The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Gillian Anderson in House of Mirth, 2000

The House of Mirth had been on my Netflix queue for a long time, and I was so struck with the movie when I saw it that I picked up the book, which turned out to be even better - this is usually, though not always, the case.

 Anderson is phenomenal as the central character, Lily Bart, to the point of making one regret all the years her range as an actor was wasted as David Duchovney's co-star. The book, and the movie, are full of amazing moments of subtle interchanges in which people are able to use a very few well-chosen words to convey something entirely different. 

Wharton's writing is precise: each chapter has clear purpose and the feeling of being as necessary as the links of a chain. There are beautifully memorable character descriptions in the book:

The first two weeks after her return represented to Mrs. Peniston the domestic equivalent of a religious retreat. She "went through" the linen and blankets in the precise spirit of the penitent exploring the inner folds of conscience; she sought for moths as the stricken soul seeks for lurking infirmities. The topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield up its secret, cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths and, as a final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed in penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds.

Grace Stepney's mind was like a kind of moral fly-paper, to which the buzzing items of gossip were drawn by a fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an inexorable memory.

His [George Dorset's] face, with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between himself and the thoughts at his heels.

It was, however, only figuratively that the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim: in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric light, impartially projected from various ornamental excrescences on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which she rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the appearance of the lady, whose large-eyed prettiness had the fixity of something impaled and shown under glass.

and brilliant moments of psychological insight:

Moreover, by some obscure process of logic, she felt that her momentary burst of generosity had justified all previous extravagances, and excused any in which she might subsequently indulge. Miss Farish's surprise and gratitude confirmed this feeling, and Lily parted from her with a sense of self-esteem which she naturally mistook for the fruits of altruism.

...it was characteristic of her [Lily] to feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar.

The movie, as much as I liked Anderson and the gorgeous costumes and settings, makes significant changes, including including conflating Grace Stepney and Gertie Farish whom the book specifically describes as differing from each other as much as they differ from the elegant and beautiful Lily. There are also radical, probably unforgivable, changes made to the end of the book.

The actual end of the book, however, is itself dissatisfying. There is a brief encounter in Lily's last few days with a character named Nettie Struther, who, though her background was unfortunate, has managed to become poor but happy through the love of a good man and a baby. The book, as I read it, presents this as a possible solution to Lily's insoluble problems that she has missed in her quest for social status and an aesthetically luxurious life, which rings false and seems surprisingly sentimental for such a penetrating novel. If it had been more clearly Lily's vision - another form of romanticizing her problems away - that could have been interesting, but I don't see that separation of author from character in the way this scene of domestic fulfillment is presented. When I tried to put it in words to my dad, he described it with the phrase “a coda of self-delusion,” which perfectly captures it. Certainly, money (and the lavish lifestyle that goes with it) never make up for a lack of warm, authentic human interactions, but neither does love make up for circumstantial hardships, like continual poverty, which can often put stress on and splinter human relationships. And not all relationships are uncomplicated; most contain their own disappointments and stressors.

Bizarrely enough, the character of Rosedale, to me, is the great achievement of the book, although I suspect Wharton herself would not have seen it this way. He is presented initially in the book as a Jewish business man on the make: "a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac" (Ch. 1). There are a number of small but distinct ethnic slurs (phrases like "the instincts of his race") embedded in the text, and then there is Lily's disgust with Rosedale's manner and clearly mercantile view of the world.

Throughout the book there is a strong contrast between the aristocratic elite and the up-and-comer nouveau-riche: the circle of the Gryces, Trenors and even the unscrupulous Berthe Dorset, are presented as innately superior to the upwardly mobile Brys, Gormers, and Mrs. Hatch. Lily herself is the product of a higher, more cultured social background, with its tastes and expectations, but having lost the money to support the lifestyle. She attempts to master the offenses to her sensibilities that contact with the lower social classes produces in her as she moves downward through the social strata. But Rosedale, who if anything, personifies the monied social climbers who are infiltrating the New York elite, turns out to be one of the most likeable characters, because he is sincerely upset by Lily's circumstance, and pragmatic enough to be ready to do something for her, and honest enough to come to the point in a way that the more refined Lawrence Seldon is unable to speak out in the most critical moments. Lily, and the book, I think, conclude with holding Rosedale in a high respect, even though Wharton never glosses over his lack of good breeding. He is coarse, in his manners, in his speech, in his view of the world, but he is genuine and ready to act.

Wharton passes on, leaving the closing chapters for Seldon to make his appearance at Lily's bedside (and wish he had said or done something sooner). There is some romantic nonsense about feeling closer to her in death than he had in life ("at least he HAD loved her...if the moment had been fated to pass from them before they could seize it, he saw now that, for both, it had been saved whole out of the ruin of their lives.") But I think it is remarkable that Wharton, along the way, showed a human and even admirable side, to a repellent character who continued to hold the basest, most avaricious view of life as an exchange of goods.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

Available through iTunes or Amazon

I had just finished Great Expectations and was looking for something around the same period when I thought of Wilkie Collins. I am more familiar with The Moonstone, and thought I would try The Woman in White. This turned out to be one of my favorite novels I've ever read.

What I think is absolutely BRILLIANT about this book is Collins' choice to present the narrative as a series of letters, diaries, legal statements, etc. from multiple characters. You piece together the unfolding mystery from these sources as you go, and each piece itself is somewhat mysterious until it all comes together towards the end when details that were obscure become clear. You are also continually shifting perspective, seeing characters you've met before through another's eyes, or finally getting to hear them speak for themselves. (I listened to this on audiobook from iTunes - the British actor Roger Rees reads Hartright's narratives - and I enjoyed the book even more by hearing the different characters vocally acted out. I HIGHLY recommend this.) The changing of voices in Collins' narrative is so well done that each character has a distinctive style and reflects the prism through which he or she views events: the housekeeper, the widow of a clergyman, refers sententiously to her late husband's sermons; Mrs. Catherick dwells on the details of her expensive watch and gifts given to her by Sir Percival. Elderly Mr. Fairlie has no room in his mind for anything but his hypochondria, and his narration of his disinterest, along with the repeated attempts of Louis to assist, are hilarious in the beginning, and horrifying later on when we realize how much is at stake.

The shifting of perspective within the book also means that Collins is able to maximize the suspense within the story: by now we the reader have seen enough of the Count to know his true nature, but are in a housekeeper's narrative in which he is lauded as a kind and saintly man, which leaves the reader horrified, helpless to warn or intervene as evil falls upon the innocent. I remembered maybe a quarter of the way into the book that the story seemed familiar - I had seen a 1997-8 Masterpiece Theater version - but the multiple secrets Collins hints at throughout the plot are only a part of the story, which turns out to be largely the seemingly impossible problem of proving the case legally, and Hartright and Miss Halcombe's efforts to gather sufficient evidence while avoiding detection. So even if the reader is in the position of having privileged information, the drama is in watching the characters suffer and react.

If you have had the equivocal fortune to have seen the Masterpiece Theater "Woman In White", please endeavor to scrub it out of your mind. It's a wonderful cast, with Tara FitzGerald (although she was better in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall") and Justine Wadell (who is better in "Wives and Daughters") and James Wilby ("Tale of Two Cities", "Maurice", "Howards End", etc.), but the adaptation is terrible, including changing key elements of the plot and relationships between characters. There is also a seedy, degraded, humiliating aspect to this movie, which steals much of the plot away from Hartright and puts it into Marion Halcombe's role, but neither Hartright nor Marion ever forget themselves to this degree. They are champions of virtue, when virtue has been trodden down and looks as if it never will rise again.

Marion, Marion, most wonderful of characters, Marion! She is a truly original creation - more so, even, I think, than Count Fosco. It is aggravating to see Hartright leaning on her in adversity, and yet so smitten with her lovely, but far more conventional, half-sister. Laura is brave, but Marion is courageous. Collins often uses "manly" or "man-like" to describe her, and this is probably the best that can be said for such a strong female character in 1859. At least, if Walter Hartright does not appreciate her intelligence, noble character, and courageous heart, Count Fosco, the undisputed genius within the book, sings her praises at every turn as the most remarkable woman he has ever met.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

It is always worth meditating in an extended way on the folly of arrogance. And if only for that, Great Expectations is worth reading, but I really enjoyed this, and far more than I remembered from hearing it when I was much younger. There is so much going on at multiple levels in the book, but I will just touch on the elements that struck me particularly this time.

When I think of Dickens, I tend to expect characters like Matthew Pocket, or Pumblechook, Mrs. Joe, or Jaggers: utterly distinctive and memorable, broadly sketched with sharp definition, like caricatures. There are words, or an image, which define them, like Mrs. Joe's pin-studded apron front, and that's about all you can expect from them: they are consistent. This is, of course, wonderful for peopling a novelistic world - very often in the real world our only contact with most people is a slight one in which one dominate trait might stand out - but it has always bothered me. It is not to my taste. And I wonder about the effect of immersion in a novelistic universe in which good people are Good, and bad people are Bad.

But Magwich and Miss Havisham really are extraordinary, and they lift the whole book with them into something much more complex. Though introduced as a terrifying and repulsive criminal, Magwich has moments of the reader's understanding and sympathy. Miss Havisham's dismay over Estella and her repentance in the end lift her, too, out of being one-note, and she has a kind of tragic grandeur. In trying to exact revenge for her unrequited love by breaking others' hearts, she comes to realize she has created a monstrous force of nature. Estella is so completely lacking in human warmth that she cannot love her adopted mother, and Miss Havisham sees she herself is no different than her victims, unable to call forth love where none exists. 

Both characters, Magwich and Miss Havisham, were notable to me this time for their experience of filial ingratitude. I'm not sure the reader is meant to sympathize with this perspective, but something about the experience of being a parent made these scenes particularly poignant. They are so sure they will be loved for what they have given, and their adopted progeny seem want to do their best to shake them off. It's a useful reminder that our expectations of other people's emotions are often as inflated and misguided as Pip's hopes of his future wealth, and that giving does not necessarily generate a returning warmth of feeling. 

Much of the later part of the book dwells on Pip's regrets for his lack of gratitude and appreciation of his true benefactors - the people in his life, Joe and Biddy, who gave him unconditional love, and of whom he has spent most of his earlier years ashamed of as poor, or simple, or ignorant. Joe Gargery is a nice example of appearances being deceiving: he may be illiterate and too common in his manners and dress for Pip when he is trying to be a gentleman and separate himself from his old life at the forge, but throughout it is clear Joe is a noble, good-hearted man with dignity who deserves our admiration and respect. Likewise Biddy, who Pip comes to realize is by far the best of women he has known. And I always appreciate an author's emphasis on inner beauty and true worth when most of our lives it is too easy to judge based on the externals. But there is a danger here, I think, in romanticizing ignorance and poverty, somewhat akin to Rousseau's "man in the state of nature," and what happens when you do that is that civilization, and education, that foundational tool of civilization, can start to seem like a corrupting force. If only Pip's eyes had not been opened to the grander world of Miss Havisham and her house and Estella... If only Pip had not built himself up on his "expectations" of great wealth... He has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, and can never go back to his simple good nature as a boy.

"How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done."
Ch. 14

Of course having a good heart, and integrity, and inner nobility, are human qualities that know no bounds of wealth or status. Of course everyone is deserving of our consideration and respect as human beings. I do think, though, that something can be said for education - and I should note that in the book Biddy works tirelessly at her own education and that Joe accomplishes learning to read and write - but I believe that education does refine our sensitivity, and your odds of growing into a person with a compassionate and generous heart are increased rather than diminished by it. 

My favorite line from Great Expectations is in Chapter 33. I can only say by way of apology that being a parent of a young child seems to skew what you find humorous:

"Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet... And more needles were missing, than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic."

Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy

"Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning." - Ch 35.

At least, this is the closest I can come to summarizing Hardy's philosophy and why it is perhaps worth reading this lesser known novel about astronomy and two very "star-crossed" lovers. We ought to introduce into common usage the simile "As unlucky as a Hardy heroine" to express repeated and extremely inopportunely timed misfortune.

Lady Constantine is (effectively, then literally) a widow in her husband's great estate, which includes an old stone tower that a local young man, Swithin St. Cleeve, has co-opted for use in his astronomical pursuits, and the plot of the book follows the ups and downs (mostly downs) of their romance. There are so many circumstantial set-backs that for a time one can believe all the two lovers need is a break in their run of bad luck until one begins to suspect, closer to the end, that perhaps even if all went well, their internal differences would drive them apart. And this is where, I think, the novel is at its most astute: Lady Constantine is nearly thirty and throughout the book she tends to be more aware of social setting, public opinion, the ramifications of her actions (let us call this the "broad" view), while Swithin, just twenty, is described with his head-in-the-clouds scientific pursuits, but also with what might be called a kind of naive selfishness (let us call this the "narrow" focus). In love, he is more passionate, but also somewhat short-sighted. He tends not to see (or consider) the impact of his actions on others, or foresee future events. This gap between the "broad" and "narrow" seems to me to be a pretty accurate description - at least in my experience - of relationships between women and men, and especially so when there is a difference in age. This is not to say, of course, that this is always the case, just my own general observation, but I think it is the cause of a great deal of unhappiness, particularly in women (or girls) who are young enough not to understand. It should probably be put on high school reading lists, if only for this valuable life lesson.

Lady Constantine is also interesting as she pertains to what I would call the "freedom for" question. Like Madame Bovary, she is another literary case study of the ionized heart. They ostensibly have everything (marriage, some social stature in the community, sufficient means to live without laboring), and yet are curiously incomplete. With such needs met, they have leisure, they have freedom, but for what? They don't seem to know what to do with themselves. Often the description is "bored", but I think the boredom is not a surfeit, but an unaddressed longing. They lack purpose, meaning, a compelling passion. It is like an atom which has lost its complement of electrons and is hence charged and highly reactive. As such, they make exciting subjects, ripe for drama - often of the tragic variety - but the existential question behind it persists, for men and for women: freedom for what? One regrets in Lady Constantine's case that she could not fall in love with astronomy, rather than with the astronomer, although Hardy would find it difficult to imagine a woman fascinated by pure science, but whether we can pick and choose what lights up our brains with meaning, what we give our heart to, is an open question, and not nearly, I think, so easily answered as Sartre would have it. We will see this "freedom for" question again - some other extreme examples include Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" and Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler." It is very easy to answer in the negative - both end with a sense of wasted opportunity; there are far fewer attempts to answer in the positive.  

Why read Hardy:
Given that the plot of "Two on a Tower" starts to sound like a soap-opera with secret marriages, he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not, and characters receiving improbable letters at the last minute from estranged relatives, why read Hardy? His books tend to be dismal, his rustics are not humorous, his protagonists tend to plod through life weighed down into dullness by crushing societal burdens. Hardy goes to extraordinary lengths in "Two on a Tower" to make Swithin, but in particular Lady Constantine, utterly above reproach: they are the most circumspect, cautious, rational people imaginable. Everything is thought out, argued, reasoned, and the circumstances are arranged so as to make each choice appear to be the best possible. Character is unimpeachable.

I think what Hardy is doing is presenting extenuating circumstances in defense of socially unacceptable situations - Lady Constantine finds herself pregnant with an illegitimate child, who is only technically illegitimate because of a mistake in the exact date of when her absent husband died in Africa, and of course, the secret marriage, which has turned out to be bigamous and therefore invalid, and nobody knew about it anyway... When I was younger, I used to glance immediately at a woman's hand when I saw she looked pregnant to see if she was wearing a ring - this is a horribly pompous and judgmental thing and I have no idea why I did it. Later on I realized that pregnant women very well might not wear wedding rings (your fingers swell, weight-gain, etc), and later than that I realized that it really wasn't my business at all. It really is no concern of mine, and it shouldn't change how I act, or even how I look, at a person. Peace be to all - life is challenging enough without judging one another. Hardy is a sort of apologist for Stage 2, and his books have a kind of "oh, she put on extra weight!", of course she was blameless, and would have been obviously blameless, but there were these unfortunate circumstances that can be explained. It's not as desirable in an author as Stage 3, but it beats Stage 1.

Here is my favorite line from the novel, when Mr. Torkingham endeavors to corral his unruly, off-key village choir:

"'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very perceptible to other people." - Ch 2.

The edition of "Two on a Tower" I used is an audiobook from Audible.com for sale on iTunes. It is read by Michael Kitchen.

Parsifal, Wagner

Jonas Kaufmann, Met "Parsifal" 2013, Act II

I absolutely love the Met Live in HD series. This is all the wonderfulness of full-scale opera, but it's close to home and you get to eat Twizzlers and put your sneakers up on the movie theater seat in front of you because there are only five other people in the audience. And you get all the close-ups, and the fact that everybody singing is over 20 feet tall, which seems appropriate to the scale of the music. I find local screen-times at www.fathomevents.com.

But on to "Parsifal". I am rather - not freakishly perhaps, but more than is strictly healthy - fond of Wagner's operas. I think the second act of "Lohengrin" is some of the most astounding operatic music written. But "Parsifal" is a stretch for me. First there is the music, which, while there are some gorgeous passages that make your skin tingle, is not, on the whole, catchy. Second there is the story, and I give enormous credit here to director François Girard, but it is tough to get around certain elements, like the misogyny, and the Mel Gibson-style blood-soaked Christianity. Several cast members and Girard himself in the interviews

mention bringing out Buddhist elements in the text, but apart from a reference to Kundry having been reincarnated (so as to continually suffer for her blasphemy), I was knitting my eyebrows. Girard's production had a fabulous image of the knights (black pants, white shirts) sitting in a circle together and bending in and out, like a breathing lotus flower. They also included this intriguing group of motionless, veiled women, who stood in silent witness off to the side, until at the end, with the restoration of the grail, they were integrated again.
These elements helped, but I think they were working against the opera to save it from itself, and the result is sort of a well-intentioned muddle (what was Act II about? what has Parsifal accomplished?), which a more straight-forward "Chastity" storyline makes cleaner (allbeit less attractive).

One of the best things about the production, I think, was the pacing, which might be called "ritualistic" (for example, the "breathing" in and out), that fits the pace of the music. One of the problems, generally, in staging Wagner is that we are used to the actors/singers moving faster than his music allows the plot to progress, and sometimes people deal with this by bringing in extra chorus members to do extra things (Jonas Kaufmann's Munich "Lohengrin" production, for one). There were fabulous - baffling - projections of strange, alien moons, that were beautiful and added to the cosmic sense of the opera, far beyond the forests Wagner originally specified in his stage directions. And there was the unforgettable Act II in the pool of blood with Klingsor and the creepy "flower" maidens. In a opera so much about blood, this was just genius.

A quick word about "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner":

These bookend essays chronicle Nietzsche's initial admiration and subsequent disgust with Wagner and his music. The first essay, written in the most glowing terms, tells you far more about Nietzsche than about his subject - there is a line, in particular, extolling Wagner's "fidelity" which gives rise to incredulity to anyone acquainted with his biography. Nietzsche is especially interested in talking about Art, what he thinks of its dilapidated state in his own time and what he hopes for from it in the future. And his best lines, in my view, touch on this theme which still rings true today, if not more so (Anthony Ludovici translator):

"For these modern creatures wish rather to be hunted down, wounded, and torn to shreds, than to live alone with themselves in solitary calm. Alone with oneself!--this thought terrifies the modern soul; it is his one anxiety, his one ghastly fear."

"Now there is but one kind of seriousness left int he modern mind, and it is limited to the news brought by the newspaper and the telegraph."

"...it even seems as though the small amount of intellect which still remains active to-day, and is not used up by the great mechanism of gain and power, has as its sole task the defending--and excusing of the present. Against what accusers? one asks, surprised. Against its own bad conscience. And at this point we plainly discern the task assigned to modern art--that of stupefying or intoxicating, of lulling to sleep or bewildering... [t]o defend men against themselves, that their inmost heart may be silenced, that they may turn a deaf ear to its voice!"

Substitute "entertainment" for art (let us be more charitable to modern art), and I think you have a pretty fair description of 21st century America's love affair with the iphone.

In the end, Nietzsche rejects Wagner in the most vehement terms. He begins his attack with a critique of Wagner's music, which, I confess, puzzles me. It is hard to understand how somehow could be repulsed by the music style of "Parsifal", but have praised "Tristan & Isolde." I am by no means a musician or professional critic, but I don't hear a great deal of difference between the two operas, versus, for instance, "Parsifal" and "Der Fliegende Holländer" or "Siegfried." "Tristan" is also drenched (I use the word not entirely in an uncomplimentary sense) in liebestod and weltschmerz. The easiest way of accounting for it seems to me to be Wagner's embrace of Christianity in "Parsifal", and it is specifically a Christianity that glories in suffering, victimization, helplessness, and rejection, all of which would have driven Nietzsche bats. I found myself, feet propped up, listening to "Parsifal" crawl past the four and a half hour mark, wishing for

Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen      Joyously, as His suns speed
Durch des Himmels Prächt'gen Plan,  Through Heaven's glorious order,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,          Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.   Exulting as a knight in victory.
    
Freude, Schöner Götterfunken,       Joy, fair spark of the gods,
Tochter aus Elysium,                Daughter of Elysium,
Wir betreten feuer-trunken,         Drunk with fiery rapture, Goddess,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!         We approach thy shrine!
    
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!        Be embraced, Millions!
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!        Take this kiss for all the world!
Brüder über'm Sternenzelt           Brothers, surely a loving Father
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.       Dwells above the canopy of stars.
    
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?       Do you sink before Him, Millions?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?       World, do you sense your Creator?
Such'ihn über'm Sternenzelt!        Seek Him then beyond the stars!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.        He must dwell beyond the stars.

Madame Bovary, Gustav Flaubert

Madame Bovary, Steegmuller translation

My mother cautioned me once that Bovary should only be read "when one is old enough", and I know of few sayings more certain to entice an irrepressibly curious young person.

How will you know when you are old enough? Fadiman (Lifetime Reading Plan, 113, 1988) admits that he finds the novel "cold and depressing." I imagine it helps, but is not necessary, to be married; I imagine it helps, but is not necessary, to be a woman. My reading of Bovary left me convinced it is an absolute gem: a rare and perfect marriage of form and function it would be impossible to duplicate ever again. The genius of Bovary is in its style, which, like a meticulous Dutch painting, continually brings into focus small, commonplace, sometimes sordid details - the stain on a shirt-front, the creases in a boot. Almost always they reflect or reveal some shading of character and create an absolutely real sense of place. Emma Bovary is prone to Romanticism, and trapped within this world of farmers and chemists, dog-carts and buzzing flies. She thinks it is her relative bourgeois poverty, a country doctor's wife of no distinction, but Flaubert's narrative style suggests that there is no refuge, not even among the rich, from the small imperfections, the human foibles, the very particularness that is oppressive to a mind trying to escape its tether. Her husband Charles is cheerfully oblivious: content in his limited sphere of acquaintance and interests, pleased with himself, and comfortable in his country manners and dress.

Of course things go from bad to worse - how could they not? Emma is a time-bomb, with no internal discipline to keep her unhappiness and anger in check - but what is truly remarkable is that the novel reserves judgement. It would have been so easy to produce a sad tale of a misguidedly-idealistic young woman's descent, or, alternatively, to have held her up as a visionary soul surrounded by petty-minded, ignorant and pretentious folk, but Flaubert walks the knife's edge. One of the brilliant aspects of the book, I thought, was that it doesn't begin with Emma and her clandestine dormitory reading of sentimental poetry and exotic Romance novels; it begins with plain, plain Charles, as a somewhat clumsy and thick-headed boy at school,  his mother and father's mismatched and unhappy marriage, and Charles' own first marriage to the horrible Madame Dubuc, so there is a kind of diffusion of blame. It is not just Emma, or just Charles, but a more universal difficulty in finding the right match of temperaments suited to making a happy life. Not that all people are equally capable of creating happiness - when Emma finds Leon, who also has a penchant for music and poetry, she merely devours him.

It amazes me that Flaubert as a novelist was able to enter deeply into the mind of a woman of his time - particularly in her frustration at being pent up because she is a woman and not as free as a man. And there is the fascinating anecdote that Flaubert once said of his most famous heroine, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." But then he is also remarkably sensitive in his depiction of the inner life of his other major characters, such as Madame Bovary senior (Charles' mother) and Charles himself.

I find Charles intriguing, in some ways more than Emma, for Emma makes a kind of selfish sense. I love this description of his dogged pursuit of the studies his mother set him on as a young man:

"...lectures on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lectures on physiology, lectures on pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical medicine, and therapeutics, without counting hygiene and materia medica--all names of whose etymologies he was ignorant, and that were to him as so many doors to sanctuaries filled with magnificent darkness. He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well to listen--he did not follow. Still he worked; he had bound note-books, he attended all the courses, never missed a single lecture. He did his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing." (Book I, Ch 1)

But then this is also the Charles who learns he has a taste for dominoes, and music, and drink, and women, who has to be put back on his task. He has a first, loveless marriage in which he is the one looking for affection, but then also becomes the smug, obtuse husband who cannot glimpse Emma's misery. And there is a rather amazing (gruesome) bit at the end during the vigil over Emma's body, when, after dwelling on his idealized memories of love, he lifts the shroud to see her once more and falls back in horror. Even unimaginative Charles is a romantic when it comes to death, and the novel will not let him.

Again, the knife's edge: it would have been easy - it is easy - to be a realist and a pessimist and to take a kind of ugly pleasure in wallowing in the seaminess of life. But the novel is great precisely, I think, because it is careful merely to present, because the only solution to the problem posed by Emma (dissatisfaction, boredom, Romantic disgust for all that falls short of the imagined ideal) is to turn and embrace the present and particular in the spirit of Zen Buddhism. I don't know if Flaubert ever thought of it this way, but reading Bovary made me think about the ways in which my mind rejects elements of its surroundings and tries to slip out the back way, when what is called for is an intensification of focus on the present-immediate. Wash the dishes, fold the laundry, approach Romance novels with caution.