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3.70. 336,533 ratings16,545 reviews. Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.
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Nov 28, 2010 · The Observer Fiction. This article is more than 13 years old. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – review. Lydia Davis's new translation of Madame Bovary captures for the first time in...
Sep 30, 2010 · Her 19th-century death — after swallowing the one thing to permanently satisfy hunger: poison — might occur in any age, including our own, and summons less grief than gratitude. At last she ...
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Madame Bovary, novel by Gustave Flaubert, serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856 and then published in two volumes the following year. Flaubert transformed a commonplace story of adultery into an enduring work of profound humanity. Madame Bovary is considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, and, according to some, it ushered in a new age of realism in li...
Madame Bovary tells the bleak story of a marriage that ends in tragedy. Charles Bovary, a good-hearted but dull and unambitious doctor with a meagre practice, marries Emma, a beautiful farm girl raised in a convent. Although she anticipates marriage as a life of adventure, she soon finds that her only excitement derives from the flights of fancy she takes while reading sentimental romantic novels. She grows increasingly bored and unhappy with her middle-class existence, and even the birth of their daughter, Berthe, brings Emma little joy.
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Grasping for idealized intimacy, Emma begins to act out her romantic fantasies and embarks on an ultimately disastrous love affair with Rodolphe, a local landowner. She makes enthusiastic plans for them to run away together, but Rodolphe has grown tired of her and ends the relationship. A shocked Emma develops brain fever and is bedridden for more than a month. She later takes up with Léon, a former acquaintance, and her life becomes increasingly chaotic. She embraces abstractions—passion, happiness—and ignores material reality itself, as symbolized by money. She is utterly incapable of distinguishing between her romantic ideals and the harsh realities of her life even as her interest in Léon wanes. Her debts having spun out of control, she begs for money, but all turn her down, including Léon and Rodolphe. With seemingly nowhere to turn and on the verge of financial ruin and public disclosure of her private life, Emma swallows arsenic and dies a painful death.
Madame Bovary: moeurs de province (“Madame Bovary: Provincial Customs”) first appeared from October 1 to December 15, 1856, in installments in the Revue de Paris. Upon its release, the French government accused Flaubert of obscenity. The ensuing trial and his acquittal only heightened interest in the work upon its release in book form in 1857.
In its portrayal of bourgeois mentalities, especially its examination of every psychological nuance of its title character, Madame Bovary came to be seen as both the principal masterpiece of realism and the work that established the realist movement on the European scene. The novel was also notable for the brilliance of its style, its carefully cadenced prose drawing comparisons to poetry. Flaubert placed great importance on style, and he spent some five years on Madame Bovary, constantly rewriting it.
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Madame Bovary is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Seriously. It brought out all the emotions in me and at the end I could feel the tears running down my cheeks. After I’ve read it, it left me thinking. Even though I didn’t want to feel any compassion for Emma, I did…
Sep 27, 2010 · I couldn’t warm up to a novel that so mercilessly depicted its heroine—and almost everyone around her—as shallow, ignorant, selfish and greedy. Flaubert’s famous declaration, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi,” must be an example of his celebrated irony, I thought; his cold, clinical narration demonstrated not a shred of empathy.
Jun 17, 2021 · Learn. Book Review: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. First published: June 17, 2021 by France Today Editors. It’s 200 years this year since Gustave Flaubert was born and so if you haven’t curled up with one of his classics yet, it’s high time you did!
