One of her top ten books on the struggle against gender-based inequality, as shared at the Guardian:Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856)Read about the other books on the list.
Publication in France prompted an obscenity prosecution. The novel was first translated into English by Eleanor Marx in 1886, the same year she published The Woman Question from a Socialist Point of View. Emma Bovary haunted Tussy: "She is foolish, but there is a nobleness about her too. She is never mercenary … her life is idle, useless. And this strong woman feels there must be something to do – and she dreams … In all literature there is perhaps nothing more pathetic than her hopeless effort to 'make herself in love'."
Madame Bovary is on Jill Boyd's list of six memorable marriage proposals in literature, Julia Sawalha's six best books list, Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Amy Sohn's list of six favorite books, Sue Townsend's 6 best books list, Helena Frith Powell's list of ten of the best sexy French books, the Christian Science Monitor's list of six novels about grand passions, John Mullan's lists of ten landmark coach rides in literature, ten of the best cathedrals in literature, ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best bad lawyers in literature, ten of the best lotharios in literature, and ten of the best bad doctors in fiction, Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007. It is one of John Bowe's six favorite books on love.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
