Read This!: Madame Bovary

By Gustave Flaubert

Book challenge: Book originally written in French 

I picked Madame Bovary because in all my years of French studies, I had never read it so I figured it was time. I had originally planned to read this book in French but it wasn’t easily orderable (at least from Amazon) and I have been too lazy to go the French bookstore. That being said, I also decided I was too lazy to actually try to read a book in my rusty-brained French bilingualness for this challenge.

To the book…

Madame Bovary is a woman, depressed with her life, who tries to find excitement through love affairs and uncontrollable spending of money she doesn't have. This leads her down a path of destruction for not only herself but her entire family.

This book was scandalous when it was first published because of its subject matter and its descriptive passages. I, myself, did not find it so but then again, I live in 2012 not 1857.

The descriptions of Emma’s (Mme. Bovary’s) mental state as she engaged in this illicit behavior were well done and I could definitely sense her depression and need to escape from a boring husband, a child she barely cares about, a small town with nothing happening. She dreams of an exciting life in Paris or just anything to break up the monotony.

I found this novel to be really dense at times and frankly if Emma were as bored as I was when I was reading certain parts, I can see why she had affairs.

Even so, Emma and her husband were both written to make them sympathetic in their own way and this novel is worth reading to at least say you have read it.