Paperback, 388 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 2012 by Trans Atlantic Press.
"Down in her soul she was waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked sailor, she perused her solitary world with hopeless eyes, searching for some white sail..."
The realities of married life fall a long way short of Emma Bovary's expectations. Her romantic hopes have been dashed on the rocks of a stultifying life bound to a dull, mediocre, provincial doctor. The novels she read merely feed her dissatisfaction. Material possessions offer scant recompense. Motherhood disappoints. To fill the yawning void Emma succumbs to reckless extramarital affairs. But pursuing a fantasy brings only one certainty: that the mounting debts funding her dream will one day fall due for repayment. Hopes and ideals are crushed by bitter experience in Flaubert's unflinching tragedy of domestic life, which scandalised polite society and became the subject of a cause célèbre when it was published in 1857. --back cover
Präzise, zum Teil auch ein wenig bissig, beschrieben. Der Ehebruch wird so angedeutet, dass man genau weiß, was Sache ist, ohne dass es zu genau ausgesprochen oder aber drumherumgeeiert wird. Die Charaktere sind schön ausgearbeitet. Das Ende finde ich besonders bemerkenswert und eindrücklich dargestellt.
Gekürztes Hörbuch. Wunderschöne Analyse wie eine Frau von ihren Glückserwartungen an Liebe, Ehe und Familie zerstört wird.
Looking for something to read during the Covid lock-down, with all the public libraries closed, when I found this in a second-hand bookshop I bought it, mainly because I thought I had seen it on one of those "books to read before you die" lists.
The blurb, however, did not sou d promising -- the fantasies of a bored small-town bourgeois housewife did not sound particularly interesting. Nevertheless I started to read it.
What hooked me first was the style. Even in translation, [a:Gustave Flaubert|1461|Gustave Flaubert|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1198541369p2/1461.jpg]'s descriptions -- of settings, people, their thoughts and emotions -- were brilliant. So I read it slowly, a chapter at a time, and then went off to read something else. It seemed to be the best way to read it, to savour the prose style.
It was only about three-quarter5s of the way through that I began to get hooked into the plot, and …
Looking for something to read during the Covid lock-down, with all the public libraries closed, when I found this in a second-hand bookshop I bought it, mainly because I thought I had seen it on one of those "books to read before you die" lists.
The blurb, however, did not sou d promising -- the fantasies of a bored small-town bourgeois housewife did not sound particularly interesting. Nevertheless I started to read it.
What hooked me first was the style. Even in translation, [a:Gustave Flaubert|1461|Gustave Flaubert|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1198541369p2/1461.jpg]'s descriptions -- of settings, people, their thoughts and emotions -- were brilliant. So I read it slowly, a chapter at a time, and then went off to read something else. It seemed to be the best way to read it, to savour the prose style.
It was only about three-quarter5s of the way through that I began to get hooked into the plot, and thought I must finish this book before I read anything else. The book has been around long enough that there must be spoilers everywhere, but it should still be possible to avoid them.
This story is haunting--and I finally know what that means. It's so well-written that I could actually feel Madame Bovary's boredom and inner despair.
There is a strong message here, as well, about what ennui can do. In this case, it lead to actions that not only ruined Madame Bovary's life, but that of her family, as well. Very tragic.
“Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.”
(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)
Classic examples of everything and everyone we should not be.
