Between the Pages

When the beautiful and wilful Emma marries the studious and quiet Charles Bovary, she soon finds herself dissatisfied with their lifestyle.  At first she seeks solace in novels, and then in voracious spending, and finally in adultery.  However, nothing brings Emma pleasure for long – she never wants what she has and always covets what she hasn’t got.  Her destructive patterns of behaviour eventually end up setting her – and her husband – on a doomed path…

Oh, I so wanted to love this book.  It’s a classic, it’s one of those books that you feel you ‘should’ read, and it caused a sensation when it was first published.  In fact, I can see why it scandalised readers, and accept that it was probably very shocking (not so much because of any explicit use of language – which in fact was not explicit at all – but because of it’s subject).

However, I found that I simply could not engage with any of the characters.  For the most part, they seemed particularly unlikeable, especially Emma Bovary herself, who just came across as ungrateful, unkind and selfish.  I certainly never felt any sympathy or empathy towards her.  The most interesting character was the pharmacist Homais, who, if not always pleasant, at least seemed a more rounded and fleshed out character than any of the others.  Charles was rather bland and nondescript – although, in fairness I imagine that that was the intention.

Another thing that put me off somewhat were the endless descriptions of places and settings.  Every time it looked as though the storyline might be moving on, there was a pause while every inch of every scene was described.  True, at times the descriptive passages were beautifully written, but there were just too many of those passages!

However, in the last 100 pages or so, the story did pick up, as Emma’s actions seemed to be leading her into ever more dangerous territory.  Here, the story moved faster and became interesting, and it eventually finished off in a satisfying way.

In short, this book did not move me to feel any emotions whatsoever.  It wasn’t a terrible read, and I didn’t exactly struggle with it, but I can’t say I would really recommend it to others.