How to Read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (Introductory Lecture) (Patreon)

It’s time to begin our deep appreciation of Gustave Flaubert's profoundly influential realist novel: Madame Bovary.

Our reading will teach us about the rise of realism, romantic illusions, idealised love vs mundane reality, men vs women in the nineteenth century, le mot juste, how the narrator became invisible, free indirect discourse, famous obscenity trials, how prose became the new poetry, and much more.

Today we’re discussing how best to break into this impactful story and bring ourselves fully to this masterpiece of French Literature.

Video Timestamps:

0:00 the trial against Gustave Flaubert

2:00 how to read Madame Bovary

3:00 the three most influential novels

4:00 appreciating the rise of realism

6:00 difference of realism vs romance

8:00 examples of romance stories

10:00 on the romanticism movement

12:00 political and aesthetic revolution

13:00 turmoil as fertile artistic soil

14:00 Flaubert before Madame Bovary

15:00 novels of Balzac, Zola, Stendhal

17:00 the 19th century dislike of realism 

18:00 romances as adventure narratives

19:00 power of Cervantes’ Don Quixote

21:00 on Shakespeare vs Cervantes

23:00 overwhelmed by the romantic

24:00 what is Madame Bovary about?

25:00 realism became the new romance

26:00 a novel about reading novels

27:00 ‘Emma Bovary, c’est moi’

28:00 the letters of Gustave Flaubert

29:00 why do readers dislike Emma?

31:00 spoiler-free story summary 

32:00 the kinds of novels Emma reads

34:00 Emma’s marriage to Charles

35:00 why comparison is the thief of joy

36:00 shattered illusions about love

39:00 learning about love from books

41:00 women in the 19th century

44:00 inequality of men vs women

45:00 why Emma becomes depressed

46:00 the boredom of everyday life

47:00 comparing our lives to others

48:00 Flaubert’s critique of romance

49:00 tragedy and pain in Flaubert’s life

50:00 what realism actually looks like

51:00 le mot just/the perfect word

53:00 musicality, visuality, subtext

54:00 making the narrator invisible

57:00 Flaubert’s free indirect discourse 

1:02:00 making prose the new poetry

1:05:00 Madame Bovary obscenity trial

1:07:00 why was this novel controversial?

1:08:00 outcome of the obscenity trial

1:10:00 Flaubert book club lecture series

1:15:00 best translation of Madame Bovary

1:19:00 Francis Steegmuller translation

1:21:00 the Lydia Davis translation 

1:22:00 the Geoffrey Wall translation

1:24:00 your experience with this novel?

1:25:00 thank you for reading with us

Resources:

As we live in the world of Flaubert's Madame Bovary together, we will have recommendations for rich side avenues and optional extracurriculars. You may wish to pursue some of these in order to deepen your appreciation of this masterpiece.

• Translation: If you are reading this novel in English translation, you have lots of options for good translations available. I am going to be working from the Francis Steegmuller translation available in Everyman's Library edition. But I'm also a great fan of the Lydia Davis translation available in Penguin Deluxe edition. I also like the Margaret Mauldon translation available in Oxford World's Classics edition, but find it difficult to take to the Geoffrey Wall translation in Penguin that we read in our taste-test. For me, it's between the Steegmuller and the Davis, but, as always, I believe the best translation is the one that gets you into the work, so choose one that resonates with you. Julian Barnes also has an excellent deep dive and analysis of several translations here.

• Television & Film: I often recommend readers save a great adaptation for the end of their reading as a treat for finishing the work. As you read, think about how you would adapt Flaubert's story to the screen. Would you go for a feature-length film or a television series? Which parts of the story are absolutely key to include? How would you want your viewers to feel watching the story? It's interesting to compare your thoughts to the adaptations available. The 1991 film directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Isabelle Huppert is excellent and my personal favourite. If you're in the mood for a black-and-white Hollywood production, then there is the 1949 film directed by Vincente Minnelli. For a contemporary production, there is the Mia Wasikowska version from ten years ago. There is a 2000 miniseries and my favourite television series is the BBC adaptation from 1975.

• Audiobook: A great audiobook is a wonderful addition to a deep reading. I'll often read and listen simultaneously, which creates a movie in my mind's eye. Or I'll reserve my audiobook for driving and re-listen to the part of the narrative I have recently enjoyed to get some rereading in. Juliet Stevenson, one of my favourite narrators, has a great reading of Madame Bovary here. If you want to hear my thoughts on audiobooks vs physical books, then you might like this video: Do Audiobooks Count as Reading?

• Short Fiction: I love having the short stories of an author on hand as I make my way through their magnum opus. Flaubert's 1877 work Three Tales is a fantastic one to treat yourself to. I recommend reading 'A Simple Heart,' which inspired Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot, and contrasting and comparing this short narrative with Madame Bovary. What similarities do they share? And what significant differences do you notice?

• Letters & Biography: You can make Flaubert's acquaintance and get an intimate glimpse into the philosophy of his craft, his writing process, how he feels about the world, and the obscenity trial that brought notoriety to Madame Bovary by leafing through The Letters of Gustave Flaubert translated by Francis Steegmuller. Reading his letters is like reading a riveting autobiography. I'll make reading recommendations for this volume as we work our way through the novel, but, if you're interested, you may like to begin by checking out the slim chapter entitled 'Publication, Trial, Triumph,' to see Flaubert's letters to Baudelaire and get a sense of how he felt about the trial. And for a biography of the author, I recommend Flaubert: A Biography by Frederick Brown.

• Article: There is a thought-provoking article in the New Yorker by Roxana Robinson that you might find interesting if you are rereading this novel: Teaching Madame Bovary. If this is your first reading of this story, don't read the article until you have finished the novel because it contains spoilers. Robinson, who teaches the novel every year to her graduate students in a course on compassion in modernism, asks this question: "Does Flaubert want us to feel contempt or compassion for his characters?" I issued a challenge in the above video to try to sympathise with the characters with an awareness of how Flaubert goes to some efforts to make that very difficult for readers. As you read, keep this question in mind and think about why Flaubert crafts his characters in the way that he does. What larger societal and human point is he ultimately making?

• Journalling: This novel is an excellent one to journal around. Have a dialogue in the margins with Flaubert, his characters, and yourself. Gather favourite lines like flowers. Become 'obsessed with sentences,' as Flaubert's mother would say of the writer. I'm continuing to use the Leuchturrm1917 journals, and this is how I journal, do marginalia, and approach rereading: How to Journal on Great Literature. And if you're interested in my reading practice, I run through that, with some tips on deep reading, here: How to Create a Powerful Daily Reading Practice.

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion is this coming weekend and will cover the events of part one of the novel, which is comprised of nine chapters and runs to a little over sixty pages in most editions.

So start making your way into the work, meeting the characters, reading between the lines, flexing your imagination, and noting down any themes, ideas, or passages that personally resonate with you.

Questions for You:

1) What is your current relationship with Flaubert? Is this your first reading or a rereading of this masterpiece?

2) What themes from your wider reading would you like to pull into Madame Bovary?

3) Why do you think realism resonated with so many readers and writers across the nineteenth century? And why did it shock and offend many too?

4) What do you value most about reading books? And what kinds of books offer you the greatest escapism?

Happy reading, everybody!