Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives (Penguin Classics)

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Barnes, Julian (18 November 2010). "Writer's Writer and Writer's Writer's Writer". London Review of Books. 32 (22): 7–11.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – review | Fiction | The Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – review | Fiction | The

Her first romance uses her unforgivably but is eventually driven away by her incessant neediness and demands. Unfortunately all that is lost. Even in the end, Emma learnt nothing. All sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

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Flaubert thought so highly of Herbert's work on the project that in May 1857, he wrote a letter to Michel Lévy, the Paris-based publisher of Madame Bovary, informing him that "an English translation which fully satisfies me is being made under my eyes. If one is going to appear in England, I want it to be this one and not any other one." Later on, he'd refer to the governess's translation as a "masterpiece." Then it looks at society and says, "Well, you created this and now you've helped destroy her too, you assholes!" Ah, Madame Bovary. Isn't that the one where she has an affair and kills herself by jumping in front of a train? No, that's one by Tolstoy. But I'm thinking of adding a new Goodreads shelf: 'Old classics I thought surely I had read years ago, but hadn't.' Luego están sus amantes, el joven pasante Léon y el gentilhombre que la apasiona con sus encantos, Rodolphe Boulanger. Entre estos dos hombres, Emma dividirá su corazón y será objeto de sus más eróticos deseos y pasiones. Madame Bovary tells the story of Emma, a peasant who marries an older doctor, Charles Bovary, to escape the dullness of rural life. Emma swiftly grows disillusioned with both her husband and their provincial ways, especially after she attends a ball thrown by one of her husband’s aristocratic patients. In pursuit of passionate love and luxurious possessions, Emma engages in extramarital affairs and squanders her husband’s money.

Madame Bovary: Key Facts | SparkNotes Madame Bovary: Key Facts | SparkNotes

it seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably, ...she had never felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for others... She would have liked to strike all men, to spit in their faces, to crush them, and she walked rapidly straight on, pale, quivering, maddened, searching the empty horizon with tear-dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing in the hate that was choking her.

thus far it's been a lot of exposition-y chapters, which makes sense, but they are so oddly written as to be more confusing than enlightening. whatever! onto the actual story. Later we witness how she tries to reform, to be more tolerant and wishing to endure her life as it was, taking responsibility for her daughter and taking interest in the housework. Just then up comes Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger, who after first meeting Madame Bovary '[s]he is very pretty', he said to himself, 'she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife.' And he goes on, 'I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen-table. Yes, but how to get rid of her afterwards?' He decides so easily to seduce her. Oh, yes, she went along with it and of her free will. But it was too much temptation, for someone so thirsty. I imagined that if it was not Rodolphe it would be another. And later on came Leon.