Day Forty-Two

5/12

The Book: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

ISBN: 978-0-7607-9345-9

Suggested By: Brandon Shuler

Where: Home

When: 4:30-5:10P

Music: David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Company: Alone

Pages: 112-170 (58)

The Lead In: I like this book. For a book as old as it is, it still reads well and is interesting. Often times, when you read older books, you get a sense of their age, the miles they have travelled, this book, not so much. I would recommend it, I think.

The 411 on the 55: Rodolphe flirts with Emma over and over again and Charles is oblivious to the whole thing. I would like to say that would be ridiculous, but Charles is a man consumed by his work and completely devoted to his wife (assuming the same from her).  At last, Charles tells Emma to go to Rodolphe for medical advice, and that sets up their no-pants-party in the woods.

Emma feels shame at first, but talks herself out of it and embraces all the emotions of love. She despises Charles more and more, consumed by her new found love. But Rodolphe does not feel the same way, and is just using her for the good time that she is. They set up a system for letter exchange, and she begins begging him to take her away. Sucker.

Charles attempts to treat a gentleman with a clubbed foot with a surgery and treatment that is fresh from Paris, and Emma begins to appreciate him. However, the surgery leads to an infection, which eventually leads to gangrene and the loss of his leg. Emma goes back to thinking Charles is an idiot, incapable of doing anything significant or noteworthy. 

At last, Emma forced Rodolphe to make plans to escape, but instead he sends her a letter on the day of their departure telling her it was not to be. I truly enjoyed the section of the book when he is writing the letter, his thoughts are out in the open, juxtaposed to the letter he is writing. Amusing and well-done. Emma is crushed and goes into a sickness that takes several months to nurse her back. They accrue debt after debt during this time and Emma finds religion, apparently. We shall see where that goes.

Line of the Day: “Ah! Again!” said Rodolphe. “Always ‘duty.’ I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears ‘Duty, duty!’ Ah! by Jove! one’s duty is o eel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accent all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” pg 116

The Fact on the Fiction: “In the 1840s Flaubert studied law at Paris, a brief episode in his life, and in 1844 he had a nervous attack. "I was cowardly in my youth," Flaubert wrote once to George Sand. "I was afraid of life." He recognized from suffering a nervous disease, although it could have been epilepsy. However, the diagnosis changed Flaubert's life. He failed his law exams and decided to devote himself to literature. In this Flaubert was helped by his father who bought him a house at Croisset, on the River Seine between Paris and Rouen.” Flaubert