I've just finished Madame Bovary. I feel that it is one of those books you are supposed to have read by the time you graduate from high school but of course I didn't. I was probably too busy watching reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I don't know though-- I'm sure "MB" is significant and quite scandalous for its time, but I just didn't connect with it. There was an underlying tension of the absurdity of relationships and "serious" political issues I'm not sure I fully appreciated because of its sentiments, and also because I just didn't understand it in its historical specifity. I'm kind of tired of reading books that are trying to make a statement by having no likeable characters. That's what gets me through books! What am I supposed to cheer on, then?
I thought something that was skillfully done, however, was the zooming in and out of time periods of these very ordinary lives (it almost annoys me whenever I have to respect an author but not like him, haha). It's almost like it doesn't matter because ordinary things go on, and even the things that are magnified are ordinary, but only specified because M. Flaubert chose to examine them. Another thing: whatever happens to the first person narrator in the first chapter of the novel?! That confused me; anyone know about that? I guess "MB" doesn't flow for me because I felt such authoritative power via Flaubert; I knew the whole thing was carefully constructed by an outside force instead of believing that this was a possible reality to relate to. It makes me tense. I'm not a very relaxed reader.
I'm currently reading Suite Francaise, and loving it. I'm especially excited to read the appendix because it has notes on how the book was written.
I am always so behind on contemporary books.
currently listening to:
Your Belgian Things
The Mountain Goats
xoxo Tiffany
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