It is never satisfactory to read a translation of course. However, being unable to read this in the original language, I am not able to do anything else. In this case, one hopes that the translation is reasonably accurate and reflects the literary style of the original. This is not possible for someone who isn’t bilingual to determine of course, but I did very much enjoy the prose and the writing style.
This is supposedly one of the first “realist” novels, and some have deemed it to be the greatest ever written. I am not sure I would go that far but there is no question of its strong merit and readability, as well as what it has to say about the human condition. As with much classic and serious literature, this is not necessarily good! This is a dark theme of contrasts, in particular the titular character’s disgust with her boring provincial life and husband, and the life she wishes she had that leads her into affairs and profligate spending and eventually to ruin.
There is certainly realism here. I find none of the characters likable. At all. Emma herself is on this quest for true love and excitement since these are things about which she has read. However she marries a boring man and then embarks on a life of cheating, duplicity, extravagance, Machiavellian sorties and general “bad behavior”. Her husband is, to me, much the more sympathetic figure although he comes across as week and ineffectual. This is where Flaubert does have a genius though; all the characters are recognizable from our everyday lives. Dare we say it, recognizable within ourselves and this is uncomfortable.
The story is one that probably plays out everywhere, every day. Lies, scheming lovers, overly trusting spouses, attempts to generate excitement in an otherwise boring life. I doubt many end in such a dark way as this one does, and with one of the other unlikeable, albeit more minor character, prevailing to the detriment of the main protagonists.
There is a pleasure to be had here in the writing, the straightforward story telling and the fluidity of the story itself. It is easy to follow and one is not overly bogged down in the minutiae of separate story lines that need to be kept straight. There is pleasure in that too (Dickens being perhaps the prime example) but a story that unfolds along a linear path like Bovary has much merit too. Hard to imagine in these more, ahem, liberal times, that this novel should have been scandalous in its depictions of the morals and sexual relationships of Madame Bovary, but apparently this was so.
The writing, albeit in translation is wonderfully flowing and imparting the details of the scenes with delightful smilies and use of language. A couple of examples:
“One’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”
“But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.”
I find other elements that amuse me in this narrative, most especially some of the snide remarks about religion put into the mouths of some of the characters. Can’t help feeling this is what Flaubert felt, along with the frequent and relatively admiring references to Voltaire. A great read, pity that I found no characters to like or admire but, I guess, that is the point of realism sometimes.