Madame Bovary

⚖The case for it

The agricultural fair is the set piece people cite, a droning official speech running underneath a seduction happening in the same room, two registers braided into one scene. Around it Flaubert builds satire sharp enough that a reader notes "Monsieur Homais would have done very well on Wall Street," the pharmacist's self-importance surviving transplant into any century. Emma's spending and affairs read as recognizably present-day rather than as period curiosity, and the moneylender's endless credit line makes "an excellent cautionary tale of execrable management of money." Rereaders report softening toward her each pass, once the shortage of exits becomes visible. "A gorgeous comedy of manners," one reader says, which is not how this book is usually sold.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Flaubert stops the story to inventory rooms, weather, and wardrobes: "Too many wordy descriptions of what people were wearing," one reader complains, another counting "far too many pointless descriptions" between the events. For a novel built on secret affairs and mounting debt there is remarkably little dread, no near-misses, the danger arriving flatly. Emma is the sticking point, shallow and self-absorbed, sending her infant daughter to a wet nurse and visibly annoyed when the child comes home. The promised interiority never lands for everyone either: "we do not inhabit Emma Bovary at all," one reader objects, watching a narrator arrange judgment rather than grant access. Another's summary of the experience: "like looking at vacation photos of a ninja family."

— the honest librarian

7h

honest hours

10

sittings