The story of Emma Wenqing, a small town in France
Reading Madame Bovary
recently I reread Madame Bovary, which is really beautiful.
the first time I read Madame Bovary was during the summer vacation of my third year of high school. As a 16-year-old girl with a strong thirst for knowledge, I read a lot of famous books that summer, and my mind was full of paste. The paste stirred in my brain, full of hormones and the smell of summer. In fact, I don't know exactly the meaning of reading. At that time, reading was like taking pictures quickly with film. Later, after a lot of time, these photos were gradually developed in the darkroom. I hung and looked at them. This may also be a meaning of reading.
Madame Bovary read for the first time is Li Jianwu's translation. At that time, there was an impression that the dialogue between the characters in the book was very localized and the words used were too smooth. Now I am reading the translation of Xu Yuanchong. In contrast, Xu Yuanchong's translation is more moderate in terms of domestication. There is no Li translation on hand, so this is not a serious comparison, just a general impression. )
if readers know in advance that Madame Bovary's theme is the failure of a female extramarital affair and eventually commit suicide, they will have a cold impression before opening the book. However, the book is actually very beautiful and lyrical, with large sections of provincial customs and scenery descriptions, just like Pusan's gray-green landscape paintings and genre paintings.
Madame Bovary's description of the scenery is very generous compared with today's novels.
"she walked all the way to the beech woods in Barnes, to a desolate pavilion at the corner, and then to the field. In this deep trench of grass, the long leaves of the Reed will cut the skin.
"she began to look around to see if it was any different from the last time she was here. She saw that Rehmannia glutinosa and osmanthus bamboo incense were still growing in the same place, with clumps of nettles around the boulders, large patches of moss under the three windows, never opened, and rotten sawdust covered with rusty iron railings on the windows. Her mind wandered at first, just like her beagle, circling around the fields, barking with yellow butterflies, chasing prey, or biting wild poppies on the edge of the wheat field. Later, when her thoughts slowly concentrated, she sat on the grass, plucked away the grass again and again with the tip of her parasol, and said over and over:
"'my God! Why should I get married?'" (P36)
this paragraph is about Emma's depression when she first got married. From the scenery, the transition to people's eyes, and then to psychological activities, it is very natural. In fact, just because Flaubert's description is so natural that he has no work at all, you will know that every part of his description is very meticulous. When it comes to the book "every sentence is carefully designed", the only books I have read are Madame Bovary and A Dream of Red Mansions. It's really enjoyable to read such a book.
"the twinkling starlight passed through the branches of the jasmine tree that had fallen leaves. They heard the river splashing behind them, and the dry reeds on the bank rattled from time to time. A mass of shadows on the left and right bulged out in the dark, and sometimes the shadows suddenly shrank, standing upright or pitching up and down, like a huge black wave, surging to drown them. The chill of the night made them hug more tightly; the sighs of their lips seemed louder; and they vaguely saw each other's eyes bigger. In the silence, the whisper fell into the depths of the soul, clear and transparent as crystal, echoes lingering in my mind, causing countless ripples. " (p141)
this passage is really beautiful and romantic. This is about a private meeting between Emma and Rodolfo in the middle of the night. The scenery is in line with the mood of the characters, and at the same time writes a kind of ominous feeling.
the next day, the Shire went under the flower shed and sat on the bench. The sun shines through the lattice; the grape leaves cast shadows on the sand, the jasmine fragrance, the sky was blue, the mylabris buzzed around the lilies, the Shire seemed to be young again, and his sad heart was filled with hazy spring. He was almost out of breath. " (p292)
this paragraph is very famous and ends with the death of Mr. Bovary. Death is heavy and beautiful. Flaubert endows this simple, kind and sad person with the final dignity through the description of the scenery. What a meaningful scene description.
in addition to the poetic scenery, Madame Bovary will surprise readers that, as a tragic novel, there is a lot of drama and irony (almost as if written by Maugham! ).
such as the one in which Emma was seduced by squire Rodolf. It was at the agricultural exhibition. Amid the hustle and bustle of gongs and drums and firecrackers, Rodolfo launched a clich é courtship. In the crowded crowd, the two of them talked about "rustic country, breathless life, disillusioned hope"; on the second floor of the town hall, they were overlooking the rustic award ceremony and talking love words.
(in this farce, Flaubert made no comment, he just juxtaposed Rodolfo's love words with the award ceremony. To see whether a writer is a good writer, one criterion is whether he adds many explanations and comments to the article. A good writer is not wordy, and his characters speak for themselves! There is no need for him to explain. )
"how many times I want to go away, but I still follow you and stay with you all the time."
"Fertilizer Award."
.
"No way! Right? I must have left something in your heart and in your life, didn't I? "
"Fine breed pig prize two: Mr. Leeriser and Mr. Curumb split sixty francs equally!"
.
(Rodoff holds Emma's hand. )
"manure fertilizer-planting flax-drainage channel-long-term lease-wage labor."
Rodolfo stopped talking. They looked at each other. Both men were burning with desire, and their lips were dry and dotted.Nagging; softly, without effort, their fingers were inextricably pinched. (p125)
for example, when Emma and Leon met for the first time, they showed disdain for vulgar town life, yearning for poetry and love, and thus hit it off on the spiritual level.
(the first person in this play is Mr. pharmacist, who has always regarded himself as a young man of science and literature, and is also the object of disdain for a true literary youth like Emma. let's enjoy his topsy-turvy scientific remarks:)
"…. How stubborn the old rules and habits are! How many people will object to your efforts for science? Because they would rather believe in the Virgin Mary, the Holy Bone and the priest than go to a doctor or pharmacist reasonably. I have observed the thermometer that it drops to 4 degrees Celsius in winter and rises to 25 degrees in summer, up to 30 degrees at most, and the highest is no more than 24 degrees, or a composite British Fahrenheit watch, which is only 54 degrees, which will not go any higher!. And in fact, we have forests to block the north wind on the one hand and mountains to block the west wind on the other. However, this heat comes from water vapor from the evaporation of the river, and ammonia from a large number of livestock on the prairie, that is to say, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, no, only nitrogen and hydrogen, this heat absorbs decaying plants from the land, mixes these different volatiles, it can be said to tie them into a bundle, and it also combines itself with the electric current scattered in the air for a long time. As in the tropics, it may produce an epidemic that is harmful to health. -- the heat, I said, will become mild, because from where it comes, or rather, from where it might come, that is to say, when it comes from the south, it encounters a southeast wind, and the southeast wind becomes cool when it blows across the Seine, and sometimes suddenly blows into our faces, just like a cool Russian breeze! " (p70)
(both ignored him and continued their conversation)
"isn't there even a place to go for a walk nearby?" Madame Bovary continued to ask the young Leon.
"Ah! Very few, "he replied." there is only one place called the pasture, at the head of the slope, on the edge of the woods. On Sundays, I sometimes go there to take a book and see the sunset. "
"I think there's nothing better than a sunset," she continued, "especially by the sea."
"Ah! I really love the sea. " Mr. Leon said.
"Don't you think," Madame Bovary said, "to swim in the boundless sea, the spirit is freer? As long as you take a look at the sea, your soul will sublimate, and your heart will yearn for infinity and ideals! " (p71)
Emma "in her unrestrained enthusiasm, she has a practical spirit"-"Love church is for church flowers, love music is for romantic lyrics, love literature is for the stimulation of literary spirit".
(the opposite play between the two continues. )
"have you ever come across such a situation," Leon continued, "if you see the idea of deja vu in a book, if it is as far away as near, it expresses your most delicate feelings?"
"Yes, yes." She replied.
"so," he said, "I like poets very much. I think poetry is more affectionate and makes people cry than prose. "
"but even if you read poetry for a long time, you will get tired of it," Emma retorted. "now, on the contrary, I like one-off, thrilling stories. I hate mediocre people, restrained feelings, just like people I see every day. " (P72)
Madame Bovary and Leon are typical "second-hand life lovers". They get their spiritual food from shallow popular novels, from the social columns of newspapers, and from all kinds of affected things. Emma's character is fully revealed in her self-narration. She despises the emotion of abstinence and yearns for that kind of passionate and dramatic life.
Emma has a simple personality and is not smart and charming. But Flaubert's portrayal of Emma is fascinating: few writers write an unlikable protagonist with obvious flaws that makes the book attractive. Flaubert did it. We despise Emma's dishonesty, stupidity and weakness, but we sympathize with her innocence and weakness. Attracted by books, we experience our intellectual superiority while immersing ourselves in Emma's tragedy.
We can see that in Flaubert's works, Emma is beautiful, and her beauty is progressive.
when she first came on stage, Flaubert said that her "hands are not beautiful, not white enough, and her knuckles are a little skinny" and that her lips are too thick.
when the Shire was tempted, in his eyes, Emma "stood on the threshold, the parasol was shining silk, the sun could pass through, and the flickering reflection lit up the white skin of her face. The weather was suddenly warm, and she smiled under the umbrella and could hear the drops of water falling on the taut corrugated silk umbrella. "
after she got married, Emma changed from profile to protagonist in the book, and Flaubert wrote a lot about her growing up and psychological feelings. She wore her newly made beautiful clothes to the Marquis's ball, and the town flower did not shine at the ball. she danced a few dances, but she also had plenty of time to do wallflowers to observe others. Desperate envy, a wisp, turned into resentment of real life.
Emma was upset and suffered from neurosis. The Shire thought the town of Todd was not suitable for her and took great pains to move to the Rong Town Monastery, a prosperous town. Emma had an affair with Leon, a new notary intern. Both men and women are young and simple, so they are restricted by morality.
under the influence of emotion, "Emma lost weight, became pale, and her face elongated."melancholy and calm, gentle and dignified, she gave the impression that she had a cold charm, like a cold marble church, though the flowers smelled to the nostrils.It can also make people shudder. Even people outside Leon will feel this irresistible temptation. " The pharmacist said she was so qualified that even the county magistrate's wife was not as good as her. "
Emma's feminine charm wakes up when her love awakens. But Leon left for Paris, and Emma lost her emotional sustenance. Rodoff, a veteran beauty hunter, swooped in. His courtship is what I called "agricultural exhibition farce". After lingering for a while, Emma was genuinely moved. Of course, the old Youtiao Rodoff did not agree to elope with her and ran away. The infatuated Emma had a serious illness. after recovering from her illness, her good husband, the Shire, took her to the theatre in Rouen.
that day, Emma wore a blue satin gown with four lotus leaf edges. The pharmacist looked at it and praised it and said:
"I think you are as beautiful as a god of love!" Luang is going to choose you as a market flower. " From the beauty of the village, to the flower of the town, to "the wife of the county magistrate is not comparable", to the "city flower", Flaubert deliberately described "the road of Emma's evolution".
in Rouen, the couple met Leon, who had returned from Paris. Three years later, Emma had a criminal record, she was not so timid, and Leon was no longer a novice. A lot of affectation between the two turned out to be a good thing in the end.
for the sake of desire and vanity, Emma kept extorting her husband on credit from the crafty businessman. The small capital of coaxing and deceiving, rolling and blackmailing finally shows the face of cannibalism. Finally, one day, the bailiff of the court came to the door.
Emma's relationship has come to an end: lust, after being satisfied, will eventually disappear if it cannot evolve into a mature one. Now her life is going to be poor: the court is at home, and she is so heavily in debt that she can no longer hide it. After a frenzied failure to borrow money, she chose to commit suicide.
when she borrowed money from a notary, Emma turned down the offer to exchange her body for money. A sophisticated and shrewd woman will certainly say yes. But Emma is not. She proved her innocence for the last time. She has a bottom line, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to others.
she went to the pharmacist to get arsenic. Little buddy Justan saw her.
"he looked at her and wondered why her face was so pale, which formed a sharp contrast against the darkness. In his eyes, she was strangely beautiful, as tall as a ghost. He didn't understand her intentions, but he had a foreboding. " (p264)
Emma's beauty climbed to new heights when she decided to commit suicide. Strangely beautiful, like a ghost-this is already a kind of transcendental beauty.
Flaubert let Emma bloom like a flower, and at its peak, she suddenly falls to the ground, delicately opening up a special dramatic possibility in a seemingly inadvertent description.
Emma is dead, but her debt has not been paid, and her good husband, the Shire, is still alive. The last three chapters belong to the Shire. He was so affectionate that he did not want to sell his wife's belongings no matter how poor he was; he finally read the love letters from his wife and Rodolfo and almost went crazy when he learned that his wife had cheated on him.
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before he died, he met Rodolf. the good husband was jealous of the lover who had been in love.
the honest man said to his lover, "I don't blame you." Everything will be blamed for fate! "
the story begins with Mr. Bovary and ends with Mr. Bovary. The Shire begins with a bullied child and ends with a bullied counselor. At the beginning and end, Emma's story is contained in it, just as his love embraces this weak and arrogant woman. It is hard for us to forget the child's hat at the beginning, and it is even more difficult to forget that under the flowers, a little girl pushed her father, who had been sitting for a day, only to find that he was dead. This completeness of the story expands Emma's tragedy and beauty. So the story goes beyond Emma in terms of content and form.
although the theme of Madame Bovary is the tragedy of a petty bourgeois woman whose IQ and EQ are not high, it raises this "vulgar tragedy" to the height of a great tragedy. The book neither overlooks, nor condemns, nor deliberately sympathizes with Emma, but it is this seemingly indifferent and emotional narration that has reached an insurmountable height; there is no comment, so it goes beyond the correct chicken soup level of the three values, beyond deliberately telling a story.
I have read a lot of novels. There was a time when I liked reading Yi Shu. The advantage of Yi Shu is that it is short, lively, full of aphorisms and inspiring. Her heroine tells all the truth in the world. Then you put down the book and think about it, and you will feel sorry again, because she has told all the truth-and the truth should have been endless.
between the desire for material wealth and social status and the desire for love that truly fills the heart, between the desire for romance and the greed for utility, between mediocre fantasies and really noble dreams, there must be a line between the vulgar life of small potatoes and the great achievements of big people, so where is the line? Flaubert actually asked these questions, but he was in no hurry to answer them.
A good novelist is not responsible for answering.
-the following is chicken soup time.
Why did Emma die? The direct cause is not that the relationship is frustrated or the affair is disclosed, but that the debt is high and the reputation is about to fall apart.
it was not love, dream, or even vanity that killed her, but fear that she had run out of money and was about to be reduced from a bourgeois wife to a maid and maid; she didn't care that elopement led to scandal, because it was romantic and bold; the consequences of bankruptcy were really devastating to her. "bankruptcy & gt; adultery" is a somewhat ironic formula.
Girls, please remember, one, if a person is weak,It is easy to get into trouble both emotionally and materially. Second, financial distress is a bigger dilemma than emotional distress. Three, take care of your money. And take care of your feelings.