I was told by one person that this is 'The Greatest Novel ever Written.' Politely, that's a lot of horse poop. Certainly it is a great novel. In fact, it is obviously on the same level as some of the great novel's I've read. But the greatest? Certainly not.
It was a little bit like reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot . Each book has one character who is a practically perfect soul surrounded by a lot of people who are selfish to the point of being evil. In FD's book, the fellow in the white hat is Prince Myshkin. In MB, it's Charles Bovary, who is very much as naive and guileless at Prince Myshkin. If there is a hero in the book, it is he.
His lack of sophistication and guile and his course country manners are qualities Flaubert clearly means to endear him to the reader -- in the same way those same qualities in Myshkin are intended to likewise endear him. Charles is passionately in love with Emma, his wife, and is utterly blind to the evidence of her infidelities as well as to her squandering of the family savings. But he is an altogether pathetic person. He can't stand up to his mother. He can't stand up to his wife. He can't stand up to people who are trying to convince him to do things he knows damned well he oughtn't be doing.
By far the most evil people in this book are the pharmacist, Homais, the shopkeeper and moneylender, Lheureux, and Maitre Guillamin, a sort of real-estate moneylender. This people were utterly evil and took advantage of the Bovarys' financial ineptitude and mental instability (I think that is a fair assessment of Emma's state).
Homais is an idiot. He is anti-religious and makes a point to show off just how little respect he has for religion and those who hold it dear. He's always jabbering about scientific papers he's read and is making a great show of his pretended intellect. All the while, the serious medical people ignore him. But he is thought of highly by the middle class and peasant people who are not able to detect his sciolism. The end of the book finds him striving for and eventually receiving the cross of the Legion of Honor for his humanitarianism and his contributions to science. But it is a political honor and not one attained by merit, because he is utterly devoid of feeling for anyone but himself. He is a petty man who uses his position as an occasional writer to spread his own fame as well as to destroy an old blind mendicant who had the misfortune to not be cured by one of Homais' silly 'cures.' (The symbolism of the blind man's tapping cane reminding one of the one-legged Hyppolyte was interestingly conveyed.)
Lhereux and Guillamin are in cahoots to gradually swamp the Bovary's with debt. They do it so gradually that their scam is undetected. At the end they forclose on all the debts and confiscate the properties (all very legally, of course). In fact, on paper the debts are not owed to them, they are owned to a partner of theirs from out of town so they don't loose their credibility before the townspeople. They are among the most contempible characters ever created.
These people are utterly evil, but even the other people are evil. During Emma's trysts with one of her lovers, she covers for herself by saying she is taking piano lessons and arranging to pay a fee to the teacher who understands that she will never take a real lesson. After Emma's death, this horrible woman approaches Charles with a bill for lessons she never gave! Even the sweet old ladies of the middle class are lampooned by Flaubert.
This novel of his is a great novel and demonstrates that he was a master of his craft. But the characters are stilted -- reading this story is like watching the Jerry Spring show. The characters are comical because they are oblivious to how tragically ridiculous they are. GF had an axe to grind with the middle class. That's what he did. And he did it well. But he did not produce the world's greatest novel in writing this dolabrate masterpiece.
It's interesting to note the dim view that Flaubert takes to the intellectual pretensions of blue-stockings. Emma read quite a bit - mostly romances, truly, but also a few more serious books. There is a great deal made about her library card when her mother-in-law, Mde. Bovary, Senior tries to talk Charles into canceling her subscription to the library. Also, Emma was into reading trashy novels when she was at the convent. Further, the idiot Homais is continually blathering about something or other that he's read, and it is intimated that he doesn't understand what he reads very well.
I'm reminded of Pope's lines, "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking deeply sobers us again."
This lesson is poignantly demonstrated at least twice. Firstly with the life of Emma Bovary itself. Though she tried (at least a bit) to drink deeply, she never quite got it and ended up destroying herself and her husband in the process. Secondly was the case of Hyppolyte. This is a fellow in the town with a clubfoot. Homais has read of a case in another district where a doctor has become famous for fixing the problem in someone. Homais feels he can make Bovary and the town famous if Charles can do such a surgery, but he's also hoping to make himself even more famous in the process. But Charles screws it up and a good doctor has to come and cut Hyppolyte's gangrenous leg off before he dies in agony.
In both of these cases, the readers (Emma and Homais) are reading not for intellectual enlightenment, but for personal gain. In the case of Emma it is an escape from her boring existence and the noble, but boring husband she loathes . For Homais, it's something he can brag about and impress others with.
