I had picked up Flaubert long back. I must have been freshly out of my final year or into my first job. Among a few others that included Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Flaubert's Madame Bovary got picked into my shopping cart and since then had lay collecting dust on the shelves back home. It was probably the lady on the cover page that had caught my eye. But it was certainly a feeble memory of having heard about the novel somewhere that made me buy it. But I was in no hurry to start off with the book. Hence the long wait.
On the face of it, Madame Bovary looks like any other classic. But it is a pleasant surprise when mid way through the book you realise that you have not been bored as often as you had expected to be. Flaubert is exceptionally good at creating scenes and, of course, stories. His stories run into each other giving a sense of continuity that is often missing in other classics. There are no "fillers". That coupled with the exceptional character portrayal of the protagonist and her husband make Flaubert exceptional in my opinion.
The story is primarily about the boredom that plagues the middle class household. A certain Charles Bovary romances and marries a certain Emma, the daughter of one of his patients. This Emma Bovary, protagonist of the story henceforth, is a starry eyed girl when we first meet her. Gradually, she realises that all her dreams of a glamourous life are too far out of the reaches of her husband. She gets bored immensely in his household while he is beatific in his settled life. She starts hating her husband, she indulges in adultery, running after anyone and anything that holds even a remote promise of something other than her life while the unsuspecting cuckolded man continues his life just the same.
Flaubert was exceptional in the way he built his characters. All were very real and very believable. There was nothing in the story that could be called fantastic. But the way Flaubert grips his readers with such limited exaggeration is very creditable. He is certainly one author I would like to read more of.
On the face of it, Madame Bovary looks like any other classic. But it is a pleasant surprise when mid way through the book you realise that you have not been bored as often as you had expected to be. Flaubert is exceptionally good at creating scenes and, of course, stories. His stories run into each other giving a sense of continuity that is often missing in other classics. There are no "fillers". That coupled with the exceptional character portrayal of the protagonist and her husband make Flaubert exceptional in my opinion.
The story is primarily about the boredom that plagues the middle class household. A certain Charles Bovary romances and marries a certain Emma, the daughter of one of his patients. This Emma Bovary, protagonist of the story henceforth, is a starry eyed girl when we first meet her. Gradually, she realises that all her dreams of a glamourous life are too far out of the reaches of her husband. She gets bored immensely in his household while he is beatific in his settled life. She starts hating her husband, she indulges in adultery, running after anyone and anything that holds even a remote promise of something other than her life while the unsuspecting cuckolded man continues his life just the same.
Flaubert was exceptional in the way he built his characters. All were very real and very believable. There was nothing in the story that could be called fantastic. But the way Flaubert grips his readers with such limited exaggeration is very creditable. He is certainly one author I would like to read more of.
No comments:
Post a Comment