Day Forty-Four

5/14

The Book: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

ISBN: 978-0-7607-9345-9

Suggested By: Brandon Shuler

Where: Moonbean’s Coffee

When: 11:15-11:45A

Music: Some Blues XM station

Company: Other people in the store that talk too loudly

Pages: 228- 275 (47)

The Lead In: Ah Emma, so many men, so little time.

The 411 on the 55: Things get worse and worse and Leon decides he needs to call it off with her, especially after she begs him for money. So she hits up Rodolphe and the same happens, he spurns her. The tax collector hits on her and this offends her. Whores can’t be picky, I think, specially when the bills gots to be paid! Emma freaks out, no one loves her, except for the husband who she is too good for and everything in her house is being sold to pay off a claim against her.

So what does Emma do? Eat some arsenic.

And she languishes for about 2 days and kicks it. Charles is hysterical. No one else seems to care, having conversations about everything but Emma. After her death Charles goes nuts and starts adopting her habits. No, not dressing in lavish dresses and nailing men, but rather spending too much money and keeping with fashion. But sadly, he eventually dies in the garden, holding a lock of her hair. Berthe is sent off to her aunt’s, as everyone else is dead or invalid. Finally she is shipped off to work in a factory. End of story. 

The 20/20: Really good book, incited some emotion out of me. Maybe the first book of this task to do that. Well, Jamaica Inn made me angry, but at the book not at the characters. Stories about cheating always piss me off, and this was a good story about cheating. This book was written in 1856, that makes it 153 years old. Considering its age, amazing book. Read it.

Line of the Day: AWESOME QUOTE: “So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultana; every notary bears within him the deb

ris of a poet.” pg 228

The Fact on the Fiction: Arsenic poisoning doesn’t sound very fun. Many famous people have died from it, including Napolean Bonaparte and George III of England. Because the effects of arsenic poisoning are similar to cholera, it became a very common method for murderers. By the 19th C., it had acquired the nickname "inheritance powder," perhaps because impatient heirs were known or suspected to use it to ensure or accelerate their inheritances. Wikipedia

pictured: me, hating Emma for being such a slut.