Madame Bovary

It's ridiculous how long I took to tackle this book. And "tackle" is a harsh word. If I had known how short, fun and easy to read this novel is, I would have saved myself a lot of embarrassment: "No, I haven't read Madame Bovary... No, I don't know why I never read it in school... Yes, I really should read it..." Never again!

Summary

Madame Bovary is bored in her marriage. Her husband is not mean, on the contrary, he adores her. He is not stupid, on the contrary, he is a doctor. But love cannot be ordered or explained, it seems. She does not feel any of the feelings described in her novels, and she dreams of passionate delirium and fiery embraces.

So she goes to look for them. First with a womanizer, who gives her a lot of artificial passion. Then with a man who has a more real interest for her, at least at the beginning.

But beware, all these frivolities will not go unpunished. Madame Bovary has spent a lot of money she didn't have (or rather, that her husband didn't have) on toilets, transportation and gifts, she has dug herself a deep financial hole. Will her fragile nature be able to withstand it when the bailiffs confront her with reality?

Impressions

As I said, this is a nice book to read. It's shorter than I thought it would be (go figure, I felt like it was a brick), well written, and quite entertaining.

I enjoyed seeing a woman fooling around outside of marriage in the middle of the 19th century. We understand why there was a scandal, even if all the daring scenes are cleverly censored. The famous scene where Madame Bovary and her lover take an endless ride in a carriage, at random and with the curtains closed, made me smile.

But it is indeed a novel of its time. Madame Bovary is amply punished. Her lovers don't live up to her expectations, she is constantly unhappy and she dies at the end (I don't think I'm spoiling too much about the story) in a slow and painful way. In the end, she is a lost soul who would have done better to follow the path of God. Flaubert has done his job well.

So if you, like me, have been scared off by the reputation of this book, I encourage you to give it a go this summer. This one is worth it. And you can find it for free very easily.