Madame Bovary
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3.7 • 7 Ratings
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Publisher Description
The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was a notorious perfectionist and claimed always to be searching for le mot juste.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Glenda Jackson hits the mark in this superb narration of Flaubert's classic novel. Her reading perfectly captures the restlessness of Emma Bovary, a character perpetually dissatisfied with her solid, steady husband and bourgeois life in provincial 19th-century France. Emma's unrealistic dreams (she yearns for a perfect, romantic love that will sweep her away into perpetual bliss) lead her into one affair after another, and then to financial ruin and suicide. Jackson is especially outstanding in the scene which takes place the night before Emma plans to run off with her lover, Rudolf. To Rudolf, Emma is just one in a long series of conquests, and he gets cold feet at the thought of being permanently responsible for her welfare and that of her child. In a swoony, sighing voice full of noble suffering, Jackson reads his flowery letter of tears and regret, saying he loves her too much to ruin her life and her reputation. Then, without missing a beat, she switches to smug, cynical satisfaction, as Rudolf admires the letter and congratulates himself on his close escape.
Customer Reviews
Madame Bovary
Flaubert’s realism gives Madame Bovary an almost cinematic vision. His attention to detail is so painstakingly acute that every scene, whether rural, small provincial town or Paris itself, is fully realized. Similarly with characters: features, appearance, costume, manners, etc. Details of dress and household goods are enlightening and sure to expand vocabulary. Free from the constraints of Victorian prudery and hypocrisy, Flaubert gives us real people with human desires and weaknesses. Where Dickens creates his own world, Flaubert gives us a real world. There is none of the coy sentimentality
ones sees, for example with Bella, her father and the Boffins (Our Mutual Friend). Nor the heavy handed satire. The death scene of Madame Bovary is honest and harrowing. His knowledge of literature and music is equally inspiring. A great writer.