Novel by Gustave Flaubert, published in two volumes in 1857. The novel, with the subtitle Moeurs de province ("Provincial Customs"), first appeared in installments in the Revue from October 1 to December 15, 1856. It ushered in a new age of realism in literature. In Madame Bovary, Flaubert took a commonplace story of adultery and made of it a book that has continued to be read because of its profound humanity. Emma Bovary is a bored and unhappy middle-class wife whose general dissatisfaction with life leads her to act out her romantic fantasies and embark on an ultimately disastrous love affair. She destroys her life by embracing abstractions--passion, happiness--as concrete realities. She ignores material reality itself, as symbolized by money, and is inexorably drawn to financial ruin and suicide.
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (1 of 61), Read 61 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 03:24 PM
I first read this book when I was a teenager, and with it
began my love for the classic novel. I was ABSURDLY
romantic as a teen and Emma made a great impact on me. I
never forgot her story.
I am re-reading Madame Bovary now, and as an adult find it
every bit as entrancing as I did as a teen.
One thing I noticed, in light of talk on Constant Reader, is
Flaubert's love for the exclamation point!
Every!-other!-sentence!-ends!-with!-an!-exclamation!-point!
Nevertheless, it is as beautifully a written book as any I've
read in my life.
Ruth, I read this in the introduction and thought of what you
said about words being like a window...
Flaubert:
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe,
present everywhere and visible nowhere."
I think its amazing Flaubert began to write Madame Bovary
when he was only 30 years old and considered it, at first,
only practice writing and nothing (originally) meant to be of
any importance.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (2 of 61), Read 51 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 04:46 PM
I just started MB this afternoon, so I haven't gotten very far
yet, but I'll be following along with interest. My copy has an
introduction by Carl Van Doren (does that name doesn't
mean anything to you all?) which says that Flaubert took 5
years to write it because he was trying to be scientific and
impersonal instead of "romantic" in his writing. It also says
that the novel was based on the story of an actual woman,
Delphine Couturier.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (3 of 61), Read 53 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 04:53 PM
Really?! Well, I bet Delphine was just thrilled!
We should compare intros..mine is by somebody named
Terence Cave.
Does yours mention Balzac at all?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (4 of 61), Read 52 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 04:59 PM
I suspect Delphine was in no condition to worry about what
Flaubert wrote. According to the intro, she "had married a
country doctor, had had affairs with a squire and a notary's
clerk, and had recently killed herself." (emphasis mine)
And, no, mine doesn't reference Balzac.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (5 of 61), Read 50 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf dan1066@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 05:39 PM
You know, Beej, I studied Madame Bovary so long ago and
even once used it with some writing students to illustrate
powerful writing. There's some paragraph in the novel
where Flaubert is able to describe a scene to all five senses
without making it at all obvious. I'll never forget the light
bulbs coming on over the students' heads when they
realized the author was that adept at rendering an
experience.
God I wish I could remember that passage. It never
mentioned nose, tongue, sight, sound, or touch--but the
whole passage was evocative with all of them. It was
stunning.
Dan
It's OK--they're all smoking!
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (6 of 61), Read 49 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 06:15 PM
Beej-
I shall take this up tonight since I have (ahem) finished BK,
as I promised you I would.**
**Beej was the one that encouraged me so strongly to
read BK because SHE was going to read it......HA!
K, who won't hold the grudge
too long.....
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (7 of 61), Read 52 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 06:31 PM
I recall reading this on CR with some fondness. I was
struggling to read at least parts of it in French so I could get
some feel for the translation. Not ever having taken a lick of
French, this was an uphill battle, although I was armed with
dog years of Spanish and German and a Jesuit-load of Latin,
not to mention a computerized translation program and
enough French dictionaries and grammars to herniate an ox.
Still it was fun, no matter how tortured French-speakers
such as Jane Niemeier were by the ordeal.
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end." -- John
Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to mow your
own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (8 of 61), Read 53 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 07:02 PM
And yet I read this and hardly remember a thing about it!!
Perhaps I shall look at it again, maybe now that I'm more
romantic, I'll enjoy it.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (9 of 61), Read 59 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 08:18 PM
Oh, Sherri! I hope you do read it with me!
Dick, I have to hand it to you..that was a brave step! Did
you really manage to translate it all? WOW! I am really
impressed! You're one smart guy. (But you know what? It
really doesn't surprise me that you did that, because you
truly are one of those rare guys who knows he 'has to sing
his own song in the end,'... even if you still have to mow
your own lawn!)
Dan, I'm going to be looking for that passage now. Do you
remember at all where abouts in the book it takes place?
I'm only just beginning Part II so I'm hoping I didn't pass it
already.
Kay...I'm sorry. LOL!!!!! hahahaaaaaa!!!! But I as I told you,
I WILL finish BK!
I came across this quote of Flaubert that just knocked me
down. Its in reference to a certain conversation between
Emma and Leon in Part II:
"It is something that could be taken seriously, and yet I fully
intend it as grotesque. This will be the first time, I think, that a
book makes fun of its leading lady and its leading man. The
irony does not detract from the pathetic aspect, but rather
intensifies it. In my third part, which will be full of farcical
things, I want my reader to weep."
(letter of 9 October 1853)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (10 of 61), Read 64 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 08:20 PM
Dick, Would you be willing to do a re-read, this time in
English, with me?
(I heard a rumor that Dale is really into this novel, too..)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (11 of 61), Read 48 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 09:41 PM
Beej,
I wish I had saved that discussion of Madame Bovary we
had on CC a few years ago. I look forward to reading your
notes on the book.
Honestly, Beej, if you can make it through the first half of
the Brothers Karamazov, the second part virtually flies. It's
a bit akin to wading through some of the long philosophical
passages in Anna Karenina in order to get back to a
wonderful story. (Not that I want to make you feel like you
have to finish or anything. :)
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (12 of 61), Read 61 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 16, 2001 09:47 PM
Ann, I will finish BK..(Has Kay been talking to you? LOL!)
Actually I read The Grand Inquisitor chapter twice, it made
that much of impact on me.
I do promise I will finish it...
I wish the MB discussion was available, too. I've read many
of the classics, and this is definitely one of my favorites.
Its sooo different to read MB first as a teen and then as an
adult..I see Emma in a totally different way now!
Beej
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe,
present everywhere and visible nowhere." Flaubert
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (13 of 61), Read 45 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 08:53 AM
Beej-
Since you've read "Grand Inquisitor" twice, PLEASE pop over
to BK and join the discussion on that chapter. I found myself
a tad confused regarding "freedom." Freedom from what?
K, offering Beej a simple way to
atone
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (14 of 61), Read 51 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 11:36 AM
I agree, Anne. My recollection is that the Madame Bovary
discussion was a pretty good one. Too bad it is lost forever.
I don't think this is a book that ever really scores with
readers who are too young. A little experience of the world
is necessary. The book could just as easily have been set in
provincial Iowa.
Steve
How far away the ball already seemed! Why should there
be such a distance between yesterday morning and
tonight? Her trip to Vaubyessard had made a gap in her
life like one of those great crevices that a storm
sometimes carves out in the mountains in a single night.
She resigned herself, however; reverently she packed
away in the chest of drawers her lovely dress and even her
satin slippers, whose soles had yellowed from the floor
wax. Her heart was like them; the wealth had rubbed off
on her, something that would never be erased.--Madame
Bovary
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (15 of 61), Read 51 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 11:43 AM
Lynn, all I knew was the Carl Van Doren was a big time
literary guy and Mark's brother.
I now find that he said this, which I like very much (and
James Thurber apparently did, too):
A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (16 of 61), Read 37 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 12:31 PM
Beej, I'll try to tag along but things are kind of flying around
here so I'll be spotty. And, no I didn't translate the whole
thing -- good lord. Way less than a hundred pages total, I
think, just to get a feel (or try to anyway) of the way the
translation might affect the flow of the story, phrasing, etc.
It was an interesting if arduous experiment. Helped we had
some real French speakers along for the ride to explain
those little squiggly marks and like that.
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end." -- John
Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to mow your
own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (17 of 61), Read 34 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 12:46 PM
Or perhaps, Lynn, you wish us to recall his nephew, Charles
Van Doren?
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (18 of 61), Read 44 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 01:18 PM
Well, while we're at it, lets toss in his brilliant literary agent
and the love of his life, Mamie Van Doren:
http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/van_doren/index.shtml
Dick, How I would love to read some of MB in its original
language. It must be exquisite.
Any time you can afford for MB would be so appreciated..
And what the heck do those squiggles mean?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (19 of 61), Read 40 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 01:31 PM
Thanks for all the helpful(?) Van Doren information :-) All I
knew was that he probably wasn't related to my Van Doren
cousins!
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (20 of 61), Read 47 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 02:02 PM
I'm half done with MB, and if my memory serves me
correctly, I was much, much more sympathetic toward Emma
when I read this as a teenager. But, back then, I KNEW I
would eventually marry the most exciting, handsome,
brilliant, exotic, generous, charming, attentive, romantic,
sensual man to ever walk the face of the earth, and felt
sorry that Emma was stuck with this dull Dr.Dudley Do-right.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (21 of 61), Read 39 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 03:29 PM
(Emma) set herself to discover what it was that people in real
life meant by such words as 'bliss', 'passion' and 'intoxication'-
words, all of them, which she had thought so fine when she
read them in books.
I think this is why I related better to Emma, as a person,
when I was a teenager. I was as romantically naive as she.
And did I find this incredible, superhuman man who was the
most exciting, handsome, brilliant, exotic, generous,
charming, attentive, romantic, sensual man to ever walk the
face of the earth?
Nope..instead, I was married and divorced within a few
years after reading MB..
So now I am able to read her a bit more realistically. i guess
that's the big difference.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (22 of 61), Read 43 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 04:31 PM
I went thru the same switch as you, Beej. I was totally on
her side as a teen. Later, when in my full maturity, I was
irritated as hell by her shortsightedness. Even later, in my
fuller maturity, I was just sad.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (23 of 61), Read 42 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 07:05 PM
All this talk is making me anxious, I hope to get this out of
the library tomorrow. I have no recollection whether I felt
sorry for her or not. Probably did not so much for the
romance but because I always felt women were trapped.
But I don't remember. I wonder how not being married, but
perhaps a bit more romantic now, will color my reading of it.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (24 of 61), Read 44 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 07:57 PM
You know Ruth, now I'm thinking each classic should be
read three times throughout life..as a teen, a adult and in
'fuller maturity.' From this experience, it would be almost as
though reading three entirely different novels.
Kay and Lynn, Have you met Monsieur Rudolph Boulanger
yet? (hold on to your hats when you do meet him!) Since
this happens not long after his introduction into the novel, I
don't think it will spoil anything for you...
Monsieur Boulanger lets his mind dwell on Emma Bovary:
Poor little woman - gasping for love like a carp on the kitchen
table for water! If I paid her a few compliments, she'd be at my
feet - I'm dam' sure of that! And a very charming, sweet little
morsel she'd be...But how to get rid of her afterwards 'd be a
bit of a problem.
Oh, HO!!!! Monsieur Boulanger! What a CAD you are! A
weasel, a rogue, if there ever was one!
Sherri, I'm looking forward to hearing how your reaction
differs from your first read. I know it made a HUGE
difference for me!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (25 of 61), Read 45 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 08:03 PM
'Gasping for love like a carp on the kitchen table.'
Oh, God..Every time I read that I wish he were real...
...so I could hit him over the head with a skillet.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (26 of 61), Read 40 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 08:44 PM
'Gasping for love like a carp on the kitchen table.
Jeeze, what writing. I'd kill to be able to toss off a phrase
like that.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (27 of 61), Read 42 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 09:48 PM
But, Ruth..a CARP?.. I picture Emma flopping around the
table, mouth gaping, fins flapping, eyes bugging, panting
"Love me! Love me!"
And creepy ol' Boulanger standing over her, salivating, with
a gutting knife in his hand.
Maybe 'carp' is prettier in French.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (28 of 61), Read 42 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Friday, August 17, 2001 10:22 PM
But isn't that just the mental picture that Flaubert wanted
you to have? Think of the desperation of that carp, out of
his element, gasping for his life. He'll do anything for
someone who'll give him a nice breath of clean water. That
image says it all.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (29 of 61), Read 35 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Theresa Simpson theresa.a.simpson@gte.net
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 01:09 AM
I read MB when I was in law school; I think I posted on it
back on Prodigy. Emma was such a ninny! I had sympathy
for her as someone stuck in a life she didn't want, but she
was so damn selfish, and not bright enough to really dream
of a different life - she was stuck with a kind of formless
yearning. The writing (style, gasp!) was great though, even
in translation.
I went on to read Flaubert's Sentimental Education. This
book is not as juicy as MB, but it says a helluva lot more,
and more subtly. Highly recommended (but be ready to
wade through a lot of topical political/social allusion - you
know, the type where one is certain there's a lot of nuance
totally out of one's grasp due to being born in the wrong
time and place.)
Theresa
I had to quit my fire-eating career when I could no longer
tell when to spit and when to swallow. Daphne Gottlieb
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (30 of 61), Read 33 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherry Keller shkell@starband.net
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 07:35 AM
I read it with CC for the first time, and I remember having
much the same reaction as Theresa. She really was a ninny,
good word for her. But Flaubert made her sympathetic in
spite of herself. I voted for Sentimental Education when it
was up for CC, but it didn't make the cut. Maybe next year.
That carp line is priceless. Thanks, Beej, for reminding me of
it.
Sherry
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (31 of 61), Read 35 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 08:58 AM
I've been trying to figure out what all happened here with
Emma. Was it a case where she thought marriage would
bring her the bliss she had read about in her books? And
when that didn't happen, it seems she believed a life of high
society was what would make her happy. Then she began
to pour over magazines to keep up with high society's
fashions and fads.
Maybe Charles wasn't the most exciting man around, but he
adored her and Berthe. He was hard working...they had a
nice home and the respect of their community.
Emma's mother-in-law blames books for putting ideas into
Emma's head. And this might be true. Emma seems to have
a real problem differentiating between fantasy and the real
world.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (32 of 61), Read 31 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Janet Mego vsjego@cs.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 10:04 AM
Hi, Beej--I did say I'd join this discussion, didn't I ?! What
with school starting, computer-greedy kids at home
occupying MY place at the works (haha) sometimes only 3-4
hours between get-home time and sleep-time, and trouble
getting onto my web board (which I don't think has
anything to do with CR), it's been a challenge. . .
Dale is GREAT on this novel, he's the one you really want.
The first time I heard him speak, to Asa's college world lit
class, he made stunning connections between MB and the
contemporary world of media influence on today's individual.
I have the notes I scrawled somewhere but of course don't
remember the details too well--it was a while back, dammit.
I taught this book once to honors seniors, and whoever
above said it might not be that great with kids was right in
a way--they DO in fact need a more "worldly" background of
some sort as a foundation, but we had some good
discussions anyway.
The guys didn't have too much sympathy for poor Emma,
perhaps predictably. She was "selfish," self-obssessed,
pathetic but not sympathetic in their view. The girls in
general were less opinionated, and not as defensive of
Emma as I'd found myself hoping (well, I do like a good
argument.)--I did realize that they were less inclined to see
her as a victim of her environment than I was for the
obvious reason that they had not grown up in the 70s with
the women's movement, were less inclined to see her as
oppressed. Although they did see her as such, not to the
extent that I did.
Also, as groups of kids go, this one was fairly conservative.
I'll try to find my notes from Dale's talk, maybe I'll even email
him and beg him to take a break from whatever's consuming
him. Also, I need to find time to review. . .this is a
worthwhile topic.
Janet
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (33 of 61), Read 35 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 10:18 AM
Hey, Janet! I would love to hear Dale's take on the
connections between MB and the contemporary world of
media influence. I truly believe the the influence of books
had a lot to do with Emma's problems and discontent. (long
ago, I had a friend whose marriage crumbled because her
husband didn't match up to her favorite soap opera
characters..so I know media influence still has its 'pull' in
contemporary times. Interesting, huh?)
I was probably right around the same age as your honor
students when I first read MB. I remember I blamed Charles
for Emma's sad life. To me, he was nothing more than a
boring, drab lump on a log. Now, as a wife, mother and
homemaker, (and quite a few years older) I see things
entirely different.
Boy, I hope you can talk Dale into stepping in here, at last
for a little while. Its bad enough I missed the previous
Constant Reader discussion. I'll bet it was just INCREDIBLE!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (34 of 61), Read 51 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 11:43 AM
The more I think about this reference of Emma as a carp,
the more I see how well it fits into the way a man such as
Boulanger would view a woman..anything 'nicer' would
denote respect, and he certainly had no respect for women.
They existed only for his use and then to be discarded.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (35 of 61), Read 38 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 12:52 PM
Just listen to what our smooth mover says when he
attempts to bed Emma!:
I keep you in my heart like a Madonna on a pedestal..
I want to scream "No, no, Emma! Don't fall for it! He keeps
you in his heart like a flopping fish on a table!"
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy..you cad, you..
He has so many smooth moves his middle name should be
X-Lax.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (36 of 61), Read 36 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 03:04 PM
Beej,
Well, I am certainly enjoying your commentary. :)
This book created a scandal when it was originally
published. Ah, things were so much tamer then.
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (37 of 61), Read 30 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 04:46 PM
I've got my copy and just started. Charles is married to the
old widow with the dowry. He's not starting out as an
interesting character, I see him plodding around, not
knowing what to do with the wife and all her aches and
pains. But now all I see is the carp flopping around. Can't
wait to get to that passage.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (38 of 61), Read 25 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 08:01 PM
Ann, I'm glad you're enjoying all my comments, but this sort
of guy just ticks me off!
Sherri, Did you find it odd Charles' parents would encourage
this first marriage to woman so much older? Man, was she
ever a work of art!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (39 of 61), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 08:56 PM
Beej,
In times past, money and property counted for a whole lot
more than physical appeal.
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (40 of 61), Read 26 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 09:03 PM
I knew that was true for females and I really should have
known it was for men, too, but it still surprised me his
parents would arrange such a thing between their only son
and a woman past childbearing age.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (41 of 61), Read 25 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 09:08 PM
I really like this line from MB:
'Human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat our
tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing
to move the stars to pity.'
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (42 of 61), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Gail Singer gailsinger_gross@hotmail.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 10:29 PM
DALE's busy.. but he will surface soon!!
gail...an ardent fan of our CERTIFIED BOOK JUNKIE!
26 DAYS TILL MILWAUKEE!
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (43 of 61), Read 23 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 18, 2001 11:54 PM
gail, I read your little daily countdown until Milwaukee and
wish with all my heart I could be there with y'all. (next year.
For certain, next year.....)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (44 of 61), Read 22 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 07:19 AM
I'm enjoying this very much. I thought the widow was an
odd choice, but the money angle was important. She was
odd in her jealousies, it seemed that she didn't love Charles
when she married but maybe she was afraid of being left
because she was old. Then when her true money situation
was exposed!! I thought it a little odd that she died the
next day, but it freed Charles.
It's obvious that Charles loves Emma, for the first time he is
happy and he wants to do his best and show his love, but
never having had love, I think he will not know exactly how
to show it to Emma. And I can see already, just after the
marriage that he doesn't understand her. And she doesn't
know what love is either. She wanted to escape from the
farm, and she thought Charles lifestyle would suit her, but,
here comes the "media" influence - "what was meant, in life,
by the words 'bliss', 'passion', and 'rapture' - words that
had seemed so beautiful to her in books." That "rapture"
word has me wondering too. LOL.
One other thing that struck me as I'm reading, is that this
translation seems more "english". It doesn't seem to have a
French feel to it. I can't explain it better.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (45 of 61), Read 22 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 10:31 AM
Charles has just married Emma. There have been a couple
of telling details regarding his personality.
The first is after the first Mrs. Bovary's death. He dedicates
an evening to remembering. After all, "she had loved him."
The second is during the walk from the church to the
celebration. Emma stops periodically and tries to remove
burrs from her gown with her gloved hands. Charles, with
nothing in his hands, simply waits for her.
Geesh. He could have beaten Narcissus for being
self-centered. Emma doesn't stand a chance.
Sherri-
I don't get a sense of the story being French at all. Not sure
why, either. However, I'm not too far into it.
I thought it convenient that Mrs. Bovary kicked the bucket
so conveniently, too. I guess it was a case of plot necessity.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (46 of 61), Read 23 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 01:12 PM
There's been a bit more on Emma's background - the
convent, the romantic books- I think this passage at the
end of chap.6 says a lot about her - "By the time Charles
first appeared at Les Bertaux she thought that she was
cured of illusions - that she had nothing more to learn, and
no great emotions to look forward to.
But in her eagerness for a change, or perhaps
overstimulated by this man's presence, she easily
persuaded herself that love, that marvelous thing which had
hitherto been like a great rosy-plumaged bird soaring in the
splendors of poetic skies, was at last within her grasp. And
now she could not bring herself to believe that the
uneventful life she was leading was the happiness of which
she had dreamed."
It seems to me that she jumped into a situation not fully
aware of what she wanted and what she was getting. I
think the same is true for Charles. Both had been living -
going through the motions - with emotions they were not
fully aware of, and once they start becoming aware, don't
know what to do. It seems that perhaps they deserve each
other.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (47 of 61), Read 28 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 01:30 PM
Regarding the conveniency of the death of Charles' first
wife; this is a case of truth being stranger than fiction.
The character of Charles Bovary was based on a real person
by the name of Eugene Delamare. Eugene married a woman
five years his senior, who did die shortly after their
marriage. He then married the seventeen year old Delphine
Couturier, who served as the model for Emma.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (48 of 61), Read 26 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 01:36 PM
Wow, Beej, I love that quote you cited earlier. That's a
keeper.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (49 of 61), Read 30 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 01:50 PM
Isn't it gorgeous? I knew you would love it too, Ruth!
I just read how Flaubert got the name 'Bovary'..apparently,
Bova is a slurred, farcical reference to an ox and cart, and
'Ry' is the town where Delamare married and worked. There
is a double entendre, here, in the fact that a local woman
named Mlle. de Bovery was involved in a notorious poison
and adultery trial in 1844..
I also found out MB was originally released as a magazine
serial..as were most the classics from this time, it seems.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (50 of 61), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 02:15 PM
Kay and Sherri, I think Emma REALLY began to run into
trouble after she attended the dance party at the house of
the Marquis d'Andervilliers. Prior to that, she had her
fantasies but it seems the lifestyle she witnessed during
this dance made her realize there was an elite group who
actually did live such lives as were in her books.
To pull out a bit of the quote Steve posted earlier:
Her heart was like them (her satin dance slippers): the touch
of wealth had stamped it with a mark which would never be
effaced.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (51 of 61), Read 19 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Sunday, August 19, 2001 10:00 PM
I've decided that Charles Bovary is REAL Gooberhead!
(Kay and Janet, I posted that for you!!!)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (52 of 61), Read 15 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 06:34 AM
Beej - I agree the party really put her on the road to ruin!
And Charles is definitely oblivious. I liked this description -
"Wasn't it a man's role, though, to know everything?
Shouldn't he be expert at all kinds of things, able to initiate
you into the intensities of passion, the refinements of life, all
the mysteries? This(italics) man could teach you nothing; he
knew nothing, he wished for nothing. He took it for granted
that she was content; and she resented his settled calm,
his serene dullness, the very happiness she herself brought
him."
He is clueless. He just assumes all is well.
He's got no ambitions, no desires but food and not to kill
anyone with his doctoring. I think I'd be a bit discontent
too!
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (53 of 61), Read 19 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 10:41 AM
Sherri, I'm really enjoying your thoughts.
Charles had absolutely no lust for life. He had about as
much passion as a pile of dirt. He didn't even get worked up
when Emma didn't come home all night after her 'piano
lesson.'
I think there's a lot to explore in this line:
'One should never touch idols: the gilt may come off on one's
hands.'
Later on, is this question:
'Why did everything on which she leaned crumble immediately
to dust?
Emma's idols were her fantasies and once these fantasies
began to cross over into reality, 'the gold came off on her
hands', leaving her with the knowledge they were shams.
And she wonders:
Why had her life been such a failure?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (54 of 61), Read 14 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:33 AM
I'm just at the part where they move. And as I read the
description of the country - (from memory I don't have the
book with me) - barrren, poor crops, worst Neufatchel
cheese, etc. My first thought was - Charles would pick a
place like that.
Beej - you're a little ahead of me, so I'm not sure about the
gilt stuff, but it sounds like Emma - not knowing how to
separate, or blend, fantasy and reality.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (55 of 61), Read 17 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:45 AM
Sherri, I'll hold back posting for a little while until you catch
up..Let me know when you get to the part where Charles
operates on the club foot, ok? (I won't say anymore about
that until after you've read it..)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (56 of 61), Read 13 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 12:45 PM
Gosh, it seems to me that you ladies are breaking a little
hard on Charles. He's the ideal husband, is he not? Steady,
dependable, serious, and adoring. A decent provider. He
stays at home and doesn't go out boozing with the boys.
It appears to me that Charles is everything a reasonable
woman would want in a husband.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (57 of 61), Read 18 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 12:57 PM
Steady, dependable, serious, and adoring. A decent provider.
So was my FATHER. but I didn't particularly view him as
passionate. And I certainly wouldn't find any 'bliss' in a
father figure.
(Or, perhaps, the operative words are "a reasonable
woman." But is passion ever reasonable?)
I think most women prefer a touch of smut in their men.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (58 of 61), Read 15 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 01:06 PM
Steady, dependable,
serious, and adoring
don't mean squat
if the guy is boring.
But then, you know all that, Steve. You're just baiting us.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (59 of 61), Read 14 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 01:23 PM
Steady, dependable,
serious, and adoring
don't mean squat
if the guy is boring
Boy, Ruth,
ain't that
the truth!
I can get dependable and adorable from my dog. Emma
should have gotten a dog instead.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (60 of 61), Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 02:50 PM
No, I wasn't baiting anyone. Boulanger is passionate.
Actually, Leon was passionate, too. Charles is exactly what
I said he is and what Boulanger is not--an ideal husband
and father.
Emma's desire for passion and romance are the result of
one thing. She reads too many novels. Therefore, it does
not surprise me that you two would consider Charles a
bore, novel readers as you yourselves are. Charles's only
fault as far as I can recall is that he is a somewhat noisy
eater at table.
You picked up on Flaubert's foot fetish yet, Beej?
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (61 of 61), Read 3 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 03:00 PM
Charles is worse than boring. He's stupid.
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (62 of 62), Read 2 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 03:21 PM
I'm going to say something here, that might be deemed a
bit inappropriate, but it will suit its purpose. By the same
thread of logic as you present, Steve, a perfect wife would
be one who keeps a clean home, cooks good and
nourishing meals, adores her husband and who is always
dependable...in affect, a saint..
BUT...and I think most men would agree, there's an
important element missing here. On the surface this
appears to be the perfect wife; a saint, but when a saint is
on her knees, and ALL she's doing is praying, she's far from
the perfect wife, I would think.
A perfect husband? Uh, uh. The important element is
missing.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (63 of 87),
Read 28 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 03:54 PM
Stupid? I don't really see how he can be stupid
and have become a physician. He may not have
been a brilliant surgeon, but he was a good
country doctor. Clearly, he took on some surgery
here that was beyond his capabilities, but it
appears to me that Emma dogged him into that
for her own selfish reasons. No, I think the
judgment of "stupid" is the most unjust
judgment of all.
As to your last, Beej, it appears that you are
simply explaining again that the intangible
quality of passion is missing from Charles.
(Interesting manner in which you have chosen to
phrase your "saint" example.) But so far, I
gather that passion is the opposite of boring. I'll
bet there are a lot of women out there who have
had the experience of passionate men who
would like nothing better than to try boring for
awhile--in the sense that Charles is boring.
I could be wrong, but I don't think so. You
women are ganging up on this poor guy.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (64 of 87),
Read 31 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 04:05 PM
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, yes..all the
qualities you list are wonderful and necessary in
a relationship, but that passion is also
necessary.
As for Emma, I absolutely agree she lived in a
fairy tale world, and I find her slurs toward
Charles selfish and uncalled for.
Just because Charles is dull and passionless is
no excuse for Emma's behavior. She has too
much time on her hands.
I think this is the biggest difference between the
first time I read this and now..this time I see
Emma as callous and completely self serving ...no
matter how dull Charles was, he did love her.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (65 of 87),
Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 04:45 PM
Passion, shmassion. What keeps a man from
being boring is wit, intelligence, capacity for fun,
curiousity, interests. Charles was a stick in the
mud.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John
Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (66 of 87),
Read 25 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 04:58 PM
Absolutely, but to me those qualities are all part
of passion. I don't mean passion purely as a
definition of sexuality or sensuality, but as a lust
for life.
I think Emma and Charles each possess what
the other lacks. Emma definitely has the lust for
life, passion, but lacks devotion, consideration
and caring. Charles is devoted, considerate and
caring, but lacks passion, a lust for life.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (67 of 87),
Read 21 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 05:06 PM
Bingo!
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John
Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (68 of 87),
Read 26 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 05:29 PM
I almost forgot to address this foot fetish of
Flaubert's. Flaubert uses these little delicious
descriptions almost from the start..very, VERY
sensual. And if the reader has, by any chance,
missed this, Flaubert spells it out toward the end
of the novel:
Emma visits an attorney and he notices her feet
are damp.
"Put them on the stove," he said..."higher...on the
porcelain."
She was afraid of making it dirty. The lawyer
protested with a air of gallantry:
"Nothing is ever spoiled by beauty."
Flaubert uses feet to denote both beauty and
homeliness in his women. Obviously, he saw a
woman's feet as part of...or lack of...her
sensuality.
Actually, its quite interesting to watch how
Flaubert uses not only feet, but also foot apparel
through out this novel. We go from reading of
Charles lying in bed next to his old first wife, her
feet as cold as icicles, immediately to go to the
farm of Emma's father, where Charles studies
Emma's pretty little booted heels. And after the
eventful dance, its the dance slippers that carry
the symbolism of her passion. One gentleman
tenderly glances at slippers that were a
'love-gift.' And Emma, whose passion has turned
into a hatred for all men, wishes to trample upon
them all. The examples are many, many, many.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (69 of 87),
Read 21 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 06:45 PM
Ok, folks. Now listen up. Here's the Emma and
Charles Bovary Gospel according to Kay.
Steve - I know you're kidding when it comes to
Charles.
Charles is a dullard. His surgery bookcase is lined
with uncut books, whose bindings are worn from
passing through so many hands. In other words,
he never opens the darn things. Also, he's an
idiot physician, afraid of his patients dying, so all
he does is bleed them and give them emetics.
He's also called to account once by another
physician, and when Charles tells Emma, she
loses it because he lost face, and didn't even
care. And let's not forget, Mama had to do some
fineigling to keep him in med school. Would you
want him as your doctor? Would he incite
passion in any healthy, intelligent female? NOT!
The man is self centered, and hasn't a clue about
what Emma is really like or needs. He's not even
aware she's unhappy other than to say, "You
just need a change of scene." Not once does he
ask, "What's wrong? Talk to me." She's a
decorative object, a possession, and a complete
mystery to him. It never occurs to him to see her
as a person. Of course, that wasn't the trend.
The only reason he's a good husband is that he
doesn't have a clue what makes life vibrant or
exciting. He's a good guy simply because he has
the imagination of a nit.
Oh, and let's not forget how reluctant Charles is
to stand up for Emma when his mother comes to
visit. Big boys put their wives first and foremost.
Other than all that, Charles is a swell kind of guy.
Ha!
And Emma - yes, she's certainly a ninny, and
then some. But look at her childhood - not one
opportunity in her 16 odd years before she
meets Charles. The convent taught her nothing
except to expect angels, miracles, and a white
knight. She is capable - she runs the household,
and she does seem to enjoy literature. (Ok, ok -
we won't go there.) She's never had to face
hardship or think for herself. She's always
looking to someone else to whisk her off into a
new, better, glitzier life. In some ways, I'm
reminded of the Movie Goer by Walker Percy. Like
his main character, Emma lives her life through
books and other people. She does not take
direct action for herself. When she and Leon
finally take up with each other, it will be because
he's playing a role in her script, not because she
feels true passion for him.
I'm only 1/3 of the way through, so I reserve the
right to be totally wrong.
I know people like Emma - so caught up in the
more is better outlook they cannot enjoy what
they have.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (70 of 87),
Read 21 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 07:31 PM
Kay just took the words right out of my mouth! I
agree wholeheartedly!
Charles is ok as far as he goes, he does love
Emma in a way, but he doesn't "understand"
her. He wants to do things to show his love for
her, but what he does is for himself, not
something Emma would see as love. He doesn't
realize that there is something wrong with
Emma.
Now, Emma is a problem too, she lives in a
fantasy, and can't quite relate to what's really
going on. There's a passage after they move to
Yonville (or dullsville) where she is thinking that
the move itself will make her life interesting:
"like the opening of a new phase of her life. She
refused to believe that things could be the same
in different places; and since what had gone
before was so bad, what was to come must
certainly be better."
She thinks the location is what will make a
difference. She wants things to be different, but
doesn't make much of an effort, she wants it all
handed to her, and Charles who would hand it to
her, doesn't know what to give.
It's funny reading this now, because I see all
that stuff like forshadowing that we were
supposed to pay attention to in high school, but
I always missed it. Now it just jumps out at me. I
find myself thinking "uh-oh"!
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (71 of 87),
Read 19 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 08:10 PM
Great notes, Sherri and Kay. As I said, the 3rd
reading of this just made me sad all around.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John
Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (72 of 87),
Read 17 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 09:20 PM
"Oh, and let's not forget how reluctant Charles is to
stand up for Emma when his mother comes to
visit. Big boys put their wives first and foremost.
Amen, Kay!
I do think, however, we need to be careful not to
justify Emma's actions. I would guess most girls
of her social standing and era had similar
backgrounds but did not get swept away by
fantasies to this extreme.
If every husband who was dull and clueless had
a wife who was cold and cheating, the streets of
the world would be overrun with Jezabels.
All that said, I'm going to stand by my previous
statement:
CHARLES BOVARY WAS A GOOBERHEAD!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (73 of 87),
Read 16 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 09:36 PM
I think another thing we need to keep in mind is
that this is Emma's story. I think if we could read
Charles' story, we might view this all differently.
Flaubert puts us into Emma's thoughts and heart
way, way more than he does Charles'.
Also, Kay and Sherri, I think as you approach the
ending of MB you will feel a bit more tenderness
toward Charles.
Ruth, I agree...its just plain and simply sad. And
human..its such a human story.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (74 of 87),
Read 15 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 10:15 PM
Oh, I'm sure my opinion will change for both the
Bovarys. I was half kidding in my post above. I
think Flaubert tempers his descriptions of Emma
and Charles with an overall sense of fated
unhappiness.
I loved the way Flaubert indicated that the move
to Yonville was another dead end - figuratively.
He describes Yonville, "The street (the only one),
a rifle-shot in length and flanked by several
shops, stops short at the turn of the road. If one
leaves it on the right side and follows the foot of
the Saint-Jean hills, one soon reaches the
cemetery." Like the beadle tending his garden at
the cemetery, Emma and Charles are trying to
make a life out of dead, empty expectations and
dreams.
Flaubert is somewhat empathetic to Emma and
Charles. He understands why Emma is the way
she is, yet he lets the reader know he also
thinks she's a ninny at times. In all, though, I'd
say Flaubert sees her as someone to be pitied,
even though flawed.
She is an intelligent woman - she runs the
household and keeps track of the accounts. She
has a mind that is not allowed to be used. "But
life for her was cold as an attic whose window
faces north, and boredom, a silent spider, spun
its webs in the shadow of every corner of her
heart." Geesh - no wonder she wanted more.
And yet, when I think about Emma's distancing
herself from her daughter, I lose any empathy
I've gained.
I wonder if Flaubert felt himself see-sawing that
way?
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (75 of 87),
Read 14 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 10:22 PM
"But life for her was cold as an attic whose window
faces north, and boredom, a silent spider, spun its
webs in the shadow of every corner of her heart."
Lordie, could this man write..just sentence after
beautiful sentence. I don't know how many times
I would read something in MB and just gasp from
its beauty. it literally would take my breath away.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (76 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Edward Houghton eddh@pacbell.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:00 PM
If the requirement for love is that a man must
understand a woman, then this world would be
composed of nothing but old maids and old
bachelors.
EDD
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (77 of 87),
Read 7 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:09 PM
Amen, Edd! Thank goodness for reinforcements.
What a dynamite discussion this has become
concerning the question of "What women want."
My bottom line remains that Emma would have
been happy and satisfied and content had she
not read novels.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (78 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:21 PM
Moreover--I find that I'm not finished--Emma's
affliction of reading novels led to her failure to
appreciate Charles's wonderful qualities. As a
direct result of reading novels, she became a
slut.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (79 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:26 PM
In other words, all the female members of this
illustrious group are headed straight to hell in a
handbasket.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John
Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (80 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:30 PM
If they take the wrong kind of novels (or films)
too seriously, yes. Many's the young lady who
flopped too quickly after reading Jane Eyre.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (81 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:33 PM
Hey! There's worse things that can happen,
Ruth! Some things are just worth bad
consequences!
HAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA!!! I almost fell out of my
chair with that one Steve!
Hey, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going
to go through MB and assemble a reading list of
Emma's books. THEN, I'm going to sell it to these
old guys in my neighborhood to give to their
wives!
(I'll be rich by the end of the week!)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (82 of 87),
Read 9 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:43 PM
On a serious note, I do think Emma was
influenced by her books, but I don't think she
would have been satisfied AT ALL, even without
them.
And Boulanger would have still picked up on
that..
And what is it with Charles' dirty finger nails? Not
only is that a huge turn off, its not exactly what I
would want to see on my physician.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (83 of 87),
Read 6 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:48 PM
I'm not going to disagree with that, Beej. My only
point is that the "passionate" man that some
women seem intent on finding are predators.
Boulanger is an archetype in this regard.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (84 of 87),
Read 2 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:54 PM
Absolutely. Boulanger was the skimmed scum off
a pond.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (85 of 87),
Read 2 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Monday, August 20, 2001 11:55 PM
And, I would just add, visit any neighborhood bar
and see what kind of premium attaches to clean
fingernails among the young women tightly
poured into their jeans and tank-tops.
Not bloody well much, in my experience.
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end."
-- John Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to
mow your own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (86 of 87),
Read 1 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:00 AM
Again, I agree. But Flaubert did seem to go out
of his way to make Charles seem repulsive, at
least to his female readers.
Do you men feel sorry for Emma at all? Or do you
think she was a silly, stupid dreamer who
wrecked what could have been a good thing?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (87 of 87),
Read 1 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:01 AM
And I want to add, I do feel sorry for Charles. I
think he worked hard and loved his wife.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (88 of 141), Read 59 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:19 AM
Yes! Please never forget that when reading this, Beej.
Had Emma Bovary been married to Edd Houghton, who
reported in there every day in the aerospace industry for
decades and busted his ass and earned a nice pension so
that he and his wife could live somewhat comfortably now,
Emma Bovary would have still fucked around on him. And
you know why?
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (89 of 141), Read 46 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:44 AM
I'm hit with another one of those insomnia cases and fall
down tired, so I'm not as clear headed as I could be, but
no..I'm really not certain as to why Emma Bovary would
screw around on Edd..(sorry, Edd..) except to think that
Emma never worked a hard day in her life and didn't know
the meaning of the word 'appreciation'. Emma took and
took. Not one time did she express guilt over these affairs.
But I think I know what you will say as to why she'd screw
around if married to a good man, such as Edd.
And, despite Charles' inadequacies, Emma's betrayals are
not justified.
This book is such a tragedy.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (90 of 141), Read 46 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Edward Houghton eddh@pacbell.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:47 AM
STEVE
Jeeeez! Talk about damning with faint praise. Hadn't
realized what a dull life I had. You left out the nerdy
glasses, pocket protector and slide rule.
But even with those three strikes against me, I still
disagree. If Emma had been Mrs Houghton, she would have
been so satisfied that she would have had no reason to be
slutty anywhere but in the Houghton bedroom.
EDD
"Sex! Sex! The golem wants sex!..."
THE PUTTERMESSER PAPERS by Cynthia Ozick
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (91 of 141), Read 45 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:04 AM
There's not a doubt in my mind, Edd, you would have set
Emma's world on fire..and probably your bedroom, too.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (92 of 141), Read 33 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 08:37 AM
You know something, Edd? I was thinking the same thing
over coffee this morning before logging on. I sez to myself,
"Gosh, I wish I had used a hypothetical guy for my
argument instead of Edd Houghton. The Edd Houghton
example just doesn't work."
So I stand corrected. Edd Houghton is no Charles Bovary.
There is such a thing as a man who is not only a devoted
husband and father but who also brings such passion to life
that no wife of his could have anything left over for some
other man.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (93 of 141), Read 36 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherry Keller shkell@starband.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 08:41 AM
And Edd Houghton has a great sense of humor. From what I
remember about Charles Bovary, he wasn't the soul of wit.
Sherry
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (94 of 141), Read 36 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:18 AM
That is an extremely good point, Sherry. The lack of a sense
of humor may very well be Charles Bovary's primary fault.
So my comparison of Charles Bovary and Edd Houghton was
instructive after all--just not in the way I thought at first. It's
the contrast between the two that's important.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (95 of 141), Read 40 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:36 AM
And though Edd may not understand women, I'm sure he
understands that they are individuals with brains and not
just possessions or the family pet. Hence, a long-term,
happy marriage.
A marriage doesn't have to have understanding, but it
certainly needs an occasional attempt to understand your
spouse. Of course, the spouse needs to appreciate the
attempts to understand. Emma was too self-centered for
that, even if Charles had had the wits to try.
Emma's problem was not just her books. Emma's problem
was her character - always catered to, always protected,
always led to believe the world would come to her. She was
an indulged ninny, taught never to be satisfied with what
she had.
Neither Emma nor Charles attempted to see the other as a
person. Each was focused on himself. Neither took
responsibility for his own happiness. It was easier to
depend on others for that and to blame them when
happiness never came.
Emma lived her life according to what she read about in
books. Charles lacked a passion for life and had no humor
or wit. That's not a good combination if one expects a
healthy marriage.
I was reminded of David Copperfield and his adoration of
Dora, which annoyed me no end. Charles sees Emma as a
toy, to be pampered and indulged. That's no basis for a
healthy marriage, though pampering and indulgence are
highly appreciated and a good first step in this household.
What's the moral here? For all marriages to be happy, men
and women should first rid their shelves of all books. Then,
they should take an EST course to discover the secret of life.
Upon graduation, they should spend some time at Haight
Ashbury Academy spreading good will and love to all. Last,
they should read Madame Bovary and make every attempt
to live their lives opposite to how Emma and Charles live
theirs, as long as they don't go off the deep end the way
Mitya does in BK.
K, who denies any influence
from the books she's read
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (96 of 141), Read 29 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:04 AM
I surely do wish that our previous discussion of Madame
Bovary had been archived. Had it been I could then prove
when I first pointed out Emma's problem of reading too
much fiction.
Now I find that Erica Jong has stolen my idea lock, stock,
and barrel, and there's nothing I can do about it:
http://www.salon.com/sept97/bovary970915.html
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (97 of 141), Read 35 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:58 AM
Wow. I'm lost in my fantasy now of listening to Nabokov
lecturing on Madame Bovary!
Kay, I do think Emma's downfall was rooted in her novels. I
don't think that's really debatable. But that's not to say all
women who read will become confused and adulterous, and
therefore shouldn't read. I really don't think that's what's
being said.
Btw, the author of the preface of my copy says Flaubert
alludes to the idea that (on top of everything else) Charles
was impotent.
So there were lots of factors at play, here.
(I wonder if Nabokov's MB lecture is anywhere on the net...)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (98 of 141), Read 30 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:47 AM
Beej-
I don't think that's what's being said either. I was kidding.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (99 of 141), Read 30 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:49 AM
I know you were...I realized that after i had posted...the
moral is, read posts extra careful if you only get a few hours
sleep!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (100 of 141), Read 28
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:56 AM
Oh dear, I read the article Steve posted, and found out that
Emma dies. I didn't know that. Well, I'll still look forward to
finding out how it happens. And I haven't yet noticed the
foot fetish!
Sherri
(Thinking of what novels may do for her love life:)
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (101 of 141), Read 28
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dottie Randall randallj@ix.netcom.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:52 AM
What a romp this discussion is, you guys!!!! Well, I guess I'll
hit Madame Bovary soon -- I am barely into Brothers K. so
my plan to catch up is a failed one -- but I AM enjoying and
will read it. Gotta say though this is one fast moving thread
here!
To use one of Ruth's expressions -- as you were -- I'll be
listening in though!
Dottie -- chuckling to herself
ID is an oxymoron!
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (102 of 141), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:59 AM
I think the bottom line here, is that Emma simply was not in
love with Charles. So what does a young woman in 19th
century France do when she realizes, VERY soon after her
wedding, that she does not love the man she married?
Does she just say 'oh well, them's the breaks' and stick it
out for the remainder of her life? Divorce was not, after all,
an option for her.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (103 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 11:02 AM
Sherri, don't worry about knowing Emma dies. The last
twenty or so pages of this book are powerful and incredibly
heartbreaking in all that happens after her death.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (104 of 141), Read 40
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 11:09 AM
she has a perfectly fine husband who with a little of her
showing passion and interest in him might well have been the
perfect hubby.
Candy wrote this about Emma in the A&C thread, and I
agree, except to say Charles was a perfectly fine
husband..actually, he was not.. But, maybe if she HAD
shown her husband a bit of passion, he would have
responded totally different. She did, after all, continuously
push him away..good point, Candy.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (105 of 141), Read 31
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:32 PM
Yeah, I think he could have been ideal. Perhaps one of the
reason that I have been defending him so ardently is that I
really hated how she ran up the Mastercard and Visa bills
on him behind his back. Is that ever a classic! It appears to
me that the first thing that occurs to a lot of women who
find themselves unhappily married is to go shopping on
credit.
I think my favorite scene is the one with the county fair and
the hog show going on in the background, or whatever it
was, while Emma is being romanced. That was so. . .so. .
.Iowa!
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (106 of 141), Read 26
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:43 PM
In fact the more I think about this. . .
I have been unhappily married and I've known a whole lot
of other men who have been unhappily married, and not
one of us to my knowledge ever went out and charged up a
new outfit as a result. I haven't checked with Felix or Dale
on this, but I suspect they didn't either.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (107 of 141), Read 28
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:50 PM
I'm sorry but I just can't resist. I too have been unhappily
married and yet I never went out and charged a new outfit
either. Somehow I don't think this is a gender-specific trait.
My unhappy spouse went out and bought cars instead of
clothes :-) He took three with him when we divorced.
And yes, Steve, I have to agree with you about the Iowa
flavor of the hog show and county fair. Somehow, though, I
always manage to miss out on the romancing going on in
the background {grin}.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (108 of 141), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:59 PM
Okay, Lynn, but to me the car purchases make perfect
sense.
On a related note, my advice to men is always take the
better cars and let her have the house. You can always
sleep in a car, but you can't drive the house.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (109 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:56 PM
oh, please...everyone knows unhappily married men go out
and charge flashy corvettes.
This money issue rankled me as much as her affairs did.
How could she be so stupid? and not once did she buy
clothes for Berthe, who was clad in torn clothing..
Poor Berthe..she was the true victim of all of Emma's
delusions.
My favorite scene has to be Leon's and Emma's eventful cab
ride...it was just so disgusting that it was fascinating.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (110 of 141), Read 36
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 01:57 PM
See what I mean? Lynn and I both brought up the flashy car
deal.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (111 of 141), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:06 PM
Yes, the eventful cab ride. It was a well done scene, but I
was disgusted, too. . .kinda.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (112 of 141), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:11 PM
(Sigh) I knew I shoulda hired a big city lawyer like you
Steve. He got the house, three cars AND my best friend...
and I got the Honda with 95,000 miles. Ain't that just life?
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (113 of 141), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:12 PM
On the other hand, I got all the books :-)
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (114 of 141), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:12 PM
Okay, maybe it wasn't really THAT disgusting.
Just a little disgusting.
If you really think about it.
In detail.
Maybe.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (115 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:15 PM
Lynn, he got the house AND the cars??
Did you have a lawyer at all????
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (116 of 141), Read 35
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:20 PM
Of course I had a lawyer, Beej. He was the sweetest little
guy... He did taxes too.
Ok, if you want the rest of the story... I got a chunk of cash
and the chance to move out of Garner (oh yes, AND the
books). Not a bad settlement in whole.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (117 of 141), Read 38
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:23 PM
On the subject of Berthe and Emma's neglect of her. You will
recall that Emma wanted to have a son because men have
all the fun. She quite obviously simply wasn't interested in a
daughter.
She would have liked to live in some old manor-house, like
those chatelaines in their long corsages, under their trefoiled
Gothic arches, spending their days elbows on the parapet and
chin in hand, looking out far across the fields for the
white-plumed rider galloping towards her on his black horse.
It appears that Flaubert generally places the blame for her
predicament on the stifling nature of existence in rural,
middle class France. Nonetheless, this passage indicates to
me that the woman had a serious emotional problem.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (118 of 141), Read 38
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:39 PM
Oh, yes. I had totally forgotten Emma wanted a son.
Yes, she sure did have emotional problems. I found this
claim of Flaubert's in the preface of my book:
"My poor Bovary, without doubt, is suffering and weeping at
this very minute in twenty villages of France."
I take that to mean the Bovary's story was not a rare one.
Even when we first meet Emma, Charles observes:
her eyes founder in a tide of boredom, while her thoughts took
aimless flight.
And the tone of her voice would change from clear to shrill,
modulating to a drawl, then drop almost to a whisper.
Emma would have been the same in a big town, little town,
in a palace or a barn. I really believe this.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (119 of 141), Read 35
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 02:47 PM
It just dawned on my thick brain that Emma's choices had
absolutely not a thing to do with Charles in any way
whatsoever. He was merely her excuse, her means of
justifying her actions.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (120 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 03:23 PM
If Emma lived in a city, the only difference would be that
she'd charge more. There would have been many more
temptations for her, and her bill would be even more.
Charles was her excuse, but do you think if she had married
a man more to her imaginings that she would do the same?
If he had paid attention to her or flattered her, would she
have gone looking elsewhere?
Just curious
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (121 of 141), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 03:41 PM
I believe with my entire heart Emma would have gone
looking elsewhere no matter what her circumstances,
because her lack of fulfillment came from within her, not
from her circumstances.
Who knows? Maybe the hero of her next novel would have
been a hard working doctor living in a little rural French
town.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (122 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 04:15 PM
Here's a long one. Enter at your own risk.
It is interesting to note that most of us here are being
harder on Emma than literary critics have been. They seem
wont to cast responsibility on everyone and everything but
Emma herself. My encyclopedia says this:
In essence Madame Bovary is an indictment of the drabness,
pretensions, and petty delusions of the life of the bourgeoisie,
which Flaubert loathed almost to the point of obsession. He
portrayed the tragedy of the characters with a powerfully
effective perception that has had a lasting influence as a
masterpiece of realism.
Then one quite often encounters the feminist view, which
takes off on this from the book:
A man, at least, is free; he can explore each passion and every
kingdom, conquer obstacles, feast upon the most exotic
pleasures. But a woman is continually thwarted. Both inert and
yielding, against her are ranged the weakness of the flesh and
the inequity of the law.... Always there is the desire urging,
always there is the convention restraining.
Here are some examples only if you're interested:
http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/chemin/bovbourg.htm
http://core-relations.uchicago.edu/VolumeIIpages/shoulders.html
Check out this quote of somebody named Diana Knight from
one of the above:
If Emma is unsatisfied with her life and with reality, it is reality
which is blamed, not Emma, however unintelligent she may
be. Written into her story is the suggestion that although her
hopes and dreams almost inevitably wither into lies and
disappointments, this is only marginally Emma's fault, for
there is something fundamentally wrong with the reality which
cannot meet her needs. In other words, despite her silliness,
her metaphysical unease is taken seriously.
To which I can only respond, "Huh?"
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (123 of 141), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 04:30 PM
Nothing comes off unscathed here, I think. Dull doctors,
terrible MILs, bored silly housewives, and the country
bourgeousie (is that spelled right?) all come in for their
share.
I see Lewis's Main Street.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (124 of 141), Read 35
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sara Sauers stsauers@att.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 05:44 PM
Wild Man, you're just jealous because no one takes YOUR
metaphysical unease seriously!
You should know better than to go to the academy for
answers. But here's my fav quote (anyway) from the first of
those articles you linked to:
Emma rejects good economic management, thrift, hard work
and parcimoniousness (sic) and dedicates herself to style.
Good grief! Maybe these papers are from some
Vogue-reading freshmen rhetoric students, eh?
Very entertaining discussion, all.
Sara
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (125 of 141), Read 36
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 06:03 PM
On that score I can certainly empathize with Emma, Divina.
As you well know, I myself have rejected good economic
management, thrift, hard work and parsimony and
dedicated myself to style. The difference is that I do it with
my own Visa card.
And I'll have you know that my mother takes my
metaphysical unease very seriously and brings me little
presents all the time in an attempt to help.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (126 of 141), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Janet Mego vsjego@cs.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 07:22 PM
Great discussion. I really regret that I couldn't participate. I
tried, last night, to post something in response to Steve's
comments about Charles and Kay's insight (nice notes, Kay)
but got thrown off right as I tried to post. BOY does that
make me want to punch out my computer, even at the risk
of surgery. Suffice it to say, and this is said with the
understanding that much profundity may be sacrificed to the
condensed version:
1)Charles Bovary has the sex appeal of a kitchen appliance.
(I know, I know, it's already been said. But this time I
got to say it!)
Going from the ridiculous to the sublime:
2) Looking back over my own notes and articles on the
novel, I ran across this:
Certainly (the novel) puts its finger on the irrational imbecility
of the human species: on Emma Bovary's serious assimilation
of cheap romantic novels and its catastrophic consequences;
and on the hypocrisy of churchmen and freethinkers alike. Only
an idiot and a tax collector are decent--and they play tiny parts
in the plot. But a few critics and most readers find true pathos
in the book, because they feel that Emma, despite her faults,
gets more than she deserves--and that this is tragic. They find
in her a certain nobility, and in the novel a great depth of
feeling.
So. NOBILITY? Say what?? Comments?
Steve--apologies if any of this is redundant re' your link. I
haven't gone there yet, but plan to. There are NOT enough
hours in my day.
Janet
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (127 of 141), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sara Sauers stsauers@att.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 07:26 PM
I think Emma would have gladly max'd out her own VISA
card, if she could have gotten one. (This scene will be in the
"updated" 21st-century movie version [followed by the
obligatory filing for bankruptcy], introduced with the tiny,
tiny credit line: "based on the novel by Gustave Flaubert.")
Quoting Knight again:
...for there is something fundamentally wrong with the reality
which cannot meet her needs.
Why does this idea as an excuse for Emma's action trouble
me so? Isn't this the deal in ALL of life? This doesn't seem
like any special consideration for Emma's "reality."
Sara
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (128 of 141), Read 31
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 07:51 PM
The only one that can meet Emma's needs is Emma herself,
and VISA card or no, that ain't a gonna happen with her
mindset.
Reality plays only a peripheral role with Emma's
unhappiness. Geesh - she doesn't even bother to take an
interest in her child. Emma just sits back and waits for the
world to arrive on her doorstep.
It's a version of the Scarlett O'Hara Syndrome - "I'll deal
with life tomorrow, but only if it's offered on a silver platter
by the Viscount himself."
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (129 of 141), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 07:56 PM
Is Flaubert's commentary on the bourgeoisie any different
from today's authors commenting on the emptiness of
consumerism? We have just as many unhappy people
around, always wanting what they don't have, rarely
considering what they do have or how to enjoy it. Just a
thought.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (130 of 141), Read 29
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 08:35 PM
First we gang up on Charles, and then we're harder on
Emma than most literary critics. Well, I think that's a healthy
thing..we aren't blindly taking sides, but are searching
everywhere for the answer to the question, "How the HELL
did this happen?!"
I think it was simply that all the right circumstances came
together to result in all the most tragic outcomes.
Sara, Quoting Knight again:
...for there is something fundamentally wrong with the reality
which cannot meet her needs.
That really bothers me, too..first because we all need to
deal with the reality in which we live, but also because this
was precisely the train of thought that caused Emma all her
troubles in the first place!
(As for the Connor Visa card..John likes to tell people he and
I split it right down the middle, and we do...
I get the card, he gets the bill..)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (131 of 141), Read 23
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 08:53 PM
I got a huge kick out of this, from the introduction of my
book:
'Emma's experiments are doomed, one might say, because
she fails to recognize that she IS a character in a novel; the
fact that the writer and reader know she is provides the
ULTIMATE grounding for the novel's ironic perspective.'
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (132 of 141), Read 18
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Janet Mego vsjego@cs.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:10 PM
On 08/21/2001 8:35:00 PM, Beej Connor wrote:
>I think it was simply that all
>the right circumstances came
>together to result in all the
>most tragic outcomes.
>
>>
>
Yes--it's that Murphy guy. Somebody should do something
about him. Good post, Beej.
Janet
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (133 of 141), Read 20
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Janet Mego vsjego@cs.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 09:12 PM
Or all the wrong circumstances.
Janet
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (134 of 141), Read 13
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:10 PM
I have absolutely nothing to add to (all) your delightful
comments on this remarkable book.
O.K. I'm lying. But it is true that I have nothing substantive
to add.
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end." -- John
Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to mow your
own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (135 of 141), Read 13
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:18 PM
Dick, I was hoping you would give us your honest opinion of
Emma...
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (136 of 141), Read 10
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:30 PM
I've been dying to ask this question..what if the genders
were reversed and all else was the same...would a man be
easier forgiven for his affairs if the wife was dull and
passionless?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (137 of 141), Read 20
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:31 PM
Divina, you query:
Quoting Knight again:
"...for there is something fundamentally wrong with the reality
which cannot meet her needs."
Why does this idea as an excuse for Emma's action trouble me
so?
I think I know why. Because it's bullshit.
I have concluded that those whose essays on this book I
have been reading are all youngsters. I'm tellin' ya! If these
folks really believe this stuff they write, life is going to be
very difficult for them. In fact I have decided that in addition
to getting down on my knees every morning and thanking
Jesus that I'm not female, I am also going to thank Him that
I'm over fifty.
Even more importantly, this novel was published when
Flaubert was about 36. We know how long and hard he
worked on it, which means to me that he wrote it in his
early thirties. A twerp....a genius, but a twerp. So maybe he
thought he was writing an indictment of bourgeois life, but
I'm not so sure he understood all the ramifications of what
he wrote.
Anyway, Janet, the sex appeal of a kitchen appliance?
Obviously, you don't know how I feel about my Panasonic
Carousel Sensor Cook microwave.
Beej, help me. What was the deal with Emma's father and
the marriage? He liked the idea of Charles because there
was going to be no big demand for a dowry? Is that right?
The fact that Charles' mother picked his first wife for him is
pretty rich, I think.
Whatever I say, please remember that I think this is one of
the ten best novels of all time, and I ain't alone. Thanks for
cranking it up again, Beej.
Steve
I am delighted to inform you that I don't have any
problems that a huge influx of cash wouldn't solve.--The
Wild Man
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (138 of 141), Read 21
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:36 PM
Beej, I find that you pose thusly:
I've been dying to ask this question..what if the genders were
reversed and all else was the same...would a man be easier
forgiven for his affairs if the wife was dull and passionless?
Beej, I consider this question to be rank cheating.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (139 of 141), Read 15
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:48 PM
You're welcome..I'm getting so much out of this discussion
its incredible! I'm having fun, here...
I think the dowry was the big concern for Rouault. Rouault
did have a plantation, and was considered wealthy, but the
plantation wasn't very profitable by the time Charles
appears on the scene..Even before, Rouault would lie in bed
at night and worry about Emma's eventual marriage and the
expected dowry..He had just decided it would be necessary
to sell 20 acres in order to pay off debts. Also, he really
wanted Emma off his hands.
Rouault had heard Charles was educated and careful with
money, so this seemed the perfect marriage candidate to
him.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (140 of 141), Read 15
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:50 PM
Please explain 'rank cheating'...I have no idea what that
means...
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (141 of 141), Read 11
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Tuesday, August 21, 2001 11:16 PM
Thank you, Beej.
You know, it is so much fun to go back and reread the
opening chapters of this book, which I am doing now. I do
regret having argued with Ann Davey about Charles'
intelligence. What a dope! And rendered so for the most
part by his parents. I must re-evaluate Charles now.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (142 of 154), Read 42 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 01:06 AM
Arrrgh, Steve. Charles was a dolt and Emma a ninny, and
nothing entirely excuses their treatment of each other. But
can you say seriously that you don't think their environment
exacerbated the problem?
Would you willingly volunteer to live in such a place? If you
did, I have a feeling you'd be more like Emma than like
Charles, in that you'd fight tooth and tennis shoe to live the
life you wanted.
She may have gone about it all wrong. Her expectations and
desires may have been entirely screwed up by reading the
19th c. French equivalent of Barbara Cartland. But can you
see her glorying in the Pig Show?
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (143 of 154), Read 46 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Theresa Simpson theresa.a.simpson@gte.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 02:03 AM
Thank you all, you gave me several laughs for the day. Edd,
you are in your usual fine form. Steve, you too. And the rest
a' ya.
And, Ruth, in response to your last post, Steve lives in Iowa
doesn't he? This is NOT a dis of Iowa; it's merely an
observation.
Theresa
I had to quit my fire-eating career when I could no longer tell
when to spit and when to swallow. Daphne Gottlieb
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (144 of 154), Read 39 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 07:07 AM
Just to answer Beej's hypothetical - I think the man would
have been excused if the roles were switched.
I'm enjoying the discussion and haven't finished reading the
book! I think Emma's main problem is herself - she was
unhappy, married to a dull man, etc. but she never took
responsibility for it. She would start things and give up and if
she could have stuck to something, like the Italian, then
maybe, just maybe she would have found a little bit of
happiness.
I thought this explained a lot:
"Her carnal desires, her cravings for money, and the fits of
depression engendered by her love gradually merged into a
single torment; and instead of trying to put it out of her mind
she cherished it, spurring herself on to suffer, never missing
an opportunity to do so. A dish poorly served or a door left
ajar grated on her nerves; she sighed thinking of the velvet
gowns she didn't own, the happiness that eluded her, her
unattainable dreams, her entire cramped existence.
What exasperated her was Charle's total unawareness of
her ordeal. His conviction that he was making her happy she
took as a stupid insult: such self-righteousness could only
mean that he didn't appreciate her. For whose sake, after
all, was she being virtuous? Wasn't he the obstacle to every
kind of happiness, the cause of all her wretchedness, the
sharp-pointed prong of this many-stranded belt that bound
her on all sides?"
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (145 of 154), Read 41 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 09:47 AM
That is a revealing passage, Sherri, very descriptive of her
predicament.
Ann, as for Charles' medical studies we have this:
He could make nothing of it. He listened as hard as he could,
but he couldn't get hold of it at all. However, he persevered, had
notebooks specially bound, attended every lecture, never
missed a demonstration. He got through his little daily task like
a mill horse that plods round and round in the same place with
his eyes blindfolded, never knowing in the least what it is he is
grinding at.
So this guy was actually studying for malpractice.
Beej, the rank cheating to which I referred is this. We were
in the midst of a disapproving discussion of a woman's
conduct when you suddenly asked, "What if a man did this?"
You mustn't do that. It's cheating. I thought everyone knew
this is cheating.
Divina saw her first hog show this past weekend, Ruthie. I'm
not kidding. Is that a remarkable coincidence or what?
Cash is always good, Lynn.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (146 of 154), Read 48 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 10:15 AM
Well, now wait until you hear where I wanted to go with
that before you label it as rank cheating!
Most of the women here, at least at first, jumped all over
Charles. he was dull..he was inattentive...he was
inadequate...none of us, I don't think, could TRULY blame
Emma for wanting more of a man. of course, her actions
were wrong, but who could really blame a woman for
wanting passionate love made to her! But, if we gender
reverse this, we women would not cut Charles an inch of
slack.. I really believe this..We would call him a 'player', a
scoundrel (perfect word for a 19th century rogue, isn't it?) If
Emma were a good little wifeymamacakes, but had about as
much life to her as a dull piece of driftwood, we women
would not care! Emma could be deader than a doornail, in a
chair, rotting away, and we would jump all over a man who
was having an affair! Forgive him? Justify his cheating? No
way! He'd be dirt under our feet.
(cash is good, but, as Sara can now tell you, NOTHING beats
a good hog holler!...well, almost nothing...)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (147 of 154), Read 23 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 04:03 PM
I deleted my last note because it sounded so hard and I
don't think I was getting across what I'm trying to say.
I just think we women are more forgiving of an adulterous
woman (Emma) with a dull husband than we would be of a
adulterous man with a dull wife.
I'm just trying figure out why the women readers here seem
to be more defensive of Emma and critical of Charles than
male readers are.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (148 of 154), Read 17 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 04:20 PM
I think there's plenty of blame to spread around. Charles is
not too bright, dull, uninteresting, uninterested. Emma is
silly, vain, depending on others to save her. Their
environment produced Charles, and drove Emma to
distraction.
Mixing all three is a surefire recipe for disaster.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (149 of 154), Read 19 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 04:26 PM
But I'm not sure, even if Charles was any different, that
Emma would not have travelled down the same road.
Didn't she begin to tire of Leon?
Ruth, if Emma had been the dull, disinterested one, and
Charles the adulterous and more exciting character, do you
think we woman would even think of justifying his actions
the way we did Emma's?
Would we still spread the blame around simply because the
wife was dull?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (150 of 154), Read 20 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sara Sauers stsauers@att.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 05:28 PM
But can you see her glorying in the Pig Show?
You know, if a Pig Show is what you have where you are, I
say go explore it and lose the fantasies about the velvet
dresses and the white-plumed man on the black horse!
That's what I do here in Iowa. Last weekend at the State
Fair I learned all about the long, level and lean look
desirable in today's farrows. Yep.
Sara
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (151 of 154), Read 14 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 06:31 PM
Last time I went to a Pig Show (Quincy County Fair, c1980) I
damn near got run over by the pigs.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (152 of 154), Read 12 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 08:15 PM
I've been reading through pieces of the beginning of the
book. Actually, Charles tried to be affectionate toward Emma,
at first, but she spurned him:
Tiptoeing across the floor, he kissed the back of her neck. She
uttered a little cry. ...Sometimes he gave her great big
smacking kisses on the cheek, sometimes fluttered his lips
along her naked arm from finger-tips to shoulder. And she
would shake him off, half laughing, half annoyed, as one might
have done some troublesome child.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (153 of 154), Read 11 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 08:23 PM
Why do you think Emma reacted the way she did to
Charles's attempts? It seems to me that the Morticia/Gomez
action he was trying might have come close to the kind of
thing she was used to reading about in her novels anyway.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (154 of 154), Read 11 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 22, 2001 08:27 PM
Well, Flaubert goes on to write that Emma did not
experience the happiness she presumed she would after
marrying, so:
She must, she thought, have been mistaken..
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (155 of 179), Read 60
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 08:22 AM
You ladies are clearly asking the right questions here, it
seems to me.
Charles fluttered his lips along her naked arm from finger-tips
to shoulder. . .
I am told that every woman's arm is a little bit different.
One first has to determine precisely where to flutter. Some
places on the arm are more sensitive than others. Then it is
a good idea to vary the pace and intensity of the flutter.
Sometimes little pauses between flutters are good. This all
requires practice and a little experimentation.
In the end I suspect that Charles was just no damned good
at this.
Steve
A woman may be sexually attracted to many men in her
life, but she can only truly adore about fifty.--Sovrana
Sostrata.
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (156 of 179), Read 51
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:23 AM
Charles WAS inexperienced. His first wife was an old dried
up cold-footed woman (I think those icicle feet were
symbolic of more than frigid little toes.) And he was too
poor as a younger man to have a mistress.
(Money plays a bigger part in this novel than sex. It seems
to be the guiding force through-out the book.)
But, if Charles, as much as he adored Emma, had even once
stopped centering on what he felt, and concentrated a little
more on what she felt..or didn't feel, he would have
realized he was missing the mark, so to speak.
But, no, Charles treated Emma as an ornament. Yes, he
adored her, but HIS heart was what mattered the most to
him.
Beej
A man may be sexually attracted to many women in his life,
but he can only truly adore himself.--Beejrana
Connorstrata.
(At least, in Charles' case...)
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (157 of 179), Read 41
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:11 AM
Remember when I said I reserved the right to be wrong
about Charles and Emma? Well.....
I just finished the novel, and have a completely different
attitude toward Charles. Yes, he's still dull and a nitwit.
However, he did love Emma, and did all he knew to do to
keep her happy. For him, that meant buying her nice things
and catering to her every whim.
It's important to remember that Mme. Bovary Sr. raised him
to cater to women. He was used to depending on women
to run his home, see to his happiness, and solve any
tiresome obstacles thrown in his path. It was Mme. B. Sr.
that decided his career, kept him in med school, and
selected his first bride for him.
He is a nitwit. How could he not know his wife was having
an affair with Rodolphe?! Even after Emma's death, when
he finds R's. last letter to her, Charles thinks, "Perhaps they
loved each other platonically." Yeah, right.
He also buys Emma's explanation of why the music teacher
didn't know her. Okey dokey. Actually, he ends up paying
her for lessons Emma never took.
Yet Charles is basically a good guy. As Steve pointed out,
he gets up every day and sees to his ineffective, timid
practice of medicine. He is aware Emma is unhappy, but is
incapable of reaching out to her to discuss it. So, he buys
her things.
I never did warm up to Emma, though. She remains
incredibly self-centered, driven by what she does not and
cannot have. I could not find empathy for her other than to
wish no one would have to suffer emotionally the way she
does. She refuses to accept responsibility for her own
happiness.
That may not be her fault, due to the way she was raised.
Yet, at some point, it is important to realize that in order to
be happy, one must look to what you do have and look for
the joy of everyday life. Emma is not someone I would care
to know. It is interesting to me that she has no true female
friends. Even Felicite, in whom Emma confided and
borrowed money from, is not her friend in spirit. F. only
wanted E.'s clothing hand me downs. Emma isolated herself
from all female friendship.
This novel is more about greed than love.
It's ironic that the draper is named L'Heureux, which means
"happiness" in French. Money and things are certainly not
what Emma needs for happiness.
Emma is greedy for personal fulfillment and wild escapades
in love.
Homais is greedy for recognition and status. Flaubert ends
his novel with, "He has just received the cross of the Legion
of Honor." What an indictment of all the greedy souls that
inhabit Yonville.
Emma kills two with her greed - herself and Charles.
Berthe's fate will also be affected by Emma's greed.
This is some read!
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (158 of 179), Read 38
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:20 AM
And now I find myself wondering what makes the difference
between someone who seemingly thrives on money and
material goods, like Homais and L'Heureux, and someone
like Emma?
Is the difference in what they are truly seeking, even
though the objectives are the same? For example, is it
possible that the Emmas have a deeper need for love and
connection to others than the others? What, if anything,
made Emma different?
She wasn't mean spirited, which is one difference I see.
Just thinking as I write......
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (159 of 179), Read 42
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:42 AM
Kay, Its a incredible book, isn't it?
I don't think Emma was a bad person. Neither was Charles.
Emma, especially, made choices that were absolutely
horrendous, but I really don't think they were made
because she was bad, but because she was miserably sad.
And, who knows why, really? On the surface she had
everything good in life.
Charles may not have been dashing, and he might not have
considered her feelings the way he could have, but he
wasn't a bad man. He did the best he knew how to do.
And there is the real tragedy. The real tragedy about this
book is that these were simply normal, everyday people
who only wanted some happiness in life. They just didn't
know how to get it.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (160 of 179), Read 43
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:50 AM
It would have been so much easier to understand all that
happened if we could just point a finger and say,
"There! There's what went wrong! This is why it all
happened as it did!"
And we readers went back and forth trying to find the real
culprit in this mess, something or someone on which to
place the blame. But, the truth is, there really WASN'T a
single culprit, not really.
And I think the book leaves us with not only a feeling of
sadness, but an uneasy feeling in the back of our minds,
that this, to some extent, could have been us, or someone
we love. Because isn't happiness, or at least contentment,
the ultimate goal we all look for in our lives?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (161 of 179), Read 40
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:58 AM
Yes, it is a tragedy. Emma's desperation at the end is pitiful.
Yet, I didn't miss her the way Charles did. I was angry at
her on his account. And Berthe's.
Now I'm wondering if perhaps the difference between
Emma's search for money and things and the search of
Homais might be due to something lacking in Emma. What
tips me off is her complete dismissal of Berthe from her life.
Even Homais, self centered as he was, seemed to take
enjoyment in his children.
On the other hand, Emma was someone who would gladly
beg for attention. She begged of both Rodolphe and Leon.
Her need was too great. Neither man was willing to live her
life for her. In that sense, no man could possibly be the love
of her life for long. You're right, Beej. Emma would always
be a philanderer. She was born to be a taker.
Perhaps her problem is a combination of lacking a critical
component of personality and an intense, overriding desire
to have the world accommodate to her needs?
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (162 of 179), Read 39
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 12:02 PM
I don't condemn Emma for seeking happiness or
contentment. I find fault with her methods and lack of
insight. She does not learn from her experiences. Emma
makes no changes from the beginning of the book to its
conclusion.
I have empathy for her. I just don't like her. I don't think we
are meant to like her, but I do think we are meant to feel
pity.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (163 of 179), Read 41
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Pres Lancaster plancast@neteze.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 12:10 PM
"She does not learn from her experiences."
Quote from Kay. Almost says it all. Wanting the impossible
can happen to anybody, but failing to learn how to escape
one's miseries, that's bad.
Tobermory
The eternal verities don't seem to have much of a shelf-life
these days.
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (164 of 179), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 03:07 PM
Emma reminds me of people who search for happiness, or
long for something, and look for it outside themselves
instead of within. Emma thinks money and things will heal
the hole within, and she follows that route instead of
looking within to discover the true source of her
unhappiness.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (165 of 179), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 03:23 PM
Sherri, I think lots of people try to blame external
circumstances for unhappiness because if they look
internally, it means they will have to change. That can be
pretty painful, sometimes.
Of course, Emma never learned from her experiences. You
can't learn from your mistakes if you don't think that you
made mistakes! And the only time I remember Emma
admitting to herself she made a mistake was with her
marriage to Charles in the first place..
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (166 of 179), Read 28
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 03:32 PM
Beej you're absolutely right. Emma would never admit or
even understand that she was part of her own problem.
As for Charles, he was lifeless, and insensitive and selfish,
but he did think about it a little, I think he thought he was
showing his love.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (167 of 179), Read 26
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 05:58 PM
Ok, I finished. Great story. Sad all around.
A couple of questions though.
1) When Emma is dying there is this exchange:
"Don't cry! she said. I shan't be tormenting you much
longer."
Why did you do it? What made you?"
"It was the only thing" she answered.
"Weren't you happy? Am I to blame? But I did everything I
could...!"
"Yes...I know...You're good, you're different..."
Ok, do you think she really meant it? It seems almost an
admit ion to me that she realized his qualities. And Charles?
Is he admitting fault?
2) What did Charles die of?
And poor Berthe.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (168 of 179), Read 28
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 06:37 PM
Don't you think it was a broken heart?
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end." -- John
Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to mow your
own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (169 of 179), Read 31
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 07:16 PM
Either that, or he got the final Visa bill. Hopefully, his Bush
refund check is in the mail.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (170 of 179), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Dick Haggart
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 08:11 PM
Lessee, what were his last few days like: he opens the
desk and finds all the nasty love letters, he's off to market
to sell his last horse so they can eat for a few more,
miserable days when he runs into Rudy, who buys him a
beer while thinking the poor sap looks and acts utterly
ridiculous, and all the while his daughter is showing definite
signs of tuberculosis, if I read the signs correctly. I think
maybe the VISA bill would have put him over the top alright.
Dick
"you have to sing your own song in the end." -- John
Updike
"which is fine, so long as you don't have to mow your
own lawn." -- Dick Haggart
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (171 of 179), Read 35
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 08:21 PM
Sherri, I don't think Emma ever doubted Charles' goodness.
And, of course, he died of a broken heart, while clutching
the lock of her hair he cut after her death.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (172 of 179), Read 40
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Pres Lancaster plancast@neteze.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 08:48 PM
ACK !
Gabriel Ernest
The eternal verities don't seem to have much of a shelf-life
these days.
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (173 of 179), Read 36
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 09:51 PM
Pres! Why ACK!, and who in the world is Gabriel Ernest?
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (174 of 179), Read 38
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Janet Mego vsjego@cs.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:36 PM
I'm torn between three options here and combinations
thereof:
Emma was a victim of Flaubert's setting.
Emma was a victim of what I call the "badboy syndrome:"
young girls, and (I hate to admit it) myself included at a
younger (OK MUCH younger) age, are bored to tears
sexually speaking by anything that is not decked out
head-to-toe in black leather with at least 17 body piercings,
and riding a motorcycle, or the equivalent, metaphorically
speaking. Or by that which is not Rudolphe, the
Flaubert-setting equivalent.
Emma was maybe a victim, but was also superficial and
greedy enough an individual to be labeled a "ninny," as Kay
puts it.
Where is the "nobility" the critic I quoted earlier claims
"most readers" insist on finding in Emma? I haven't a clue.
In fact, I think that's a load of crap. And reversing the sexes
and asking how sympathetic we'd be toward a male Emma
is a great question, especially if "Rudolphe" happened to be
a blonde with an IQ less than her waist measurement.
I can still empathize with Emma as she shakes off Charles's
flutters with laughter and annoyance, but she irritates me,
too, at this point, more than ever. I've learned a lot here.
Janet
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (175 of 179), Read 29
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:11 PM
'Emma was a victim of what I call the "badboy
syndrome'..God, Janet, weren't we all?
Gabriel Ernest is a short story by Saki..(I looked it up..)
http://www.geocities.com/short_stories_page/sakigabrielernest.html
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (176 of 179), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:38 PM
One of the things this discussion has done for me is focus
my attention on Charles. It has never troubled me that I
don't understand Emma completely.
I mentioned earlier rereading the opening portions of this
novel. It is more fascinating reading for knowing what
comes later. Regarding Charles as a child:
His mother fed him on sweets; his father let him run about
without shoes or stockings, saying, to show what a
philosopher he was, that it would be a good thing to let him go
naked, as the animals did their offspring. In contrast to the
mother's ideas, he entertained certain manly notions
regarding the upbringing of children. He believed in hardening
them off, like the Spartans, so as to make them tough and
wiry. He made his son undress in the cold, taught him to drink
neat rum and to jeer at church processions. But the child,
being a harmless little urchin, made no great progress in these
truculent accomplishments. His mother always kept him tied
up to her apron-strings; she cut out scraps for him, told him
stories, and made up countless tales full of wistful gaiety and
playful prattle. She sought solace for the loneliness of her life
by lavishing on her child all her own shattered and forsaken
ambitions.
And there's more that's just as troubling! (Just trying to
keep the length of the quotations under control.) It's like
the kid is being raised by The Great Santini on the one
hand and Celia, Dorothea's sister in Middlemarch, on the
other. The father is sick macho, and the mother is doting to
the point of whacked out.
I don't know that the psycho-babble would be for the
impact of this kind of upbringing on a kid, but the vernacular
would be that he's destined to be screwed up.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (177 of 179), Read 37
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:41 PM
Also, his mother dressed him funny for school. I know that
sounds funny, but the last thing this kid needed was to be
set up for ridicule from his peers.
And then mother married him off to an older woman who
was as wacko as she was.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (178 of 179), Read 38
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Thursday, August 23, 2001 11:45 PM
Yes, it was the mother who prevailed. She made Charles
into a complete weenie.
Initially when reading this book, one kinda rolls past all this
stuff about Charles without it really registering because
one's attention is drawn to Emma--or one is awaiting her
appearance.
See! I've managed to come full circle on Charles since the
beginning of this session.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (179 of 179), Read 3 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Friday, August 24, 2001 10:15 AM
I've started reading Main Street, the selection for Oct.
because I'll be away for part of the month, and I do want to
read this and discuss, so I'm jumping ahead, anyway, I
came across a comment that I thought applied to Madame
Bovary.
There are two college students, about to graduate, the
young man is trying to convince the girl to marry him:
"I'm going to be a big lawyer, maybe a judge, and I need
you and I'd protect you --"
"Would you take care of me?"
"You bet I would! We'd have, Lord, we'd have bully times in
Yankton"
"But I want to do something with life."
"What's better than making a comfy home and bringing up
some cute kids and knowing nice homey people?"
It was the immemorial male reply to the restless woman.
I read that and thought of Charles and Emma, she was a
bit restless, he thought having kids and a home was the
greatest thing. It just struck me as an odd connection.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (180 of 193), Read 31 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Friday, August 24, 2001 10:57 AM
I'm not sure Emma was totally clueless about the nature of
the passions she was so fond of reading about. At the end of
Part II, when she and Charles were at the play, she reflects
that "that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the
despair of all desire. She now knew the smallness of the
passions that art exaggerated. So, striving to divert her
thoughts, Emma determined now to see in this reproduction
of her sorrows only a plastic fantasy, well enough to please
the eye, and she even smiled internally with disdainful
pity..."
Even though she recognized that art exaggerated passions
she was still powerless to resist trying to find that "grand
passion" of her dreams.
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (181 of 193), Read 34 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Friday, August 24, 2001 11:15 AM
Yeah, Lynn, I agree..Emma began to wise up just a little
bit..But our girl STILL couldn't keep her foot totally out of the
fantasy!
She was convinced the leading man had singled her out in
the audience and was saying his pretty love words directly to
her.
(Oh, Emma, Emma! You just can't help yourself from flopping
around like a carp on a table, can you?..)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (182 of 193), Read 32 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Lynn Isvik washualum@yahoo.com
Date:
Friday, August 24, 2001 11:21 AM
Yes, I have to say that I just shook my head when she
started imagining the life they could have together. What a
hopeless case of longing for a fantasy world!
Lynn
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (183 of 193), Read 31 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Friday, August 24, 2001 12:00 PM
Sherri, I'd forgotten we were going to read Main Street here
when I dropped in a remark about it earlier in this
discussion. There are some connections, aren't there. It'll be
interesting to compare them.
Ruth, who's read MS twice or maybe more
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (184 of 193), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 11:42 AM
Kay, you had mentioned that Emma's upbringing contributed
to her living in a fantasy world, and you're right!
While at the convent school:
(Emma) moved in a sort of mystic dream....The metaphors
of affianced lover, husband, divine wooer and eternal
marriage, which were for ever recurring in the sermons that
she heard, moved her heart with an unexpected
sweetness....
Accustomed to stillness, she sought its opposite in
tumultuous scenes. if she loved the sea, it was because of its
storms.
Boy, No wonder she was always looking for more, more,
more...and of all the men she might have married, Charles
was about as far from an image of a divine lover as she
could have gotten!
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (185 of 193), Read 25 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 11:45 AM
But I still hold to my belief that Emma would have been okay
if she had not gone to that dance..It was then that she
realized some folks really do live the sort of lives she had
only read about in her novels.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (186 of 193), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 12:18 PM
So dancing really does lead to damnation?
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (187 of 193), Read 26 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 12:29 PM
The select bibliography in the front of my copy says:
Readers who have enjoyed 'Madame Bovary' should go on to
try 'L'Education sentimentale, Trois contes', available in
paperback English translation.
Has anyone here read this? I'm seriously thinking of picking
this one up.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (188 of 193), Read 26 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 12:44 PM
Actually, this 'L'Education sentimentale, Trois contes' looks
pretty good...
Two brothers, Henry and Jules, are the central characters.
Henry has a passionate affair, runs away with his mistress (a
married woman, who is some respects anticipates Emma
Bovary), gets bored and ends up a banal man of the world.
Jules falls in love, becomes disillusioned and turns to art as
the only medium through which the powers of the
imagination can be brought to fruition.
So again, Flaubert writes about the attempt to make the real
world conform to the world of the imagination..
Yepper, I'm going to pick this one up...
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (189 of 193), Read 25 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Sherri Kendrick sheval@hotmail.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 01:31 PM
I'd be interested in your thoughts on that one Beej. My book
group read it, or tried to, I just couldn't get into it. Could
have been my mood, but I didn't get very far.
Sherri
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (190 of 193), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 02:15 PM
Sherri, (or anyone) What is the title in English? I'll see if I
can hunt down a copy this week.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (191 of 193), Read 22 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 03:32 PM
A Sentimental Education.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (192 of 193), Read 23 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 03:38 PM
Ruth, thanks, but that part I figured out..it was the 'Trois
contes' I don't get.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (193 of 193), Read 24 times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Saturday, August 25, 2001 03:58 PM
Three tales?
Where's Jane when we need her.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (194 of 197), Read 22
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 10:30 AM
I would like to get into this club foot operation that Charles so
thoroughly botched.
Its already been pointed out that Flaubert had this sexual thing
about feet. The introduction to my book (I've already returned
it to the library so I can't quote it) included a section from a
letter Flaubert had written to a friend in which he talks about
his fascination with castration (ouch!). He actually expressed
an interest in being castrated, himself. (I really should check
out this book again to quote this letter. Kay, I think you might
have the same copy I did. Could you look in the intro and see
if there's a quote from that letter?)
Add to this the knowledge that the operation was encouraged
by a woman (Emma), and that the failure of this operation was
the final turning point for any positive feelings Emma might
have had toward Charles.
I just thought, knowing all this, its too 'juicy' to not discuss.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (195 of 197), Read 16
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 05:06 PM
Beej-
My edition doesn't even have a foreword. Sorry.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (196 of 197), Read 18
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 05:42 PM
oh, well..thanks anyway, Kay.
What exactly happened with this operation? Wasn't the
operation successful but Charles' neglected to keep a eye on it
post operatively, until it was too late and gangrene set in?
This operation told more about Emma than maybe her affairs
told. The affairs were a matter of passion, yet in this 'event'
we see Emma react with such cold heartedness toward
Charles. So, Emma wasn't merely a young woman lost in
fantasies, she was also completely self-centered and lacked
empathy.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (194 of 197), Read 22
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 10:30 AM
I would like to get into this club foot operation that Charles so
thoroughly botched.
Its already been pointed out that Flaubert had this sexual thing
about feet. The introduction to my book (I've already returned
it to the library so I can't quote it) included a section from a
letter Flaubert had written to a friend in which he talks about
his fascination with castration (ouch!). He actually expressed
an interest in being castrated, himself. (I really should check
out this book again to quote this letter. Kay, I think you might
have the same copy I did. Could you look in the intro and see
if there's a quote from that letter?)
Add to this the knowledge that the operation was encouraged
by a woman (Emma), and that the failure of this operation was
the final turning point for any positive feelings Emma might
have had toward Charles.
I just thought, knowing all this, its too 'juicy' to not discuss.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (195 of 197), Read 16
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 05:06 PM
Beej-
My edition doesn't even have a foreword. Sorry.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (196 of 197), Read 18
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, August 29, 2001 05:42 PM
oh, well..thanks anyway, Kay.
What exactly happened with this operation? Wasn't the
operation successful but Charles' neglected to keep a eye on it
post operatively, until it was too late and gangrene set in?
This operation told more about Emma than maybe her affairs
told. The affairs were a matter of passion, yet in this 'event'
we see Emma react with such cold heartedness toward
Charles. So, Emma wasn't merely a young woman lost in
fantasies, she was also completely self-centered and lacked
empathy.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (197 of 197), Read 6
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:05 AM
It seems to me that this operation was Charles' last chance to
prove himself to Emma as at least a little bit worthy of her
respect and loyalty. When he muffed this, she felt completely
free to do as she wished.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (197 of 197), Read 6
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:05 AM
It seems to me that this operation was Charles' last chance to
prove himself to Emma as at least a little bit worthy of her
respect and loyalty. When he muffed this, she felt completely
free to do as she wished.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (198 of 204), Read 29
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 05:06 PM
Beej-
I haven't re-read the section, but that won't stop me
from commenting. Ha!
I got the impression that Charles got caught up in the
Surgery of the Month Club and really didn't know what
he was doing. He did study for it, though, so I may be
wrong. It could be his dues weren't paid up, and he
didn't get the post operative care chapter.
What alarmed me was that he cut the Achilles heel!!! I
do not know anatomy, but I do know that without the
Achilles heel, the foot can't flex. He did no other nips,
tucks, or stitching, which doesn't sound right. I guess
post operative care wasn't part of the glory.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (199 of 204), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 05:09 PM
I can't imagine any doctor, even in Mme Bovary's day,
cutting the Achilles tendon. Sheesh, that'd leave the
gastrocnemius muscle, the big one in your calf, flopping
around without a mooring. Charles was an idiot.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (200 of 204), Read 33
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 05:12 PM
"gastrocnemius muscle"
Show off.
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (201 of 204), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Thursday, August 30, 2001 06:31 PM
I had to memorize 'em all for a human anatomy course,
Kay. The only two that have really stuck with me are
gastrocnemius and gluteus maximus.
And Charles was a gluteus maximus to have have tried
this.
Ruth
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." John Updike
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (202 of 204), Read 27
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Friday, August 31, 2001 11:43 AM
Yes, but in Charles's defense, the only thing any of us
can do is our best with what talent the Good Lord gave
us.
As for the boy, Charles's malpractice insurance company
probably paid off big time on this one. I know that the
common name for cutting the tendons behind the knee
is "hamstringing." I don't know the common name for
severing the Achilles tendon.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (203 of 204), Read 5
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Friday, August 31, 2001 10:53 PM
You guys are too much. This has been a really fun
discussion to catch up on.
Beej, you really must elaborate on Flaubert's interest in
being castrated. You can't just leave us all hanging.
Flaubert's Sentimental Education was recommended by
Theresa and has been on the CC nomination list before.
How about nominating it for next year's list?
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (204 of 204), Read 4
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
R Bavetta rbavetta@prodigy.net
Date:
Friday, August 31, 2001 10:56 PM
"You can't just leave us all hanging."
Do you realize what you just said?
Ruth
"Citizen!
Consider my traveling expenses: Poetry——all of it——is a
trip into the unknown. " Vladimir Mayakovksy
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (205 of 208), Read 29
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Saturday, September 01, 2001 01:45 PM
Stop it now! Let's act like young ladies here.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (206 of 208), Read 23
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Saturday, September 01, 2001 02:20 PM
Well, Steve, the thought of you acting like a young lady
is a bit of a stretch, but if that's really what you want
to do......
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (207 of 208), Read 19
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Kay Dugan okaychatt@yahoo.com
Date:
Saturday, September 01, 2001 02:48 PM
My vote for best summary of Emma - "Ultimately one
loves one's desires and not that which is desired." -
Friedrich Nietzsche
K
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (208 of 208), Read 21
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Saturday, September 01, 2001 03:14 PM
Kay, I agree with you..Emma was in love with the idea
of love.
Ann, I'm going to check MB out from the library again
this week and I will quote Flaubert's letter concerning
his fascination with castration. The writer of the
introduction also ties in this castration business with
the club foot operation/amputation.
I also want to read again the end of the book where all
falls apart for Emma. I'm not exactly certain why she
committed suicide. I know it was due to the bankruptcy
but I don't quite understand why that devastated her
to the point where she no longer wanted to live.
I believe even her death might have been a romantic
fantasy to her.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (209 of 217), Read 48
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Sunday, September 02, 2001 12:03 PM
Ruth,
But, of course. :)
Beej,
I look forward to the update.
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (210 of 217), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Sunday, September 02, 2001 11:10 PM
Okay, Ann. I checked the book out again and this is what
it says:
Metaphors of potency and impotence are frequent (in MB).
Rather less frequent, but no less striking, are his fantasies of
self-castration.
In a letter of 27 December 1852 he speaks of the shock he
received when he read Balzac's 'Louis Lambert':
'At the end, the hero wants to castrate himself, in a kind of
mystical madness. During my wretchedness in Paris, when I
was nineteen, I had the same wish...later I spent two entire
years without touching a woman. There comes a moment
when one needs to make oneself suffer, needs to loathe
one's flesh, to fling mud in its face, so hideous does it seem.
Without my love of form, I would perhaps have been a great
mystic.'
Terence Cave, who wrote the introduction, mentions
Flaubert's fear of castration a couple times, so I did a
search on google.com of 'Flaubert; castration' and came
up with pages and pages concerning this business. As I
read, I discovered castration was thought to be a cure for
epilepsy (Flaubert was epileptic) in the mid nineteenth
century. So, his desire for castration might have been
motivated as a hopeful means of ridding himself of
epilepsy.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (211 of 217), Read 32
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Monday, September 03, 2001 01:18 AM
Very interesting, Beej. Thanks. Apparently mysticism
precludes sex. The idea that castration could cure epilepsy
makes it a bit more understandable.
Did the author of the introduction relate this castration
complex to Madame Bovary?
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (212 of 217), Read 19
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, September 03, 2001 08:57 PM
Cave says, though the failed clubfoot operation is the
turning point of the story, he is not asserting that this is
what MB is 'really' about..but that Flaubert's fear of
castration/impotence is indeed linked in the writer's
subconscious to many of his works.
Actually, Flaubert's father had failed in surgery to cure a
patient's clubfoot, and another surgeon had been called in
to correct what the Elder Flaubert had done wrong. So,
maybe this castration/amputation thing is only the result
of overactive academic's imagination.
(Or, as Freud once said, "Sometimes a cigar
is just a cigar"...)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (213 of 217), Read 30
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Monday, September 03, 2001 09:36 PM
I found some Flaubert quotes on the web. I thought this
one was interesting:
In his letters, Flaubert described literature as "the
dissection of a beautiful woman with her guts in her face,
her leg skinned, and half a burned-out cigar lying on her
foot."
(Here we go with the foot thingy again..)
Beej
"I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is
beating at its walls."- Gustave Flaubert
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (214 of 217), Read 25
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Tuesday, September 04, 2001 12:33 AM
Beej,
Is that ivory tower quote for real or are you just having
some fun?
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (215 of 217), Read 18
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, September 04, 2001 10:45 AM
Oh, yes, ma'am! Good old Gus really wrote that in a letter
to a friend.
Beej
"What an awful thing life is. It's like soup with lots of hairs floating
on the surface." - Gustave Flaubert
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (216 of 217), Read 10
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Ann Davey davey@tconl.com
Date:
Tuesday, September 04, 2001 02:15 PM
He sounds like a real happy kind of guy--the kind you love
to be around.
Ann
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (217 of 217), Read 7
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Tuesday, September 04, 2001 05:11 PM
He does seem to point out the sorrier side of life, doesn't
he, Ann?
(But, then again, I don't think anybody who considers self
castration could ever be thought of as an optimist!)
Obviously, from these quotes, I think its fair to say
Flaubert viewed life with the same fatalistic outlook
expressed in MB. I'm curious to see if Sentimental
Education has this same negativity toward life.
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (218 of 220), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Steve Warbasse wk4@qwest.net
Date:
Wednesday, September 05, 2001 10:55 AM
And I will be curious to see whether you get through
Sentimental Education, Beej. I have never been able to
slog completely through anything else that Flaubert
wrote. It could be just me though.
Steve
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (219 of 220), Read 34
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, September 05, 2001 07:56 PM
Oh, oh...and I have a feeling you're a better slogger
than I am.
If Flaubert is difficult for you to finish, I'm sure its going
to be impossible for me to finish.
But I'll give it a try... (Have you attempted Sentimental
Education?)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (220 of 220), Read 17
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Theresa Simpson theresa.a.simpson@gte.net
Date:
Thursday, September 06, 2001 11:32 AM
Beej, I finished Sentimental Education. I loved it, but it
does take more work than MB. The juicy bits are still
there, but so is a lot of political/social inuendo. I'm sure
I missed stuff because I wasn't familiar enough with
what was going on in France at that time. Still, well
worth the read. A more substantial book than MB in the
end.
I tried and failed to read Salammbo. Now, there is a
VERY strange book. All the juicy stuff has been
fermented, I guess.
Theresa
I had to quit my fire-eating career when I could no
longer tell when to spit and when to swallow. Daphne
Gottlieb
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (221 of 223), Read 22
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, September 12, 2001 09:15 PM
Theresa, I found Sentimental Education at my little used
bookstore and will start it soon. (wish me luck. I have a
feeling this will be a difficult book.)
Beej
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (222 of 223), Read 22
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Theresa Simpson theresa.a.simpson@gte.net
Date:
Friday, September 14, 2001 01:06 AM
Hi Beej. It's worth the trip. SM's style is very different
than MB, but this book is thematically very similar - just
more complex and subtle. If you make it through SM, you
might want to try Salammbo, a very, very strange book
which utterly defeated me.
Theresa
I had to quit my fire-eating career when I could no longer
tell when to spit and when to swallow. Daphne Gottlieb
Topic:
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert (223 of 223), Read 14
times
Conf:
Classics Corner
From:
Beej Connor connorva@mindspring.com
Date:
Wednesday, September 19, 2001 08:16 PM
Theresa, I've started Sentimental Education and, so far, I
really like it a lot! It has the same beautiful writing as
Madame Bovary. Just beautiful..
I don't find it particularly difficult, but I'm not very far into
it.
I'll post more about it when I'm done.
Beej
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A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren by Simone De Beauvoir, et al
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