It wasn’t an entirely intentional decision. After spending a
month focusing on reading and then spending two glorious, adventure-filled
weeks in Australia, writing blog posts was not high on my list of priorities
for most of the last two months. However, I did
force myself to wait to write this post in the sense that I refused to allow
myself to skip over the books I read before Madame
Bovary in order to get to this post.
It was a struggle to do so, though, because I seriously
wanted to just explode my feelings about this book all over the place!
And I actually did to anyone and everyone who would listen
for weeks after finishing this book. It
prompted tirades that rivaled the ones caused when Sybil died on Downton Abbey – which still pisses me off,
by the way. I can actually feel my body temperature rising while I think about
both…
Which is part of why I think it was a great idea to wait to
write this post. I’m fairly certain that in my state of intense frustration and
passionate disgust, I probably would have been incapable of writing even a
slightly coherent post. Now that I’ve had almost two months to cool off, I’m
hoping I will be able to describe my reaction more clearly and calmly.
This may have been a bad idea, though, only because I know
that I enjoy reading rant posts more than calm ones. Hopefully this will still
be entertaining. The bubble of anger stirring in my stomach as I write this
introduction is probably a solid sign it will at least be interesting.
I really hope that
there was a lot lost in the translation of this novel, which was originally
written in French (in case you couldn’t tell from the very French names of the
title character and the author), because if that’s not the case, I truly cannot
understand why anyone has or will ever like this book. It has the least likable
cast of characters I’ve ever encountered. Everyone is just so freaking
obnoxious and this is beyond true of our leading lady.
For the record, I really did
try to find Madame Emma Bovary’s redeeming qualities. I really tried to feel the sympathy for
her that the author so badly wants us to feel, but I just couldn’t.
Because my God! Madame Bovary is a piece of work. She’s a
mess of manic depression and self-involvement with ideas of passion and love
that would nauseate a high school girl. Her actions are completely
self-destructive, but apparently that’s not enough for her (fitting since she’s
never satisfied). Nope, Madame Bovary feels the need to become such a force of
destruction that she manages to ruin pretty much everyone else’s lives in the
process of ruining her own. All for the sake of pursuing some unrealistic
notion of passion that she could never hope to find, especially because she
doesn’t have enough depth of personality to feel on the levels she wants to. She’s
a petulant, awful, selfish, spoiled idiot and I found her unbearable!
Given that she was the title character, you could see how
this would make for a less than pleasant reading experience.
It didn’t help matters that the supporting cast was
comprised of more repulsive characters. Everyone was annoying. Everyone!
The only character that was even somewhat likeable was the
practical Charles Bovary, our oh-so-charming protagonist’s husband. He truly
loves Emma – God only knows why! – and he does everything in his power to make
her happy, a goal he will never achieve because Emma is eternally unhappy. He’s
a solid husband and father, basically just doing the best he can with what he
has. His practicality is especially refreshing given his wife’s tendency to be
the queen of Fantasyland.
He puts up with all of Emma’s crap, always believing in her
(completely fictional) goodness, only to have her completely screw him over in
the end.
Madame Bovary spends the whole novel having not very subtle
affairs and spending money she and her husband don’t have to finance both the
affairs and an expensive, unnecessary lifestyle. Eventually, she runs her
family so far into debt that the only way out is to beg for money from anyone
she can, including her former lover, a scene that laughably ends with Emma
refusing to put out for money because she’s suddenly so moral and then accusing
her former lover of being selfish.
Um, Pot, I’d like you to meet Kettle.
In a chaotic whirlwind of self-pity, Madame Bovary decides
there’s no way to fix this tremendous mess she’s created (surprise, surprise)
so of course the only course of
action is to kill herself.
Sure. That’s the best answer to your problems. That will
make them all go away… for you.
Because the problems don’t disappear themselves. Instead,
they become Charles’s and her daughter’s problems.
So after years of putting up with Emma’s fits and ridiculous
requests and terrible motherly instincts, Charles and his daughter end up completely
destitute. Then, as if this isn’t
enough, Charles finally finds the
stash of letters from Madame Bovary’s lovers, discovering what a sham his life
has been and just how awful his wife truly was.
For all these reasons, I find Charles the most sympathetic
character.
However, he is only the most appealing of an awful
selection. It’s like picking between STDs.
Because Charles Bovary is also an idiot; a spineless moron
who goes from being controlled by one odious woman to another. So many issues
in this novel could have been resolved if Charles had just grown a backbone and
told his wife to think about someone other than herself for a change. UGH!
In the interest of an attempt at a fair, well-rounded view
on this book, I guess you can argue that its merit is that Flaubert manages to
get you interested in the lives of the most repulsively obnoxious characters
ever created. I read somewhere that Madame
Bovary is meant to be a satire, criticizing the lavish living style of the
French bourgeoisie and maybe, maybe I
could buy into that reading and find the merit in the novel that way, but I’m
still not 100% sold that it really is a satire because Flaubert tries very hard
to make Emma sympathetic..
And even if Madame
Bovary is a satire, it is a long-ass satire! I don’t understand how someone
can enjoy reading about completely repugnant characters for so long. Maybe some
people find it funny? I really just don’t know.
In short, I’d suggest you skip this one. Unless you really
enjoy unbelievably detailed descriptions of clothes because then you and
Flaubert will get along great.
