Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

Rating: 4.5 stars

It took me a long time to read Madame Bovary, around a month, and I usually read a novel-length (300 page) book in a week or two. I guess that’s the most notable thing that I’ll say about this book because everything else of substance as been said about a classic such as this.

It turns out the version I’m reading is the one my brother read for his high school English class, which is, in the end, a context that I think makes the most sense for where most people read Madame Bovary. It’s layered thick with what could possibly be allegories and metaphors for larger things, but you can also read it for the literal story, and you’ll get a lot of meaning out of it.

I have significantly different tastes from my wife, but it’s one of the few books I recommended to her. The characters, each of them, are fully rounded and deeply flawed, which gives the reader a lot to ponder and think about. The main flaw, as you can guess, is that it really reads like a book written in 1830s France and is pretty hard to get through quickly. I recommend reading it slowly so you can ponder it

One last thing I’ll say is that, like all art, it is political. Written in the early 19th century during the restoration of the monarchy (according to the introduction), there’s a large deal of class awareness despite the book being written before Marx. I guess that goes to show how little I know about French politics of the 19th century!