4 posts tagged “death”
The fascinating thing about Madame Bovary is, well, Madame Bovary. Is she a sympathetic but flawed character, or is she a cruel and selfish woman?
Emma Bovary's main problem is that she believes money will end all her problems. But then most people today hold that same false belief.
I think how a person relates to this character says a lot about who he/she is.
It's sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't kind of question though.
On one hand, if you sympathize with her you have to admit that you understand such a heightened level of egoism and self-delusion.
But if you don't sympathize with her it feels a bit sexist since it was a repressive, patriarchal class structure that undoubtedly created women similar to this fictional woman.
I'm still trying to figure out what I think of the character of Madame Bovary, but what I found particularly engaging about this book was its narrative form. I bet one could take a whole class on what Flaubert did with the narrative in just this one book.
One thing I can say with certainty is that my heart has never broken so much for a character as it did for the equally flawed Charles Bovary. I wonder what that says about me?
Emma Bovary's main problem is that she believes money will end all her problems. But then most people today hold that same false belief.
I think how a person relates to this character says a lot about who he/she is.
It's sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't kind of question though.
On one hand, if you sympathize with her you have to admit that you understand such a heightened level of egoism and self-delusion.
But if you don't sympathize with her it feels a bit sexist since it was a repressive, patriarchal class structure that undoubtedly created women similar to this fictional woman.
I'm still trying to figure out what I think of the character of Madame Bovary, but what I found particularly engaging about this book was its narrative form. I bet one could take a whole class on what Flaubert did with the narrative in just this one book.
One thing I can say with certainty is that my heart has never broken so much for a character as it did for the equally flawed Charles Bovary. I wonder what that says about me?
In college I was taking a philosophy class and happened to watch the movie Trigger Effect. It's not a memorable movie but it stunned me because I was absorbed in trying to understand Hobbes's State of Nature. Suddenly it all made sense. I wonder if some student out there is having the same experience with this book. (The Road is vastly superior to Trigger Effect in case you're wondering.)
But the fact that society is based on two things: people and trust--that's the same message in all three. Of course, that led to all kinds of thoughts about how I live in a place with three main rules: never admit you're wrong, take as much as you can from everyone in every situation, and patience is a vice. And I wondered just how close Connecticut is to full on cannibalism.
OK, my personal nightmares aside, I did find this book haunting. I have been thinking about things--birds and food and aspirin and the general point of life--for days now in a new light.
But the ending...I don't think this book could have an adequate end. There's no point if the characters die, right? And if everything works out in the end it's just a cheesy cliche. I think the author did the best he could in light of this horrible corner he painted himself into, but the ending just didn't quite work for me.
But the fact that society is based on two things: people and trust--that's the same message in all three. Of course, that led to all kinds of thoughts about how I live in a place with three main rules: never admit you're wrong, take as much as you can from everyone in every situation, and patience is a vice. And I wondered just how close Connecticut is to full on cannibalism.
OK, my personal nightmares aside, I did find this book haunting. I have been thinking about things--birds and food and aspirin and the general point of life--for days now in a new light.
But the ending...I don't think this book could have an adequate end. There's no point if the characters die, right? And if everything works out in the end it's just a cheesy cliche. I think the author did the best he could in light of this horrible corner he painted himself into, but the ending just didn't quite work for me.
Saying this book was pretentious would be easy. In fact, it probably is the most pretentious thing I've ever read. But leaving it at that is not the whole story.
Why is it pretentious? There is little description of place or people. Time switches between around 1700 and 2000, (making it difficult to understand what is happening in the beginning). Dialogue happens without an explanation of who is saying what. And the characters in the 1700s are using rural English slang of the time, something few are probably familar with.
Why it is interesting in spite of those things? Thursbitch is a real place in England. It has a strange past and a cryptic stone was once erected there in memory of one of its residents. The author seems somewhat obsessed with the area's history and only talks about the place's "secret" to other academics.
This book is what House of Leaves wishes it was. Whereas House of Leaves is hollow at the end because the "secret" is just made up, this story really is shrouded in some kind of mystery.
And I also happen to be a sucker for anything that involves the concept of time. The time anomalies and symbolism in this book are really well done.
If nothing else, this book made me aware of a place that would one day be very interesting to visit.
Why is it pretentious? There is little description of place or people. Time switches between around 1700 and 2000, (making it difficult to understand what is happening in the beginning). Dialogue happens without an explanation of who is saying what. And the characters in the 1700s are using rural English slang of the time, something few are probably familar with.
Why it is interesting in spite of those things? Thursbitch is a real place in England. It has a strange past and a cryptic stone was once erected there in memory of one of its residents. The author seems somewhat obsessed with the area's history and only talks about the place's "secret" to other academics.
This book is what House of Leaves wishes it was. Whereas House of Leaves is hollow at the end because the "secret" is just made up, this story really is shrouded in some kind of mystery.
And I also happen to be a sucker for anything that involves the concept of time. The time anomalies and symbolism in this book are really well done.
If nothing else, this book made me aware of a place that would one day be very interesting to visit.
This book would go on my list of top ten books that I did not enjoy.
Perhaps I just did not get this one, but it seemed pretentious at best.
A book with basically one character who sits in place and complains for 156 pages is pretty much torture.
The author wrote the whole book as one long paragraph which only added to the sigh factor.
Sure there were four or five good lines in the book, but there was a lot of suffering otherwise.
Geez, now I'm starting to sound like the man in the book...
Perhaps I just did not get this one, but it seemed pretentious at best.
A book with basically one character who sits in place and complains for 156 pages is pretty much torture.
The author wrote the whole book as one long paragraph which only added to the sigh factor.
Sure there were four or five good lines in the book, but there was a lot of suffering otherwise.
Geez, now I'm starting to sound like the man in the book...
