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My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” 




Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest Western novelists who ever lived in France, had penned a beautiful and thoroughly realistic story about common life in a provincial town of France, Madame Bovary and when the book published in the year of 1857, it caused an outrage among the common people of then times, later the book was widely accepted and people had agreed that Flaubert have vividly portrayed the triviality of a common housewife with nothing good to do to pass her days, apart from her religion and her motherhood.

I was tempted to buy this book from Amazon after watching the movie version with the same title featuring Mia Wasikowska and Ezra Miller, that released last month and is directed by Sophie Barthes. Although the movie didn't intrigue me that much, but Emma's life, portrayed through Mia Wasikowska, left me enthralled with the gravity of her pain and her exceptions about married life falling short.



Synopsis:

When Emma Rouault marries dull, provincial doctor Charles Bovary, her dreams of an elegant and passionate life crumble. She escapes into sentimental novels but finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. She spends lavishly and embarks on a series of disappointing affairs. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, Emma takes drastic action with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter. When published in 1857, Madame Bovary was embraced by bourgeois women who claimed it spoke to the frustrations of their lives.


Emma is the perfect example of a girl who lives in her dreams as well as in the romance novels that she devours them like desserts all through out the day. Born and brought up on a farmland in a small provincial town of France, Emma was forever indifferent towards the dull and monotonous lifestyle of her village. Well Emma aspired for more fun, more glamor, especially, she aspired to live in Paris and marry some handsome romantic aristocratic French man. Unfortunately, Emma got married to a good ol' hardworking doctor, Charles Bovary, who got Emma's father's broken leg fixed. Desperate to get out of her miserable lifestyle in her father's village, Emma says yes to the proposal of the marriage with Charles Bovary, who then takes her to his own house in another small town called, Tostes, that makes Emma more depressed and sad about her pity condition in another village. Soon after the first married life, it was clear that Charles cannot be compared to those of Emma's romantic heroes.

Misery sucks her life out when she gives birth to her daughter, Berthe and it was once again very clear that motherhood did not suit Emma's class or dreams, so she disconnects herself from her daughter, who is then raised and looked after by the house maid. Emma's is dying for a bit of passion and brightness and flair in her dull life.

Knowing that she was forever stuck with an unintelligent, unromantic, in-passionate, boring, ol' doctor, Emma opens up her heart to a series of affairs with men of class and intelligence, some were older than her, whereas some were younger than her and in the beginning she enjoyed the thrill of the passion running in her affair, but that too bored her and left her with an unfulfilled desire in her heart, thus gradually ruining the only chance of a happy simple married life with Charles and her daughter.

Some say after reading the book that Emma is stupid, ignorant, spends her husband's money like she is some kind of Rebecca Bloomwood living in NYC, who has a keen taste in interior decorating to her lavish gowns. Well, can't agree more, if you live like a ignorant, people will call you stupid, but I think there was lot of pain underlied in the narrative style of the author. I can't completely blame it on Emma with her shopping addiction or cougar ways, because the author have vividly captured life during the mid nineteenth century, of how a woman with no opportunity but with bigger dreams behaved so impulsively with life when it came to satisfying herself despite of the shortcomings.

Well I can't argue more, life can surprise us at times with situations like financial crisis or being born into poverty or always a constant struggle to be accepted by the highs of the society. Emma was one of that, always trying to be accepted, so she ran helter-skelter for a chance to have a sweet happy life at least for once. Thus the platitudes of the life suppressed Emma.

The author's prose is evocative and not too flowery or cliched by the commonness of life, instead he layers his plot with enough symbolic meanings of the society and expectations of life and lots of emotions, thus while accounting Emma's tale, it felt more like it is happening inside my soul. In one word, I must say, Flaubert is truly the greatest French writers who portrayed life like no one ever did before with simplicity and vividly with the raw naked truth about life.



Do watch the movie version of Madame Bovary that features Mia Wasikowska like never before.
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Author Info:
Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie Region of France.

Flaubert's curious modes of composition favored and were emphasized by these peculiarities. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page, never satisfied with what he had composed, violently tormenting his brain for the best turn of a phrase, the most absolutely final adjective. It cannot be said that his incessant labors were not rewarded. His private letters show that he was not one of those to whom easy and correct language is naturally given; he gained his extraordinary perfection with the unceasing sweat of his brow. One of the most severe of academic critics admits that in all his works, and in every page of his works, Flaubert may be considered a model of style.
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