Madame Bovary, adapted by Claude Chabrol, based
on the novel by Gustave Flaubert
Madame
Bovary, the chef d’oeuvre by Gustave Flaubert is celebrated as one of the best
books of all time, included on the list of the crème de la crème by a panel of
geniuses, asked by the Norwegian Club to state the best that humanity has had
to offer:
indeed, we
have had in high school one of the best professors of literature that humankind
has ever known and he talked with awe about Gustave Flaubert, the deity that
our teacher considered to be the Jupiter of writers.
The author
has famously said that “Madame Bovary is myself”, reminding one of other
writers who have said similar things – Kingsley Amis also stated that, even
when the passage, chapter is not about the creator, you can find him on every
page…
“Human
speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to
dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
Gustave
Flaubert was one of the writers who made enormous efforts, he may be the
epitome of the theory exposed by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers – which claims
that 10,000 hours of practice over ten years, aka three hours of work every
single day, would propel one to the top of his profession or art.
Charles
Bovary is a country doctor, kind, able, if not outstanding, who happens to have
a case whereupon he meets Pere Roualt, a patient with a broken leg that he
cures and...the patient becomes interested in marrying his daughter to the decent
physician.
Emma Roualt
is portrayed by Isabelle Huppert, who is holding with Meryl Streep on to the
position of best actress in the world, even if in this romantic drama she seems
to have had less luck with the setting, production or maybe relationship with
other crewmembers on the set.
Miss Roualt
is asked by her father – who had warned the doctor about his intentions and had
said that if he makes a sign at the window, then she would have accepted –
about her position regarding the good – probably soon to be prosperous – doctor
and she agrees, although she is not thrilled.
Life would
be agreeable perhaps, for some time, but this is a young woman who represents
youth with its insatiable passion, the desire for excitement, new endeavors,
fun, activity as opposed to the dullness the taedium vitae, ennui that is the
archetype of country life, especially during her time.
“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live
in Paris.”
Furthermore,
she has some clashes with her mother-in-law, defended by her husband to a
certain point, but faced with severe criticism, rejection actually of her plans
to spend more on what her foe sees as futile, embarrassing expenses.
When
Charles Bovary announces that Emma would have procurement, granting her access
to money, making her able to spend with more ease, his mother, sited at the
table with the couple is outraged, provoking the heroine to declare that she
would burn the damned thing.
“What better occupation, really, than to spend
the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows
and the lamp burning bright.
Well, that
may well be, only some more excitement is needed, and the protagonist becomes
infatuated with Rodolphe Boulanger, after he brings an employee to see the
doctor, then pursues, trying to seduce the married woman.
The two
lovers ride together, in fact, Rodolphe Boulanger asks Charles Bovary – this
somewhat amusing, but also cynical – about the benefits of riding, which would
make Madame Bovary feel so much better…is it not so, doctor?
Seeing as
they have no horse – point that Emma makes – the generous, kind Mr. Boulanger
offers to help, they stop in the forest, where they make love, and the
romantic, if married woman becomes enchanted, mesmerized, thrilled:
“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with
great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon
life, revolutionizes it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole
heart into the abyss.”
She is
probably lucky to have experienced emotions so powerful overwhelming,
transforming, exhilarating, glorious, even if – nobody would need spoiler
alerts in the case of one of the best-known tragedies, right? – the result is
not lasting, that is she does not have a happy, long life…
“An infinity of passion can be contained in one
minute, like a crowd in a small space.”
Emma Bovary
has gone “to infinity and beyond”, and we can think of what happened to Fyodor
Dostoevsky and the intensity, immensity of minutes.
The author
of Crime and Punishment, the Idiot, Demons, The Brothers Karamazov has been
sentenced to death, sent in front of the execution squad, where he had three
minutes left, one he dedicated to friends and family, another to pass his life
in front and the last for a ray of sunshine falling on a cupola nearby…
He is
pardoned in the last moment and writes in his masterpieces about the
significance of minutes, how the man condemned to death understands the
importance of time, life – he would rather live on a bare rock, in the middle
of the ocean than die.
Through her
love, Emma Bovary has attained bliss, the higher state of being, “the infinity of passion”.
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