Madame Bovary
“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.” ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert famously declared "No lyricism, no digressions, personality of the author absent", when commenting to his friend and literary confidant Louis Bouilhet about his tone of writing Madame Bovary. That is the hallmark of Flaubert's style and the aim of his hard work writing slowly to make sure he had just the right words. He became his characters, entered into their lives and dreamt their dreams. This resulted in the masterpiece that has become a classic of French literature.
The story is a simple one of a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in the author's ability to present the narrative in a way that every detail is present in service to the experience of the characters. Emma's passion is at the center of a story that is in exists to portray the vicissitudes of her life. And in the details emphasized by the author, whether the moribund nature of her marriage and the small town in to which she is bound or the momentary escapes into the nature of the countryside or an evening at the opera, every moment is necessary to build to the shattering climax of this brilliant beautiful authentic tale of the consequences of one tragic existence.
Demonstrating the truth of Keat's dictum about truth and beauty, Flaubert achieves a mood of 'aesthetic mysticism' that has seldom been reached by others. The result is one that we as readers can enjoy and marvel at the power of his words.
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