emma's Reviews > Madame Bovary

welcome to...MADAME BOVUARY!

you know what time it is — it's a title / month pun, i'm picking up an ill-advised classic, and i'm going to be as attention seeking about it as possible. IT'S ANOTHER PROJECT LONG CLASSIC INSTALLMENT.

except this time i'm doing it at the end of one month into the start of another, the book is not that long, and i'm kind of proud of the terrible pun. because it works with both months. inasmuch as it works with anything.

let's get into it!


PART 1, CHAPTER 1
i primarily bought this book because i'm addicted to penguin clothbound classics, and secondarily bought it because the description is "Emma is beautiful and bored" and that's my life story.

this book is not long, but there are 35 chapters and i'm trying to be More Chill about my reading, so a chapter a day it is!


PART 1, CHAPTER 2
so far, so weird.


PART 1, CHAPTER 3
thus far it's been a lot of exposition-y chapters, which makes sense, but they are so oddly written as to be more confusing than enlightening. whatever! onto the actual story.


PART 1, CHAPTER 4
wedding scene!!!! this sounded fun. good chapter. i approve.

i don't have a lot to say about this book thus far, if you couldn't tell.


PART 1, CHAPTER 5
i do actually love the description in this. so pretty and clear.


PART 1, CHAPTER 6
hello and welcome to our first catch-up day. a three-chapter situation. everyone say thank you, gustave for making these chapters so short.

emma is addicted to novels...once again she is just like me fr.


PART 1, CHAPTER 7
in a twist that will surprise absolutely no one, i like the unlikable pretty protagonist who hates her life and charms everyone.


PART 1, CHAPTER 8
i do feel bad for charles, though.


PART 1, CHAPTER 9
she's sooooo difficult...i stan


PART 2, CHAPTER 1
a fun lil Get To Know The Villagers chapter.


PART 2, CHAPTER 2
suddenly, just as i settled into the comfort of the idea that this would be a Description Book, here we are in Dialogue City. what a change!


PART 2, CHAPTER 3
i really do feel like classics will cover the local politics of a small village for 75 pages, and marriage / birth / death are fully covered in a paragraph or two.


PART 2, CHAPTER 4
happy three chapter day to all who celebrate.

my copy of this is used (part of my How To Afford Collecting Penguin Clothbounds strategy) and there has been nary a mark inside until now. the last line of this chapter is underlined, and i agree: it rules.


PART 2, CHAPTER 5
accidentally got enraptured and forgot to write about individual chapters. this is the REAL problem with three chapter days.


PART 2, CHAPTER 6
yearning!!!


PART 2, CHAPTER 7
emma has to stop reading novels??? good god...a fate worse than death....


PART 2, CHAPTER 8
something fun that this chapter did is make me feel the same existential boredom, but for the sweet relief of bantery dialogue, that our dear emma suffers from every day.

because it was very boring.

CONTROVERSY ARRIVES.


PART 2, CHAPTER 9
a recipe for disaster is unfolding before us.


PART 2, CHAPTER 10
emma, girl...stand up...


PART 2, CHAPTER 11
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

let's spend it reading four chapters of existential ennui. and apparently extensive descriptions of club foot.


PART 2, CHAPTER 12
i do love that being a hater and a trickster is making emma turn hot again. that's my entire skincare routine and life philosophy summed up.


PART 2, CHAPTER 13
you hate to see a man win a situation...women are so much better at deception and deviousness...it looks odd on a man.


PART 2, CHAPTER 14
2-14 on 2/14...pretty cute.

there is no romantic connection or eternal tie quite like the correlation between something bad happening and life-altering illness in classic books. if you had a bad day as a protagonist in 1809...welcome to a life of Consumption.


PART 2, CHAPTER 15
emma has a ROSTER. what an achievement.


PART 3, CHAPTER 1
there is a 5 chapter day in my future...and today is not that day.

i do love the drama of it all. everything emma does seems to be for maximum theatricality and that is a life's purpose i can get behind.


PART 3, CHAPTER 2
hi mtv and welcome to my attempt at a catch-up day.

honestly i would love to be charles bovary. no thoughts, head empty, zero suspicions, getting through life on vibes alone.


PART 3, CHAPTER 3
it's remarkable — this book has no tension at all. one of the most tense things in the world is happening (repeated marital affairs! will someone discover it? will they be able to love openly? none of these questions come to mind) and it's like. no stakes. crazy. this chapter appears to be attempting a cliffhanger and the crowd went silent.


PART 3, CHAPTER 4
these chapters are so wonderfully short. it's like they were written with me being days behind on a made-up project in mind.


PART 3, CHAPTER 5
"From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of lies, in which she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it. It was a want, a mania, a pleasure carried to such an extent that if she said she had the day before walked on the right side of a road, one might know she had taken the left." this duplicitous little devil...i love her.


PART 3, CHAPTER 6
too much math in the last chapter. debt is boring. give me something more interesting.

jinxed myself. this was even longer and even mathier.


PART 3, CHAPTER 7
super jarring to have a passage of dialogue here from two women just...witnessing emma emma-ing it up. you forget how Improper all this sh*t is until suddenly some lady is like "whip her in the streets."


PART 3, CHAPTER 8
WHAT.

but we have three chapters left!


PART 3, CHAPTER 9
who cares anymore...what's even the point...if i weren't so goddamn close to finishing this i'd take a day off and catch up later...

this is the coolest charles has ever been. low bar, but still.


PART 3, CHAPTER 10
you hate to see an adult mom / overly fond son duo...


PART 3, CHAPTER 11
well, today is the final day and i have literally no idea what i think about this book, so...pretty high stakes for this single chapter here.


OVERALL
generally, i think if you have the free time, the patience, and the refined taste, you can skip this completely, go for anna karenina, and pretend you read both.

but if you're pressed for time or into melodrama, this one is good too.
rating: 3.5