I?

      Madame Bovary is one of those classics in which the elements that were once fresh and shocking are now cliched. Emma Bovary is unhappily married to a devoted but dull country doctor, Charles. Bored with her duties as a wife and mother, she fantasizes about a life full of romance and pleasure, similar to what she's read about in popular novels. Emma futilely chases these dreams by having love affairs and buying expensive items on credit. Both her lovers grow tired of her, and her debts bring about her husband's ruin. Emma swallows arsenic and dies an excruciating death.

      It's said that Gustave Flaubert does not judge Emma, and in fact that's partially why the book was banned and he landed in an obscenity trial. But I don't think I agree with that. Isn't making your character a silly, shallow woman and then having her downfall stem from being silly and shallow pretty judgy in of itself? I've read a lot of books about doomed women and unlike most of them, Emma has no redeeming features. In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy seemed to actually like his heroine. I did not not get that feeling in Madame Bovary.
    • 4/5
      You never know exactly what you are going to get into when you read older classics – you know, the ones from the 18th and 19th centuries, the ones that everyone tells you should be read, the ones that everyone talks about as great but have never really read. As you go back into those olden times, you far too often find stilted grammar, outdated approaches, descriptions that no longer resonate. I won't give you examples but, I've run into them, you've run into them, we've all run into them – and then wanted to run away.Such is not the case with Madame Bovary. Maybe it is just the translation I read (and any book from another language requires the right translation), but I was instantly transported into this story. I quickly cared about the characters and was quite happy to go along with them on their lives.The plot, like so many others in classical literature, can be found anywhere. Suffice to say we follow the life of Madame Bovary (to be honest, the life of her husband – Charles). She is not happy with what life has given her (in spite of the constant efforts of her husband), and this only leads to her worsening her own situation.To be honest, it would be very easy to hate this book based on how dislikable Bovary is. Yet, the story is so compelling the reader watches it in the same fascination one saves for train wrecks.While some classical literature has made me squeamish at the thought of pursuing more, this book strengthens my resolve.
    • 4/5
      I'm glad I read it. I did enjoy the book, but I guess I'm not a very deep reader, as I guess I don't understand why this book is held in higher regards than other books published from that time period. I will say, the story could have happened today - well the plot anyway - with a few adjusts for modern conveniences, but I did like it. The only bad part was in the introduction (which I read without thinking) they gave away pretty much everything that happened in teh book. So despite having never read it before, I knew exactly what would happen. For the most paI'm glad I read it. I did enjoy the book, but apparently I'm not a very deep reader, as I guess I don't understand why this book is held in higher regards than other books published from that time period. I will say, the story could have happened today - well the plot anyway - with a few adjusts for modern conveniences, but I did like it. The only bad part was in the introduction (which I read without thinking) they gave away pretty much everything that happened in teh book. So despite having never read it before, I knew exactly what would happen. For the most part, I believe the book led to you figuring it all out before it happened, but I would have appreciated not reading a synopsis of the story as part of the foreword!
    • 5/5
      Madame Bovary has been on my list of books to read for decades, but for various reasons I always made other choices. Then my wife decided to learn French and as part of that process read the novel in its original language. I decided to finally pick up this book because it would be fun to discuss when we were both done. I read an English translation by Eleanor Marx Aveling who was one of the daughters of Karl Marx and, following in her father's footsteps, a socialist. I didn't know Marx's background at the time I read the book, but find it interesting, since the results of Emma's decision to pursue a life of self indulgence seem to exemplify the horrors that can happen to people who seek self gratification. In other words, if you believe “greed is good” you probably won't like this book.I read somewhere that Madame Bovary along with Tolstoy's Anna Karenina are the two greatest “adultery” novels ever written. I'm not sure how anyone can make a statement like that, since so many novels have been written about adultery. But there is definitely a connection between these two works. Anna, however, is somewhat sympathetic, being drawn to a single lover she can't resist. On the other hand, Emma's true love seems to be herself. Here's a section from the book when Emma is sitting at an agricultural fair with Rodolphe, the man she's currently attracted to, and reflecting on all the men in her life – except, of course, her husband.Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. But in making this movement, as she leant back in her chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the horizon, the old diligence, the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending the hill of Leux, dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this yellow carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds gathered; it seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz under the light of the lustres on the arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took off her gloves, she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the crowd and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He said—"Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism.I loved the process of following Emma Bovary as she made selfish decisions, rationalized her behavior, and paid the consequences. There are many reasons to read Madame Bovary, including its influence on later novelists, but it is the careful, detailed exploration of Emma's character that make this novel a masterpiece.Steve Lindahl – Author of White Horse Regressions and Motherless Soul
    • 4/5
      Generally acclaimed as one of the great 19th century novels, Madame Bovary lives up to its reputation. Even in translation, Flaubert’s efforts to find le mot juste comes through. Although many of the characters evidently are meant to be archetypes of common personalities, Flaubert limns each one with such specificity that they become lifelike even while performing their plot roles as the “rake,” the “religious skeptic,” the “aristocrat,” the “country cleric,” or the “great man from the City.” Flaubert’s vocabulary is elevated and vast, but his syntax is simple, direct, and lucid, making the novel an easy read.The plot revolves around adultery and the emptiness of bourgeois life, the former perhaps a symptom of the latter. Unlike many modern novels, the sex scenes are so terse and indirect that you may miss them if you are scanning too fast. Nonetheless, Emma Bovary comes across as very sensual and sexually alluring, if shallow and a bit of a ditz. She finds her husband boring and suffocating, but she is so self-absorbed we aren’t made to feel much sympathy for her. She believed when she married Charles that her life would be transmogrified into the fairytale that so often characterized the romances she read. The quotidian reality depressed her, and eventually drove her to desperation. The dénouement is tragic (more so for Charles than for Emma, the putative protagonist) and ironic. In Flaubert’s France, no good deed goes unpunished and many a bad one is rewarded.Evaluation: It is with good reason that Madame Bovary continues to be read 150 years after its publication.(JAB)
    • 5/5
      Having put off reading this novel, thinking it would be hard to read, in that I would need to be "in the mood" to get through the languge of the writers of the time, I was surprised at how easily it flows and how I couldn't put it down.I felt rather sad for Emma, although her seeming lack of feeling for her young daughter was a times perplexing, I felt she suffered depression, and anxiety, and a sense of feeling as if she had no idea what she wanted or needed. Of course, she lived in a time where she wasn't expected to "do much" of anything. Her life probably seemed meaningless. Was this why she was so easily swayed by an admiring glance, and so easily seemed to fall into affairs of the hear. The characters all seemed to lack much emotional depth, except perhaps poor Charles, who tried so hard to please Emma and everyone else. I was shocked at how she died, although not surprised. I am sure, now I have been gifted this favourite book of a friend, that I too will read it often, for the joy and sadness and despair of it.
    • 5/5
      I came to Madame Bovary bearing in mind two quotes: author Dan Simmons' claim that it "separated the history of novels into two categories — Before Madame Bovary and After Madame Bovary"; and what Henry James said, that this novel "has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone". The consensus is that Flaubert exhibited himself as a master of style in writing this novel, employing Realism in its detail of commoners' lives, his exacting word choice and descriptions. Letters written by Flaubert at the time speak to his frustration and despair at ever achieving the perfection he was aiming for ("Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles."), but posterity has since brushed away those fears and Madame Bovary is found, over and over again, on lists of the best novels ever written in any language. I'm a poor scholar who could not have recognized any of these facts if I'd not been hit over the head with them beforehand. The book I read appears fairly straightforward, simple. That may be its deception. The sentence structure, as Mr. Simmons has pointed out, is purposely perfect throughout for reading aloud, in its lengths and pauses. I did admire the wonderful choices of detail in describing a scene or characters' actions, and the way Flaubert expertly described difficult-to-capture feelings through metaphor. I'm extremely curious how much of the novel's vaunted perfection is lost in translation from French to English, but still I can be appreciative of what comes across. My final impression of the novel's style is that, while I can't point to exactly what its perfection entails, I sense the evidence sufficiently well to accept the opinions of my scholastic betters at face value.I've not yet addressed what the novel is about. A woman married to a country doctor becomes dissatisfied with her present circumstances, comparing it always to an alternative of which she dreams. Her fatal flaw lies in believing happiness is delivered to oneself as a package with a particular setting, with particular accoutrements. She lives in her dreams of a fantasy life that is expressly free of all domestic concerns, thoughts for others, practical matters. Her desire for its attainment becomes her only goal of worth, to be had at any cost, for which she begins to excuse herself any action. It is her fascination with the fantasy life she dreams of obtaining that continuously places more distance between her and reality, until she becomes susceptible to those who would take advantage. With even so little external validation as that, she loses all ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality and becomes lost thereafter.What does it all mean? It's unlikely to simply be a commentary on the immorality of adultery. I've gathered Flaubert was no fan of the bourgeoisie, and this novel may summarize his views: their fascination with haute-culture, their equating it with happiness, and how very far from happiness this attitude taken to its extreme might lead. The flip side interpretation is that Emma's flights of fancy are in fact condoned by the author as insightfulness into beauty, which the staid bourgeoisie community surrounding her is entirely blind even to imagining. Either way, bourgeoisie get the shaft.I'm going to dare a criticism and say, what I felt missing was Madame's inner thoughts and feelings which led her into marriage. They are so quickly mentioned and then put behind her, I barely grasped what placed her in her predicament. It would have been more satisfying to me had more of the initial story been told from her perspective, so we could witness and better understand what her impressions and expectations of Charles had been. Perhaps Flaubert felt this was irrelevant to his story, or sufficiently described and/or implied as it stands, and perhaps a million critics before me have agreed with him - but I wonder at it. In spite of that, what I won't dare is to give this novel a less than perfect score.
    • 4/5
      Dear Emma, what were you thinking?! With Madame Bovary, Flaubert has the reader mocking the main character one minute, despising her the next and feeling sorry before long. Great read today, I can only imagine the shock effect back in the mid 1800s!
    • 4/5
      Well, I'm glad I can finally say I've read this book now, but I can't say I was particularly wild about it. I did think it was very well written, and remarkably easy to read (I'm not sure why I always think Classics are going to be difficult...), but I found all the characters irritating and didn't develop any sort of sympathy for any of them. I'm not sorry I read it, and I do think we might have a decent discussion about it at book club this month, but it's definitely not one I'll feel the need to reread at any point in my life.
    • 4/5
      An inexperienced, passionate, romantic dreamer of a girl marries a boring, medicre, widowed, milksop, country doctor with predictable consequences.My feelings about Madame Bovary are ambiguous. At times the writing seemed uneven. There were many brilliant passages, but many that were not so great. That might have been the fault of the translation.I really couldn't sympathize with either Emma Bovary, nor her husband. The character that I had the most compassion for was Berthe, a minor character.I'm glad that I read this, though, because I did enjoy some of the more outstanding passages, and it was so rich with symbolism and other literary devices, such as foreshadowing.I can't help but conclude that Flaubert was a gifted writer.
    • 3/5
      Read for college. I didn't so much enjoy it as much as I appreciated it existence. Bovary is not a likeable character for me, but I understood where she was. She is one of those characters that make me wonder about the lives of women back when they were written and how many would have been better off had they been allowed to make their own way in the world.
    • 4/5
      This book was a cyncial summary of the French culture and classes of the time. Despite it being written long ago, the basic themes can still apply to our world today. Gustave Flaubert definantly had a jaded perspective and used extremity to illustrate his views. Madame Bovary is a twisted story, but is so interesting because it can also be relavent to modern times.
    • 2/5
      Classic it may be but I did not enjoy Madame Bovary. Emma is a horrid, unsympathetic character (who actually deserves worse than she gets) and the supporting cast is almost as contemptible. For such a detailed book, Emma aside, the characters end up with surprisingly little depth and that is extremely frustrating when reading this novel. Flaubert's realist style can be a chore to read through and is actually boring in its exact precision. His sort-of-student, Maupassant, wrote much better, as did other contemporaries, such as Turgenev.
    • 4/5
      I did not read this version I read a 'free' Public domain kindle book. It was a great version by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. You don't need to buy it, this version is great, but you will need a device to read it on!
    • 4/5
      Okay, to be clear, this book was not at all what I thought it would be. I was, no lie, expecting torrid sex scenes. Why? I have no idea. I just was. Funny thing is, I don’t read anything even approaching erotica so I’m not sure where this thought came from. Obviously, something was lost in translation for me. Charles Bovary is a less than ambitious man but he’s a good man. A doctor by trade, he’s happy practicing in a quiet French hamlet. After he starts his medical practice, his mother finds him a wife; an older and rather unhappy woman who dies early on in their marriage leaving Charles the opportunity to find love. He believes he may have found it in a woman named Emma who he met while setting her father’s broken leg. Emma has dreams, the first of which is to get away from her father’s home, so when Charles asks, she agrees to marry him. Married life is agony for her. She has a pleasant home, a husband who cares for her immensely --- almost to the point of smothering her --- and she has few tangible complaints. What she wants is romance though. After attending a ball, it’s all she can think about and her boring life holds no interest for her. Charles decides that Emma needs a change of scenery and moves the family (a child will soon be born to the couple) to Yonville. Emma soon finds herself entranced by a law student, Léon Dupuis, who seems to return her affection. Appalled by her own thoughts, she refuses to act and Léon soon leaves to finish his degree. However, when Emma meets Rodolphe Boulanger, all thoughts of propriety go out the window and she gives in to his advances and starts the affair. She wants to run away, but Rodolphe, who has had several mistresses, decides that she is too clingy and breaks off the affair on the morning they’re to leave town together. Shattered by the end of the affair, Emma falls into a deep depression and sickness. When she finally recovers, Charles again tries to re-interest her in life this time believing the theatre will be the answer. It’s here that she once more meets Léon and begins her second affair. Lie after lie build up as do her debts. Emma is incapable of handling the lies or the debts and begins begging others for help, which doesn’t arrive. In a final dramatic act, she deals the only way she can. At first, I felt sorry for Charles. He was boring but loving. He wasn’t ambitious at all and was happy with his life. He had a beautiful wife and child and a medical practice that provided the necessities of life. But, again, he was boring. Then he tried to pin everything wrong with his wife on a nervous condition which annoyed me and any sympathy I may have had for the clueless husband vanished. Emma on the other hand, doesn’t exactly deserve any praise. She wants everything, expensive things, is constantly bored, obsessive, and refuses to see any good in her life. She’s always looking for the next best thing. And it must be said, she’s a horrid excuse for a mother. Emma is interesting though and the reason to keep reading because every other character in this book is flat. Toward the end though, when the proverbial dirty laundry is aired, everyone is at fault in some way or another and it’s hard to have any sympathy for any of the characters. My book had two additional sections at the end about the book itself, trials, bannings, etc. I didn’t read them. I think I wanted to look back on the book from my own perspective and not the perspective of a scandalous 19th Century trial discussing the need for a stricter moral code. Also, I think it would have made me upset and I enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to be marred. So, back to my first paragraph --- the sex. It’s there but it’s off screen. There’s kissing, there’s heavy petting, but shall we say, not what I was expecting considering the ruckus this book caused. Then again, that was back in the day. I don’t want to get into a discussion of morals, really, I’m the last person, but it’s an interesting part of this story and while I never felt lectured to, obviously, Emma is a lesson. But her character is more than simply a woman having an affair, she’s a woman unhinged but somewhat deserving of some understanding, even if it’s just to understand her depression better.
    • 2/5
      I know that this is a classic (I read it for my "Novels" class in college), but the characters drove me crazy! Whine whine whine whine whine. I get enough of that in read life without encountering it in my pleasure reading time as well. Classic or not, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
    • 2/5
      Yes, I know this book is a classic. But boy, was it a depressing book--not at all what I wanted to be reading while backpacking! I only ended up reading it because it was one of the few non-German books in the hostel book exchange, and I found that I almost had to force myself to plow onwards. Yes, it was well-written, and yes, Flaubert did a very good job of creating characters that I could not bring myself to care about at all.
    • 1/5
      I found Emma Bovary to be a most unsympathetic character. I finished it, but not because I cared what happened
    • 5/5
      A classic. What else can one say? Oh yes, it's actually an enjoyable read as well as being supposedly one of the best books in history.
    • 4/5
      Another women, limited by social conventions, makes some bad choices. Sometimes I feel these books are written to convince women they shouldn't try to be anything more than wives and mothers.
    • 4/5
      While I enjoyed the writing and was entertained by the story, I could not relate to the protagonist of this classic novel in any way. If Flaubert was truly Emma Bovary, as he famously said, that is quite sad for him! There was not much to like about her. She was shallow, pretentious and totally self-absorbed. Some reviewers have pointed out that Emma Bovary was trapped in a bad situation due to her gender and the social conventions of her time. While that may be true, there was nothing noble or sympathetic about the character of Madame Bovary. She continually and selfishly pursued her self-destructive quest for "love" while ignoring what was right in front of her the whole time, a husband and child who truly loved her.