Jennifer Jones starred in a 1949 film of the novel, directed by Vincente Minelli. I’m currently reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. It’s slow going, though I do like it. I haven’t read a classic book in a long time– what was the last one I read? I can’t even remember. Maybe The Catcher in the Rye? (I was a late bloomer on Catcher, only finally reading it a few years ago). The thing about Bovary that I simultaneously love and loathe is that Flaubert spends so much time on tiny details. A part of me loves that– seeing everything, the dew on Emma’s shoulders, the plants in the garden… here, for example, is a description of the food at Emma and Charles’ wedding: The table was laid under the cart-shed. On it were four sirloins, six chicken fricassees, stewed veal, three legs of mutton, and in the middle of a fine roast sucking-pig, flanked by four chitterlings with sorrel. At the corners were decanters of brandy. Sweet bottled-cider frothed round the corks, and all the glasses had been filled to the brim with wine beforehand. Large dishes of yellow cream, that trembled with the least shake of the table, had designed on their smooth surface the initials of the newly wedded pair in nonpareil arabesques. A confectioner of Yvetot had been entrusted with the tarts and sweets. As he had only just set up in the place, he had taken a lot of trouble, and at dessert he himself brought in a set dish that evoked loud cries of wonderment. To begin with, at its base there was a square of blue cardboard, representing a temple with porticoes, colonnades, and stucco statuettes all round, and in the niches constellations of gilt paper stars; then on the second stage was a dungeon of Savoy cake, surrounded by many fortifications in candied angelica, almonds, raisins, and quarters of oranges; and finally, on the upper platform a green field with rocks set in lakes of jam, nutshell boats, and a small Cupid balancing himself in a chocolate swing whose two uprights ended in real roses for balls at the top. (source) Remarkable. But also frustrating. Sometimes I’m wanting to get to the action, or emotion, and to get there I need to read through three pages of detail about a party or a dress or a garden. I suppose it takes some getting used to, though. Furthermore, I’m reading the Norton Critical Edition of Madame Bovary, which includes footnotes and several critical essays about the book by such writers as Jean Paul Sarte, Henry James, and Charles Baudelaire. The thing with this Norton Critical Edition is that it is printed in the smallest font possible and crammed onto the page (no spacing in between lines). So even though i’m only about 30 pages in, I believe it really equals about 60-70 pages in a regular edition of the book. OK, Ok, I know. I’m just making excuses. I need to really get deeper into the book, right? I’ll keep you posted. One passage, though, that I thought really beautiful and sad (and obvious foreshadowing) was this: Before marriage she thought herself in love; but since the happiness that should have followed failed to come, she must, she thought, have been mistaken. And Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by the words bliss, passion, ecstasy, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books. https://google.gr/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=AZCJQjKjZXXeBM&tbnid=oK32H36mgoWrkM:&ved=0CAMQjhw&url=http%3A%2F%2Frobwilliams.org%2F2008%2F01%2F07%2Fmadame-bovary%2F&ei=1z0zU6iiDqet0QXngYGoBw&bvm=bv.63738703,d.ZG4&psig=AFQjCNEwAa0LHu2JiNWV0qCLfeU2-3JAwQ&ust=1395953258409720
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:49:38 +0000