Madame Bovary Readalong - crinolines, carriages and lovers this way, 1 October

[StColumbofNavron]

Following the successful Anna Karenina readalong (almost coming to a close), Emma Bovary has come up in conversation as a comparison piece. You don't need to have read Anna Karenina though to join in.

We start on 1 October, mark your spot.

The goal is to read one chapter per day. There are three parts, 35 chapters and we'll take a day break between each part. It is fine to post as we go along but no further than the chapter for that day.

I have opted for the Aveling Marx translation (Wordsworth Classics) as that is what is on my shelf, however, more on translations below.

https://welovetranslations.com/2022/04/08/whats-the-best-translation-of-madame-bovary-part-1/
https://welovetranslations.com/2022/04/08/whats-the-best-translation-of-madame-bovary-part-2/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/21/translating-madame-bovary-adam-thorpe

Part 1
1 01-Oct
2 02-Oct
3 03-Oct
4 04-Oct
5 05-Oct
6 06-Oct
7 07-Oct
8 08-Oct
9 09-Oct

BREAK 10-Oct

Part 2
1 11-Oct
2 12-Oct
3 13-Oct
4 14-Oct
5 15-Oct
6 16-Oct
7 17-Oct
8 18-Oct
9 19-Oct
10 20-Oct
11 21-Oct
12 22-Oct
13 23-Oct
14 24-Oct
15 25-Oct

BREAK 26-Oct

Part 3 27-Oct
1 28-Oct
2 29-Oct
3 30-Oct
4 31-Oct
5 01-Nov
6 02-Nov
7 03-Nov
8 04-Nov
9 05-Nov
10 06-Nov
11 07-Nov

Wonky formatting because I'm on a train and using my phone!

Well, that was rather abrupt!

Oh well, never mind her. She's suddenly dead.What a turn up for the books.

I am going to try to join you as I love the idea of a read along though was not quite successful last time I tried.

I came across the War and Peace one when it was about 1/3 of the way through, binge read to catch up and then never quite got the hang of a daily chapter and just finished the book at my own pace. So I was very happy to read it, and would never have started without the read along, but didn't manage to establish a daily reading habit.

I've read chapters one and two and am hoping to find the routine this time. Though the urge to read on is strong...

Joining as it's a reread for me but I'd love to see how others find it!

I read David Copperfield for the first time over the summer and was struck by at least two highly convenient and unexpected deaths. Obviously random deaths were more common in the 19th century but it did make the novelist's task of plotting a lot easier!

I know 😅That was a speedy dispatch.
Exit Madame Bovary Première...

Part 1, Chapter 3

• Charles’s half-hearted mourning doesn’t last too long. Monsieur Rouault shows up the day after the funeral to deliver his payment for the medical treatment, and also to give his condolences. He encourages Charles to visit Les Bertaux again, which he does, happily.
• Monsieur Rouault cheers Charles up, and he quickly begins to forget about his dead wife. In the weeks that follow, things start to look up for Charles. He discovers that he likes living without his wife – he can decide when and what he wants to eat, and doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone. Furthermore, her death was actually good for business, since all the townspeople feel bad for him.
• Charles keeps up his visits to Les Bertaux. One day, he encounters Emma alone. She convinces him to have a drink by saying that she’ll have one, too. She pours herself a few drops of liqueur, but in order to taste it, she throws back her head and licks the bottom of the shot glass.
• Emma and Charles have their first real conversation – that is, Emma talks, and Charles listens. They even go to her room (gasp!) to look at mementos of her days as a schoolgirl at the convent. She complains about the hired help, complains about not living in the city, and generally talks a lot about herself. Charles is charmed.
• On his way home, Charles mulls over the pros and cons of starting something with Emma. He begins to wonder if another marriage might be a good idea…
• Monsieur Rouault, we discover, is not averse to this idea. He loves Emma, but he’s come to terms with the fact that she is simply useless on the farm. He himself isn’t a big fan of farming, and really doesn’t enjoy his profession. When he notices Charles’s interest in Emma, he decides to give his blessing.
• After a while, Charles finally builds up the courage ask Monsieur Rouault for Emma’s hand in marriage. In typical fashion, Charles can’t even get the words out – fortunately, his future father-in-law figures out what’s going on and says it’s all cool with him. The marriage ball is rolling.
• Notably, we don’t know what Emma thinks about any of this…
• The winter passes, and Emma busily prepares her trousseau (a fancy word for the bridal wardrobe).
• Emma reveals herself to be something of a romantic ninny; she would like to be married by torchlight in the dead of night. However, her more practical fiancé and father decide that this is probably not the best idea. A traditional wedding is planned.

A 'romantic ninny' sums up Emma well.

I know, neither of the two main characters are presenting as heroic at the moment. I had no idea what to expect as know absolutely nothing about the book, but I think I was assuming Madame Bovary would be a haughty society heiress. This is much more interesting though.

It is indeed BishyBarnyBee.

Part One, Chapter 4

• It’s the big day, and various friends and family members arrive in a bustle of horses, carriages, and passengers. Flaubert treats us to a rather ridiculous description of country folks; we are reminded again that this is not the sophisticated big city event that Emma longs for; rather, it is a procession of people awkwardly dressed up in their unfashionable best for a small-town wedding.
• We don’t get to see the ceremony, but the wedding feast that comes afterwards is mouth-watering. The guests are treated to be huge table overflowing with roast beef, mutton, chickens, a suckling pig, many alcohols, and a dizzyingly fancy (and incredibly silly) wedding cake. The guests gorge themselves until nightfall, when they pile back into their vehicles and raucously drive back home.
• As everyone settles in for the night, a group of whiny wedding guests complain about how unsatisfactory the event was, cursing Monsieur Rouault behind his back (if you haven’t already figured it out, Flaubert is highly attuned to the flaws and ironies of…well, of humanity on the whole).
• The Bovary family members are characteristically unimpressive during all of these goings-on. Charles’s mother holds her tongue for once (though we can be sure that she’s internally judging everything), while his father stays up partying and drinking all night with the guests. Charles himself is, as usual, fairly dull on the day of the wedding – but after the wedding night, he’s a changed man. He’s clearly very, very in love with Emma.
• The bride, on the other hand, is pretty casual about the whole thing.
• After the couple leaves to start their married life, Monsieur Rouault reflects upon his own life and his dear, departed wife. He remembers happier times and, overcome by sadness, heads home alone.
• Charles and Emma return to his house in Tostes; the neighbors show up to check out the new arrival.

It's the wedding cake chapter! Relating to the blog that Sadik and Almahart linked to above.

In a claim to fame, I actually know Jenny Yee, the scholar who convinced the cake shop in the Oxford Covered Market to bake a replica of the wedding cake 😄She's as lovely as she is clever. I missed the dramatic event of the cake unveiling though...

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19723181.madame-bovarys-wedding-cake-unveiled-oxfords-covered-market/

Holy Muppet!! That's some cake!

Thanks cassandre 😅

😂Academics are meant to do this thing called public engagement and I believe this was part of that. To what extent this enriched the lives of Oxford residents I'm not sure, but it was an ambitious idea!

It was a brilliant idea. Well done to them.

We are used to seeing amazing-looking confectionery these days, but it must have been a real extravagance then to create such a thing. (Wonder if it tasted nice?!)

Père Rouault didn't cut any corners for the wedding dinner, did he? I felt sorry for him going home on his own to his empty house.

Wow! What a cake, it would be admired these days let alone back in the day. No wonder the confectioner wanted to present it himself and take the praise.

Thanks for posting the replica. I have to admit I glossed over the description somewhat as it reminded me of the schoolboys cap debacle!

Love the cake recreation story!

Agreed about the lavishness of the cake! I think part of the point is that it's expensive but also in very poor taste.

Part 1, Chapter 5

• Next, we get a brief tour of Charles and Emma’s house. It sounds pretty decent – nothing impressive, but a nice enough home for a country doctor and his wife. There’s a little garden, an office for Charles (with a bunch of unopened medical books), and generally everything a typical village housewife might need.
• Emma, however, is not your typical village housewife. First of all, she notices the former Madame Bovary’s bridal bouquet preserved in the bedroom – this totally doesn’t fly. This relic of wife #1 is relegated to exile in the attic. After this change, Emma goes on a total renovation rampage, making changes to every aspect of the little house’s décor.
• Charles is in heaven. He gives in to all of Emma’s whims, and buys everything she wants. He’s totally head over heels in love with her, and is infatuated by her beauty. Everything is perfect, as far as he’s concerned, and he can’t remember ever being happier. The whole world is wrapped up in Emma.
• Emma, however, isn’t sure that she’s so happy. She had thought herself in love before the marriage, but now conjugal life doesn’t seem so blissful. She wonders if the words she’s read about in books – passion, rapture, bliss – can apply to her life.

Oh dear, poor Emma has the ick already and who can blame her with Charbovari's big wet kisses.

Part 1, Chapter 6

• Now that we’ve had a tour of the Bovary household, it’s time for a tour of Emma’s inner landscape. Fade out to a flashback…
• Emma is a dreamy, romantic child, and is perhaps too heavily influenced by Paul and Virginia, a popular and super-utopian novel about two siblings stranded on a desert island.
• At age thirteen, Emma is sent to a convent school, where she quickly falls in love with the mystical, aesthetic atmosphere of the religious life; she devotes herself to the ceremonies and artistic poses of convent life.
• We can see where this is heading. The things Emma likes best about religion aren’t what you’d hope or expect – you know, stuff like God or faith. Instead, she is really into the romantic aspects of it; metaphors for the nun’s relationship with God like "betrothed" and "heavenly lover" (I.6.5) really get her going.
• At the convent, Emma meets an old lady with an aristocratic background (her family was ruined by the Revolution, and she worked at the convent as a seamstress). She introduces Emma to novels – and thus to a whole new world of swoony romantic dreams. As she does her work, the girls listen to her stories and read the romance novels she carries around in her apron pocket.
• Soon enough, Emma’s attentions turn from religious ecstasy to dreams of historical romance. She wishes she could live the life she read about in her books.
• Emma’s mother dies while Emma is away at school; the girl is dramatically sad for a little while, but is kind of secretly pleased at herself for being so sensitive.
• The nuns worry that they've lost Emma – they'd assumed that she would join the sisterhood. She rebells against their attempts to draw her back in, and ends up leaving the convent. As Flaubert states pointedly, "no one was sorry to see her go" (I.VI.13).
• Back home, Emma enjoys playing lady of the manor and ordering the servants around for a while. However, she gets sick of it soon enough and – surprise, surprise – misses the convent. By the time Charles appears on the scene, she feels cynical and experienced (though she really hasn’t done anything).
• She actually believes that she’s in love with Charles – but we get the feeling that she would have felt the same way about any guy who happened to wander into her life at that time. Unsurprisingly, now that they’re married, she’s unsettled and discontented.

Jenny was my tutor! Lovely project.

I love Flaubert's pithy comment 'No one was sorry to see her go'. And the old aristocratic lady dealing out 19th century Mills and Boons to the girls from her apron pocket.

That chapter was a good insight into Emma's mindset and the romantic idealisation that colours her outlook on life. It sets up the rest of the novel.

If I don’t have much time for the silly sister in ‘Sense and Sensibility’, am I going to like Emma?