Madame Bovary

150th Anniversary

By: Gustave Flaubert, Mildred Marmur - translator, Robin Morgan - introduction

Narrated by: Claire Bloom

For daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion, the author of Madame Bovary was tried for "offenses against morality and religion." What shocks us today about Flaubert's devastatingly realized tale of a young woman destroyed by the reckless pursuit of her romantic dreams is its pure artistry: the poise of its narrative structure, the opulence of its prose (marvelously captured in the English translation of Francis Steegmuller), and its creation of a world whose minor figures are as vital as its doomed heroine. In reading Madame Bovary, one experiences a work that remains genuinely revolutionary almost a century and a half after its creation.©1992 Mildred Marmur; (P)1992 Penguin HighBridge Audio

Critic reviews

"Madame Bovary is like the railroad stations erected in its epoch: graceful, even floral, but cast of iron." -- John Updike

delightful and dramatic

This audible book was delightful to listen to thanks to a very easy to listen to performance by Claire Bloom. Such a descriptive story of life in the 19th century, including the angst of romantics and pragmatists searching for fulfillment, with the inevitable resulting drama. I found it thoughtful and refreshing.

best translation, incredible narration

Lydia Davis is arguably the best French translator of literary fiction of our era. Her rendition of Flaubert's masterpiece breathes new life into this timeless work and for the first time English readers will come away reeling in the wit, humor, genius and tragic comedy of the book that is Madame Bovary. Claire Bloom's narration is an interpretive masterpiece: rarely do readers offer such nuance as to make the words themselves sublime. Hands down a gem among audiobooks!

Avoid

If you try to read along with the book, you get lost and can't find what is being said.