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Madame Bovary: A Story of Provincial Life (Penguin Popular Classics)
 
 
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Madame Bovary: A Story of Provincial Life (Penguin Popular Classics) (Paperback)

by Gustave Flaubert (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (27 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140621792
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140621792
  • Product Dimensions: 18 x 11 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 73,436 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #7 in  Books > Fiction > The Classics > Flaubert, Gustave

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Product Description

Product Description

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi'.
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly modern writing, 11 Jul 2007
By Wynne Kelly "Kellydoll" (Coventry, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I can well understand how controversial this novel was when it was first published. Overall it is a vicious portrayal of small town France. Most of the characters are revealed to be self-seeking and vain. At the heart of the story is Emma Bovary - and Flaubert is, I feel, ambivalent in his attitude to her. He sometimes describes her very favourably and at others as selfish hard-hearted. And we as readers share this ambivalence - is she a cruel temptress who cares little for her own child or is she a victim of the social mores and unable to act independently? Certainly the book highlights how women of the time could only find happiness and fulfilment through a male partner.

The ending is prolonged and horrific. Was Flaubert hoping to attract our sympathy for the hapless Emma or was he ensuring that she was suitably punished for her infidelities?

The writing is splendid - surprisingly modern and beautifully descriptive. I am sorry I let this book sit unread on my bookshelf for so long?


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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars In Praise of a Great Novel, 28 April 2005
By A Customer
Anyone who feels compelled to label this novel as boring, trashy, romantic etc. has failed to comprehend the subtleties of this fine novel. It is actually an anti-romance, offering a tragic portrayl of a doomed love affair. In fact, it subverts all of the usual rules of the romance narrative, and in doing so provides a novel of huge significance and cultural importance. As readers we are invited to share in Flaubert's highly perceptive (and at the time, hugely original) account of the human condition. We are not supposed to judge and damn Emma as selfish, irrational, immoral etc., rather her character articulates the great complexity of the human experience. The novel is unique in dealing sensitively with human emotion without resorting to romantic cliches. Emma Bovary is so significant a text in pushing the boundaries of "classic" literature, and has been central to so much critical debate that it is astonishing that anyone could find it boring. I guess some people might be disappointed that the novel isn't as sexually explicit as they might have anticipated, and lacks an ending that matches the romantic ideal.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly enjoyed read.., 8 Jun 2006
By J. Quesne "Jo Q" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I throughly enjoyed this work which I found both thought provoking and highly entertaining.

It quickly dawned on me that this was no ordinary 'intelligent woman struggling against bigoted times' novel but one that went much deeper than conventional works. I loved the fact that Emma far from being an ideolised good natured heroine was in fact a selfish, sensual and self-centred women with destructive tendencies. It made her much easier to relate to! Despite the fact that she really is a very unpleasant character there was something about her that I found really appealing. Perhaps it was the way that she increasingly gave into her every desire and expressed the disatisfaction that we all often feel with life but fail to show.

Emma seemed to me so very real with her constant search throughout the novel for an elusive ideal of happiness. One she trys to find in her quest for material goods, her love affairs and her brief religious devotion. Many of her passions are shown to be unltimately shallow and without any real substance - in particular her supposed religious extremisim which is quickly forgotten upon meeting with Leon again - her second lover. I found this portrayal to be an honest and reflective account of her search for happiness and her inability to find happiness in any of the aspects of her life.

I felt very strongly that one of the novel's great strengths was the way the character traits of all the other characters contrast with the heroine. From the wonderful portrayl of the arrogant, boastful Homais who's pompus unbearable arrogance and complete lack of self-awareness highlight the frustrations of Emma's life, to Charles her devoted, kind and good husband who is utterly unsuited to Emma and who by being her complete opposite highlights the destrution of Emma's nature.

There are no hero's in the book and I found that its honest portrayal of the frustrations and passions of life just as relevant today as 150 years ago.

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