New Feature - Book Reviews!!

Mere titles are probably not very interesting for those who did not grow up wanting to be a librarian....

I think I'll begin with the books I presume are less read.

Madame Bovary

I found the style of this book a bit stuffy - that could, of course, be the fault of the translator and not the author. There were similarities to George Eliot, particularly in the minor characters. Although it begins like a typical Victorian novel, it becomes much darker, taking on tones of Virginia Woolf and the others who reveal the inner minds of unhappy women.

Only women and sensitive men should read this book. If you are an ordinary man, you will probably think Dr. Bovary is a perfectly decent chap and his wife is a weak strumpet. If you are a woman, you will sympathize with Emma, as I think Flaubert intends. Although she cheats on her husband, throws money away indiscriminately and kills herself, it is her atmosphere that is to blame. Her life has no windows: she tires of novels, her husband's crude attentions are unwelcome and her neighbors bore her. Perhaps her most unlikable traits are her pretentions of sophistication and inability to resign herself to her fate. The moral of the story: unless they have a strong bit of stoicism, moody women should refrain from marrying well-intentioned churls.