Madame Bovary: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Gustave Flaubert (EPUB)

Description

For daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion, the author of Madame Bovary was tried for “offenses against morality and religion.” What shocks us today about Flaubert’s devastatingly realized tale of a young woman destroyed by the reckless pursuit of her romantic dreams is its pure artistry: the poise of its narrative structure, the opulence of its prose (marvelously captured in the English translation of Francis Steegmuller), and its creation of a world whose minor figures are as vital as its doomed heroine. In reading Madame Bovary, one experiences a work that remains genuinely revolutionary almost a century and a half after its creation.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Finally listened to this book; it’s been on my list for a long time. Really enjoyed Leelee Sobieski’s voice! Her presentation of Finally listened to this title; it’s been on my list for years. Thoroughly enjoyed Leelee Sobieski’s voice. Her presentation of Monsieur Homais sounds JUST like Yogi Bear…and I loved it :)Hearing about this book for, well…my entire life…I expected and hoped it would be a bit more tawdry. For this I dropped a star, but Leelee’s reading made it fun.

⭐Having seen a TV adaptation of Mme Bovary years ago, I was never attracted to reading it, but we chose it for a book group and this translation was well reviewed.I can’t compare it with other translations, but I can say this flows easily and is highly readable, and lacks nothing in subtlety as far as I can tell. The translator’s introduction is also very readable and highly informative.The novel is indeed a tour de force on many levels. I can only marvel at Flaubert’s ability in making the thoroughly febrile character of Emma into someone who we can’t stop watching despite being constantly appalled by her. The subtitle of the novel, in this translation, is “Provincial Ways” and it is as much about the stultifying, mannered meanness of the bourgeoisie in a small French (any) town as it is about Emma. I am glad I finally read this truly classic and great novel.

⭐Unfortunately some pages in the beginning came ripped but nothing unreadable. I was able to still read past it and it didn’t distract me from the great storyline.

⭐I’ve always thought that “Madame Bovary” was a bit of a slog. Then I came across Francis Steegmuller’s “Flaubert and Madame Bovary: A Dual Biography,” which transformed my understanding. Before he ever sat down to write the novel, the young Flaubert had traveled to the “Orient” (from Cairo to Constantinople) and researched an unpublished novel set in antiquity. The whole point of writing fiction was to -escape- the detestable bourgeois society that surrounded him and his friends; and, but for a friend’s urging, he might never have written a novel set in such a hopelessly idiotic place as provincial France.Emma’s tawdry, escapist fantasies are rendered with an almost religious devotion to what Flaubert called “style” (even in English, you get a sense of Flaubert’s obsessive attention to detail and to the sound of his sentences). To take one example: Dreaming of running away with Rodolphe, Emma imagines, “Behind four galloping horses, she had been carried seven days into a new land, whence they would never return. On they go, on they go, close-embracing, wordlessly. Often, from a mountain-top, they suddenly glimpsed some splendid city of domes, bridges, ships, groves of lemon-trees and cathedrals of white marble, their elegant spires topped with the nests of storks.” And so on. The novel is supposed to be unpleasant, even repugnant, because the world in which it is set is unpleasant and repugnant, and the only way out is through literature.

⭐I had read another, older translation of this novel a few years book and found it dated. Our library fiction book group read this translation and enjoyed the translation, if not the plot. It is difficult for many women today to sympathize with Emma Bovary who seems frivolous, overly-romantic, consumed with fantasy and a negligent mother. However, if Emma Bovary were living today, she would probably move to Paris, work in the fashion industry, develop her talents, be a career woman and we would applaud her for it.Flaubert may have intended this to be read as darkly comic as he satirizes most of the characters and scenes. With humorous juxtaposition, he has intensely sentimental or dramatic scenes interrupted by more prosaic. For example, in one scene, Emma and her current amour are protesting their undying love for each other while talk of agriculture and manure is wafting through the open window.The translator, Lydia Davis, created beautiful imagery out of Flaubert’s words. In one description, the traipsing of townspeople on a road is compared to a vivid and colorful long scarf unfolding. Flaubert is the master of what a writing instructor would describe as the “telling detail” – those details which distinguish a scene or character and the translator captured these. The book seemed much more contemporary (not modern) with this translation as if we were transported to the 1800’s and watching the action unfold in present time.Flaubert is revered by authors for this novel. Although the plot is depressing, I found the book inspiring as a work of literature and believe any writer would benefit from examining Flaubert’s craft as a writer.

⭐The descriptive passages are beautifully written. The characters are fascinating. Find myself still thinking about all of them and what motivated them.

⭐There’s no way I could give this book as a gift. Such a poor quality, pages look torn out even it’s never been open and read.

⭐I enjoyed this story!!!! I just loved it! There were some great quotes and just life principles to be gleaned. The story was entertaining and thought provoking. I read it on my kindle and loved to see the text that other readers thought worth underlining. Overall a great book! There is probably a little Madame Bovary in all of us!

⭐I’ve read ‘Madame Bovary’ at least twice before but long enough ago not to recall it in detail. So, I had the perfect excuse to buy the recent translation by a favourite writer Lydia Davis – I also enjoyed her take on Proust. I hadn’t fully taken on board, until I read the reviews of this edition, how fraught the world of translating can be. Assessments ranged from scathing (Julian Barnes in the LRB) to vast acclaim, so mixed were reactions that James Wood, writing in the ‘New Yorker’ confessed to reading Davis’s ‘Bovary’ alongside three other translations plus the original! I didn’t try that, after all if my French weren’t rusty why would I need a translation? So, I can’t comment on Davis’s version versus the others available, all I can say is that I very much appreciated it; I found it fluid and sensitive; certainly it didn’t spoil my engagement with Flaubert’s story or his characters. ‘Madame Bovary’ is a wonderful story and Emma is a fascinating character, so for anyone who hasn’t read the novel I would recommend trying it in this version.

⭐A really enjoyable piece of literature that explores the issues of morality in burgeoning capitalism. ‘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.’Beautifully written, immersive and genuinely engaging. A story of the multifaceted composition of love.I very much enjoyed this book.

⭐Best translation.

⭐Close thing between the Eleanor Marx translation of 1888.and Lydia Davis’s 2010 version. Last time I read it was at school (in translation) as I finished Frech at “O” Level. Also there are interesting comments by Julian Barnes and a re imagining of the last chapter which he wrote for the Gurdian and the LRB.

⭐An excellent translation, an excellent introduction, beautifully presented in a quality paperback that will tickle your fancy–its worth paying a couple of bucks more for one of the finest novels ever written!

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