Madame Bovary

It's such a 19th century classic.

firstly, it's one of those books that you simply must read in your life.
why? because if you are a true literary buff - you need to know your basics - and this novel (along with: crime and punishment, portrait of a lady, father guiro and such) is what it is....

Secondly, the novel has all the traits a classic novel has: too many characters, too detailed of a story, long period of time, you can really picture and vividly imagine the surroundings down to the petal color of the daisies.
....so it's a bit tedious at points, not to mention a tiny bit boring, long and over-bearing, but again, it's basics, so you must go thru it, and it's not that bad once you see the beauty in it.

thirdly, the narrator, is fabulous!
the story came alive, and i found myself liking or disliking the characters as Mrs. Stevenson went on.

so to summarize: it's good to have this book in your repertoire, but if you are looking for an easy-read (easy-listening in this case) you might not find what you are looking for.

14 of 14 people found this review helpful

Excellent narrator, beautiful writing

Would you listen to Madame Bovary again? Why?

Yes, parts.

Which character – as performed by Juliet Stevenson – was your favorite?

Juliet Stevenson is such an excellent narrator. Her readings are at a perfect pace and her character interpretations are always wonderful. Ms. Stevenson's understanding of the text and intelligence make listening a joy. I become so lost in the characters she portrays that I forget it is one person reading! Can't say Emma Bovary is a favorite character, but her self-centeredness and vacuousness come through in the dialogue as read by the narrator.

Any additional comments?

I can understand why this novel is so well known. The writing (and this translation) draw you in. But the characters are not sympathetic and I don't understand why Emma Bovary is so empty and why she expresses no remorse at the end of the novel. I feel for her clueless husband and especially for her daughter Berthe.

29 of 31 people found this review helpful

Fantastic Narration

So we all know this is one of the greatest books of all time. I'm not going to add to that.

What I can tell you is that Juliet Stevenson gives a truly fantastic narration that is perfectly suited to the book. I enjoyed her performance immensely.

My only concern is that the book notes don't say anything about the translation and I suspect this may not be the greatest translation of the original. It's the only one I've read, so take this with a few grains of salt, but my understanding is that the difference between a good and bad translation of this book is noticeable.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

News Flash: A Masterpiece

What does Juliet Stevenson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Gorgeous voice. There are a couple of minor editing mistakes in this audio version -- two or three times we'd have a sentence repeated -- but she brings a combination of elegance and clarity that really adds to the experience.

Any additional comments?

I think I thought I’d read Bovary a long time ago. That’s probably because I have read Anna Karenina (and to a lesser extent Chekhov’s “Lady with a Dog”), the other great adulterous novel of the mid-19th century, and I have also read Flaubert’s “A Simple Heart” (in French, no less, thank you Madames Nichols et Bork). It’s also because it’s so entwined in other literature and art that you feel you know it already. It casts the kind of light that makes you think you’ve spent more direct time on it than you have.

So, news flash: this is really good. Flaubert has the gift of the great sentence (even in translation) that he’s famous for. He’ll find the perfect detail or the perfect metaphor. Or, other times, he’ll find the perfect sentence to sum up reveries of one sort or another, and often that sentence will turn what’s come before it on its head.

If Tolstoy is the great Romantic, celebrating the passion that drives Anna’s unhappiness forward, then Flaubert is already a Modernist, someone as intrigued by irony as by the subject before him. That’s true with many of those staggering sentences, of course (he’s like a master painter with brush strokes that speak a consistent language apart from and yet constituting the work as a whole) but it’s also true of his view of Emma. I’d always assumed that we’d be called to root for Emma, that she would be (as Anna in many ways is) a proto-feminist figure whose unhappiness demonstrates the need to reimagine the role of women in society. I think it’s possible to read this that way, but I’m not convinced Flaubert was polemicizing. (And Tolstoy, great as he was, generally was polemicizing about something.)

Instead, I think we are often supposed to judge Emma. I think we are supposed to see her as self-centered and, to take an old-fashioned word then current, immoral. She is scandalous, and she leaves destruction in her wake. Flaubert seems unafraid of her sexuality – there’s great passion here, and it’s fun to imagine the good people of the 1860s and 1870s shocked by its explicit scenes – but he’s also unafraid to judge it. Sure, Charles is a dope, a mediocrity who can’t match her beauty or her intelligence, but we seem to be told here that everything would have turned out all right if only she’d managed to make herself satisfied with what she had. She had the materials for happiness before her, but she had to keep pushing, had to grab for more than was her allotted share.

Anyway, I have almost nothing original to say about this, but then I doubt I’d have anything original to say about visiting the Louvre, something I still hope to do some day. In each case, we’re talking about masterpieces, so there’s nothing wrong with just standing before them, mouth slightly agape, and admiring what’s there.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

EXCELLENT!

This was a wonderful read. I will seek more books by Gustave Flaubert! It is a vacation into another world and another time.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

An interesting take on morality

Where does Madame Bovary rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Fairly high. I liked the performance, and while I hated the heroine, the story was good.

What did you like best about this story?

When Emma suffers for what she has done. I didn't like her much.

What does Juliet Stevenson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I liked her inflections for the various characters. It brought things to life. Also, I am terrible at imagining French pronunciations!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I may or may not have hissed "YESSSS!" when she was indicted.

Any additional comments?

Does disliking Emma make me a bad feminist?

29 of 37 people found this review helpful

Excellent

Great narration of an exceptional text. The story speaks for itself and Stevenson does a nice job.

13 of 18 people found this review helpful

Can't look away...

A slow train wreck. My interest in the book increased from indifferent to "can't look away" as the story progressed. I liked it.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Wonderful classic story, well told

The story takes a long time to set up. I almost gave up at the halfway point. However, when the action begins it is a roller coaster to the end. Juliette Stevenson is excellent, as usual.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Love is but a fickle thing

It was interesting to hear a story about the many forms of love and its consequences. The topics in the story are so relevant today, so it's fascinating to see how love & lust have been around since the beginning of time & this version written in 1857 shows that. The book does not wrap things up with a nice ending, so it can be a little melancholy, but it is very well written & performed. It makes listening to this classic a joy.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful