Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.

 

The quest to find love makes people do crazy things. Madame Bovary is the story of one such dreamer who spends her life searching for the passion, excitement and adventure she hears about in stories but which seems to be missing from her mundane everyday life.

Charles Bovary is a simple and unambitious doctor who prefers to live a peaceful domestic life. After the death of his first wife, Charles marries Emma Roualt. Emma spent her youth reading romantic novels and imagining herself to be the protagonist of all the great adventures in them. She dreams of living a rich, luxurious life in Paris. A simple, unambitious and average man like Charles doesn't satisfy Emma, who becomes disenchated with her marriage and sees it as constrictive and suffocating. Easy going charles doesn't realize his wife's unhappiness and assumes that a change of air could do her good. So he takes Emma and settles down in the larger town of Yonville. But the change of scenery doesn't do Emma much good and she continuous to feel unhappy and disappointed. When Rodolphe, a rich young man tries to seduce her, Emma falls pray to his charms. She begins an illicit affair with Rodolphe, believing herself to have found love at last. Unsuspecting Charles continues to pay for his wife's expenses , not realizing that Emma's using his money to cheat him. Things move fast and .... well, I will let you find that out for yourself.

This heady cocktail of love, lust and emotions is the basic plot of this classic novel. Madame Bovary is a book that will tug at your heart strings from all sides. Whether it be the desperate for love Emma, the clever Rodolphe or the simple doctor, every character manages to make an impression. The novel can be classified as a romantic tragedy that explores the relation between dreams and reality. I would highly recommend this to people who are unsatisfied with their stations in life or even worse, their life partners (look before you leap as they say :D).

 

Reasons to read:

• The novel makes a strong case for the need to be practical in life. Every character manages to destroy himself in trying to attain an unattainable goal.
• The detailed character description and the intricate plots keep you engrossed.
• One of the best romantic tragedy's, its a must read for fans of the genre.

Memorable Quotes:

“You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes.” 

"Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

"An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space"

"Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling"