b l o g o r e l l i

Blogorelli "Book It" Review: Madame Bovary

Since my US Weekly never came this week, I finally pushed through and finished Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece about class, society and a woman who is actually more emotionally fucked up than yours truly.

(warning: probable spoilers if you've never read this classic)

Called by one review "the most controlled and beautifully articulated formal masterpiece in the history of fiction," Madame Bovary centers around the daughter of a farmer who has illusions of grandeur, but ends up marrying a mediocer country doctor and living in the rural French countryside with him and their daughter. She eventually takes numerous lovers out of frustration and boredom, goes crazy, runs up enormous debt, and finally kills herself with a handful of arsenic.

LESSON #1 FROM M.BOVARY: Do not commit suicide using arsenic! Your death will be long, painful and tediously dramatic for anyone reading about it.

The novel *is* beautifully written and once the sex starts up (which Bobby Crocker promised would happen "soon" when I started the novel but which didn't actually happen until around page 163, not that I was counting) the reader's pace will definitely increase (ha ha.) Sure, the end is depressing as hell, but very accurately portrays a universal truth: [credit card] debt may possibly kill you but can definitely force a someone into prostitution.

Consider this quote from a SparkNotes review:
"Emma’s prostitution is the result of her self-destructive spending, but the fact that, as a woman, she has no other means of finding money is a result of the misogynistic society in which she lives"

Thank god I have other means of finding money. (Note to self: call parents tonight.)

In referring this book to me, I think Bobby Crocker had a secret scheme that, finding Emma's personality flaws so like my own, I would be scared into changing some of my negative habits. Well, he was RIGHT! No more frivolous spending, no more romantic wistfulness over past lovers that were, at most, mediocre both physically and emotionally, no more excessive vanity (teeth)...and no more eating arsenic on my evening vanilla ice cream.

Madame Bovary: Read it, love it, learn from it.

And finally, the "big picture" lesson (also from SparkNotes): Flaubert "shows us a realistic portrayal of one of the most disappointing aspects of the world—that the mediocre and the selfish often fare better than either those who live passionately and try to be exceptional or those who live humbly and treat others with kind generosity."

Word to Flaubert.
-FIN-

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

No, that heading doesn't refer to the experience of someone who has talked to me when I'm tipsy; it is actually the name of Jonathan Safran Foer's newest book. I've been reading a lot of glowing press about this 28-year-old wünderkid's work. His debut novel, "Everything Is Illuminated," was recently talked up on Mighty Goods, and Design Observer has an excellent post today on "Loud", how Foer is a freakin' luminary, oh, and also his intriguing Public Art Projects in NYC.

I mean, come on...his thesis advisor was Joyce Carol Oates(!) Plus, he integrates "playful typography" and a section of photography into his books.

I'm interested enough to read both novels, of course, ONLY once I finish "Madame Bovary." Because Bobby wrote his college senior thesis paper on MB and if I don't finish ithe book soon and then discuss many details of why I loved it with him, he will likely beat me about the face and neck.

A sampling:
"Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling 'Everything Is Illuminated', is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist."

Uh...yes, please!

baby, it's cold outside

and rainy!

ok, i'm not dead or in a coma or anything...although I *almost* went into a coma after I bought and looked at the People magazine with Britney's "wedding" photos in it.

bad Britney!

BAD!
could someone please zap her gigantic thighs with a cow prod and make her over while she is unconscious?

moving on, last night at midnight, I started trying to update some "look and feel" stuff here and also load new photo albums (of which there are 3.) last night at 2am, I had a shot of whiskey and went to bed. you can probably tell that it did not go very well. alas, I trudge onward...

but you will notice that I changed the order of some stuff, such as I am only listing my *top 3* current albums and the book that I am reading and have just read. which reminds me that I should point out that I READ A WHOLE BOOK! a real book. not a magazine. not USweekly, not "Me Talk Pretty" for the 100th time.

the book that saved me was "Under the Banner of Heaven" (heh heh.) it's all about Mormonism, my most recent fascination after I realized that there isn't anything else to learn about the Amish. the book is excellent, and I would recommend to anyone. it also proved 2 things to me: 1. mormons are DEFINITELY wearing the secret underpants and 2. growing up catholic suddenly doesn't seem so bad.