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

Part Two, Chapter 15

• The opera is Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, a tragedy in which an unfortunate heroine is driven mad because she’s forced to marry the wrong man. Perhaps not the best choice for Emma…
• Emma and Charles take a stroll before the opera, and when they finally settle down in their seats, Emma feels satisfied for the first time in a long while. Waiting for the show to start, she admires her fellow audience-members.
• The opera immediately transports Emma back to the romantic novels of Sir Walter Scott she enjoyed as a girl (the opera was based upon book called The Bride of Lammermoor by Scott). She feels the music reverberate in her soul – it sounds like the old Emma is back.
• The famous tenor recommended by Homais, Edgar Lagardy, makes a dramatic entrance onstage. Emma is struck by his appearance, and the whole audience falls for him.
• Emma sees her own story in the narrative that unfolds before her. She thinks that nobody has ever loved her the way that the hero and heroine love each other.
• Charles doesn’t really get what’s going on, and he keeps bugging Emma with questions. She’s not amused.
• A wedding scene unfolds on stage, and Emma thinks of her own wedding – she wishes that she, like the opera’s heroine, had resisted and not married Charles.
• As things get more and more dramatic onstage, they also get more and more dramatic in Emma’s mind. She imagines what it would be like to be the lover of Lagardy, the tenor. She is swept up in the fantasy of running away with the singer across Europe when the curtain falls; it’s intermission.
• Charles runs off clumsily to get Emma something to drink. On his way back, he manages to spill the drink on a very upset lady, but makes it back to Emma somehow.
• Charles has big news. While he was away, he saw someone we haven’t encountered for a while: Léon Dupuis.
• Before Charles even finishes telling Emma about his encounter, Léon himself shows up in their box. He and Emma shake hands and start catching up; just then, Act III of the opera begins.
• Emma is no longer interested in the drama onstage, now that there’s some drama sitting right next to her. All of her pre-Rodolphe feelings start to return.
• Léon obviously feels something, too – he suggests that they leave the theatre and go elsewhere to talk. Charles, who’s actually kind of into the opera now, doesn’t want to go, but Emma insists.
• At a café, they eat ice cream and make small talk. Léon attempts to show off by discussing music – he claims that Lagardy isn’t all he’s cracked up to be.
• Charles, who’s still bummed about missing the end of the performance, suggests that perhaps Emma might like to stay in Rouen by herself for a couple of days and see the opera again. Léon, of course, encourages this.
• Emma demurely makes no promises – she smiles oddly, knowing that something’s up with Léon. She and Charles will decide overnight what she should do.
• The old friends part ways, with the clerk promising to visit Yonville soon.

Just checking in to say I’ve fallen behind (my Running Grave reservation came through and Flaubert is sadly no match for Robert Galbraith) - so I’m a couple of pages of posts and 70 pages of novel behind. Hopefully will catch up over the next few days.

Yeah, CornishLizard, Flaubert v. Galbraith is a no-brainer 😁

No competition at all cassandre I’m sure literature syllabuses across the globe are being updated as we speak.

I’ve caught up sooner than I thought - last few chapters were pacier (and racier) than I expected. Skipped the operation chapter though, the summary was ordeal enough. Enjoyed reading everyone’s posts along the way. Rodolphe is a thorough wrong’un isn’t he - unlike Vronsky where I’m wondering if i might have more sympathy for him on a second read Rodolphe is just a scoundrel. The mounting debts are stressing me out.

Part Three, Chapter 1

• A lot of things happened to Léon in Paris. First of all, he studied law. Secondly, he studied women. He’s no longer the same shy boy he was before. All along, he held on to a vague hope that someday he and Emma might actually get together, even while he had new experiences with other women.
• This new Léon is resolved to "possess" Emma. He’s determined and much craftier than he used to be. He follows Emma and Charles to their inn, then returns the next morning to scout out the situation. He discovers Emma in the hotel room…alone.
• Léon has become something of a sweet-talker over the past few years. Perhaps he’s not at the same level as Rodolphe, but he’s getting up there. He and Emma talk and talk about the various sorrows of their lives. Sigh. Same old, same old.
• Noticeably, Emma doesn’t say anything about loving another man, and Léon doesn’t say anything about kind of forgetting Emma.
• Both of them make dramatic claims, each saying that life is miserable without the other.
• Basically, this love scene is just one big string of complaints – there’s nothing romantic about that. Finally, Léon gives in and says out loud that he was in love with her.
• All of a sudden the tension is broken, and old feelings come rushing out, created anew by their current proximity. Emma is startled by how much she remembers – she feels old and experienced.
• They talk until night falls.
• Léon suggests that they could start over again, but Emma, attempting to be noble, says that she’s too old and he’s too young (they actually aren’t that different in age, if at all).
• It’s late – they’ve even missed the opera. Léon gets up to leave, but convinces Emma to meet him one more time. She makes their meeting point the famous Rouen cathedral.
• That night, Emma writes a farewell letter of her own, explaining to Léon why they can’t be together. However, she can’t send it, since she doesn’t have his address. She decides to give it to him in person.
• Before the rendezvous, Léon primps nervously. He even buys Emma flowers, and goes to meet her at the cathedral.
• There, he’s met not by Emma, but by a cathedral guide, who attempts to give Léon a tour.
• Emma’s late, and Léon grows more anxious. Finally, she arrives. She starts to give him the letter, but is seized by the desire to pray. Léon is both charmed and irritated.
• As they’re about to leave, the guide comes up and offers to give them a tour again. Emma, concerned for her virtue, desperately says yes.
• They follow the guide, not listening, through the cathedral and back to where they started. Before they get to the tower, Léon basically hurls a coin at the poor guide and pulls Emma away with him. The guide doesn’t get the picture – he just keeps coming back. The couple flees the cathedral rather comically.
• Outside, Léon sends a little street kid to find a cab for them. Awkwardly, they wait alone – there’s a kind of aggressive tension between them.
• The cab arrives. They get in as the cathedral guy yells at them from the church door, and Léon tells the driver to go wherever he wants.
• The following is one of the most famous scenes of the novel. We see the cab rushing through Rouen aimlessly; we can’t see inside it, but we can, however, guess what’s going on…Léon keeps yelling up to the driver to keep going; he and Emma stay concealed in the cab.
• The poor cab driver is tired and certainly weirded out. His horses are exhausted, and everyone’s demoralized. The passengers, however, give no sign.
• Around mid-afternoon, a hand is seen throwing scraps of paper out the window; we assume it’s Emma bidding farewell to the well-intentioned farewell letter.
• Finally, in the early evening, the cab stops. Emma calmly steps out of it and walks away.

OK...so are they doing what I think they're doing in that cab???

Ce n'est pas très comme il faut!! 😮

Zut alors!

Zut! Mille fois zut!!

😂😂

Part Three, Chapter Two

• Emma returns to the inn, and finds that she’s missed the Hirondelle, which was there to pick her up earlier. She hires a cab and catches up to the stagecoach. She returns home.
• Once there, Félicité sends her next door to the Homais house, saying that it’s urgent.
• It’s jam making day in Yonville, a particularly hectic time.
• At chez Homais, Emma discovers the pharmacist’s family in an uproar. It turns out that Justin almost made a fatal mistake – he almost used a pan for jam that was dangerously close to the jar of arsenic.
• Homais is unbelievably angry; his wife and the children freak out, as though they’d already been poisoned. Emma observes all this, as Homais goes through the whole chain of events again.
• Poor Justin. Things just go from bad to worse for him. As Homais shakes him back and forth angrily, a book falls out of his pocket. Not just any book…a book called Conjugal Love. With pictures. The children are struck dumb, and Homais snatches it away furiously.
• At this point, Emma successfully breaks into the conversation. She asks what’s wrong.
• Homais bluntly tells her that her father-in-law, the elder Monsieur Bovary, is dead.
• Emma goes to find Charles as Homais cools down a bit, still grumbling.
• Charles has been waiting for his wife, and tearfully greets her with a hug and kiss. Emma, remembering Léon, is grossed out by her husband. She responds with an extraordinary lack of sympathy.
• Charles, poor man, just thinks that Emma is struck by grief, when in reality, she just doesn’t know what to say, and doesn’t feel anything.
• Hippolyte limps in, bringing Emma’s bags. Emma is embarrassed as ever by his presence, a symbol of Charles’s failures.
• The next day, Charles’s mother arrives. Mother and son are debilitated by grief; Emma is unmoved. Instead, she’s daydreaming about Léon.
• Monsieur Lheureux, who seems to have an incredible radar system for knowing the absolute worst time for stopping by, stops by.
• The merchant and Emma step aside to discuss business. Lheureux slyly proposes another lending arrangement – knowing that Emma is a fool with money, he wants Charles to give her power of attorney (basically control over their financial situation), so he can deal with her.
• Soon enough, he returns with yards of black fabric for a mourning dress.
• Lheureux keeps pushing Emma about the whole power of attorney business, which she doesn’t really understand. However, she figures things out soon enough.
• As soon as Charles’s mother leaves, Emma goes into financier mode. She has a document drawn up by the notary, which gives her control over the family’s money and loans.
• Charles is amazed by what seems like Emma’s common sense. She slyly suggests that they should have someone else look over the notarized document before they sign it – and Charles himself sends her to Rouen to meet with Léon. She’s gone for three days.

Part 3, Chapter 3

• Those three days are like heaven. Emma and Léon stay in a waterfront hotel, doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company. Emma is happier than she’s been since Rodolphe.
• One day, on a boat ride, Emma is actually reminded of Rodolphe – the boatman mentions giving a ride to a gentleman of his appearance. She shudders, but gets over it quickly.
• The holiday has to end, though. Emma tells Léon to send letters to her to the home of Madame Rollet, the former wetnurse.
• As Léon makes his way home, having deposited Emma at the stagecoach, he wonders idly why she is so determined to get the power of attorney.

I'm a couple of chapters behind and I've just finished the bit about them driving around Rouen in the cab. I'm reminded of the famous "hand print on steamed up window" scene in Titanic!

I thought of that too!

Part Three, Chapter Four

• Léon is just as into the affair as Emma is. He reads her letters voraciously, and gets sick of his job; instead, he thinks about his mistress.
• One weekend, he misses Emma so much he actually visits Yonville. The townspeople are glad to see him. He stays in the Lion d’Or, Madame Lefrançois’s inn, waiting for an opportune moment to see his love.
• On the second night of his visit, he’s finally able to see her – in the same place she used to meet Rodolphe. They lament the difficulty of life…it’s so hard to be apart!
• Emma gets more and more cunning; she meets with Madame Rollet to get her letters, orders tons of new items from Monsieur Lheureux, and even hatches a sly plan to get Charles to send her to Rouen once a week.
• Under the false pretenses of picking up her music again, she complains about her lack of skill with the piano. She wheedles Charles into agreeing to pay for lessons in Rouen.

Oh good, a couple of shorter chapters! Caught up now.

Yes, but today's is loooooong !

An unexpected plus for Tolstoy. "Consistent chapter length" not something I normally consider!

The short ones definitely are helping me keep up!

I’m not sure I’m really liking this book. I feel like the author shares Emma’s contempt for Charles and his unrequited devotion - we don’t share any more of Charles’ inner life. I’m also uncomfortable with what feels like a conflation of reckless spending and piling up of debt with sexual incontinence. It makes me feel such a prude reading it but I have such a horror of owing money that I’m reading through my fingers!

I took a break from this to start Nicholas Nickleby. I think I needed it. It has been very stressful and intense. Dickens is restful by comparison!

Can I join in? Just noticed this thread and coincidentally I read Anna Karenina (took from January to August, a chapter a day), and now on Mme Bovary - the chapters are LONG in comparison! I'm on part 2, chapter 12. So need to catch up.

Welcome Longlist! It doesn't sound like you are too far behind the daily chapter.
I'll get back to it tomorrow.

CornishLizard at you reading through your fingers for the reckless spending rather than the adultery! I agree!!

Hello Longlist 👋

Well , today's chapter was filthy!!

She sure is taking a lot of risks.