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Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Author: Gustave Flaubert, Mildred Marmur (Translator), Evelyn Gendel (Translator)
Foreword by Mary McCarthy. Bored and unhappy in a lifeless marriage, Emma Bovary yearns to escape from the dull circumstances of provincial life. Flaubert’s powerful, deeply moving examination of the moral degeneration of a middle-class Frenchwoman is universally regarded as one of the landmarks of 19th-century fiction.
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ISBN-13: 9780451523877
ISBN-10: 0451523873
Publication Date: 6/1/1964
Pages: 400
Rating:
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 18

3.8 stars, based on 18 ratings
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

racprint avatar reviewed Madame Bovary on + 24 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
When I read that this was considered by many to be the greatest French novel ever (and particularly this translation), I simply had to read it. It does not disappoint. The prose flows over you like dark clouds. Emma is a dreamer, and her dreaming puts her in a vortex that inevitably brings her to a tragic end. A cautionary tale.
leSahraBird avatar reviewed Madame Bovary on + 5 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
So much wheat and barley. Maybe it's a metaphor for something really deep, but...*yaaaawn*. If I want to read about people who think the world of themselves, I'll read People Magazine. Less cumulative time wasted, less barley, and more pictures.
Read All 18 Book Reviews of "Madame Bovary"

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reviewed Madame Bovary on + 9 more book reviews
I enjoyed reading this book far more than I thought I would. I found its description of the degradation of Madame Bovary's life compelling
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 9 more book reviews
A classic! The tragic story of a middle-class woman's downfall.
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 29 more book reviews
Another classic but one I just couldn't get into. When you have to read a book for a specific purpose (like class!) it just makes it that much harder to read. :-)
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 8 more book reviews
the timeless masterpiece of the original Desperate Housewife.
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 2 more book reviews
I had to read this for one of my classes. I don't think I'd've read it otherwise, but it was a decent book. Well written
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 54 more book reviews
This is the classic Madame Bovary: A 1993 Barnes & Noble edition.
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 10 more book reviews
Flaubert's flawless tale of human bondage. The author's realistic & explicit descriptions of the fall of Emma Bovary into adultery, debt and eventual death at her own hand, shocked the establishment of the time and the author and his publisher were prosecuted for irreligion and immorality. Thier acquittal, after a sensational trial, ensured that the book enjoyed an immediate succes de scandale. However, it is the author's treatment of style and aesthetics, as well as a new realism, which established the book as a milestone in the development of the modern novel and a classic of world literature.
buzzby avatar reviewed Madame Bovary on + 6062 more book reviews
I guess Twitter was invented 150 years too late for her.
I didn't quite get this when I read it 35 years ago.
skiley avatar reviewed Madame Bovary on + 21 more book reviews
The protagonist, Madame Bovary is the quintessential self-absorbed, materialistic woman who is not even drawn to her own child. As I read the book, I became increasingly impatient with her and her narcissistic worldview. As the story evolved, though, I was struck by Flaubert's ability to make me see myself in Madame Bovary. The subtle writing makes it impossible to avoid this query: how am I like Madame Bovary? I loved the book.
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 289 more book reviews
Gustave Flaubert's debut novel remains as relevant today as it was controversial when first published in 1856. Although subtitled Provincial Lives, Flaubert not only chronicles the small town petit bourgeois lifestyle of the age, but rather excels in painting a vivid psychological portrait of title character Emma Bovary. The banalities of her external provincial life contrast sharply with the internal fantasy life of the pretty, bored wife of a mediocre physician, setting her up for extravagant and ultimately tragic indulgences in both material goods and adulterous affairs. Flaubert describes both worlds masterfully, showing the stark contrast between the two which often goes unnoticed, with a plot structure that moves along without being weighed down with excessive description. It is at once an old and very modern story of disappointment. Emma is intriguingly also the prime example of how mental ills transform into physical suffering, almost as a textbook example of nineteenth century hysterical psychosomatic illness, as well as a lightening rod for immorality and female sexuality. Might as well see what all the fuss is about: this classic does not disappoint.
reviewed Madame Bovary on + 68 more book reviews
Mass Markent Paperback. Written in French. Good practice?


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