The Problem With Madame Bovary

Today, among a correlation of Welsh cake wrappers, mugs of tea, a discarded piece of toast, more Welsh cakes and some flu tablets, sat Madame Bovary. I have recently just finished Stephen King's The Shining - a book I've been reading for the past two months - and due to my new story idea decided I wanted to read a novel about a tragic, flawed romance - of course! So, rattling through the mountain of books in my room I picked up my copy of Madame Bovary. The opening was bad but I continued. Then, 144 pages in I put it aside and realised I would not be continuing the tedious exercise that Gustave Flaubert had created for me.  

At first I was angry at myself and said - mumbling past the flickering TV and the mounds of tissues - that I should stick to it. It's a classic and I have a wonderful edition that my mother bought me for Christmas last year. But then, staring at the front cover, I decided not. Why should I read this book just because it's a 'classic'? If this was Fifty Shades of Grey I would just discard it if I thought it was badly written, of course I would. And, I'm here to say Madame Bovary is badly written.

Flaubert's style - at first glance - seems to resemble the latter writers, for example, Tom Perrotta. But then, going on and reading the stupid way Bovary meets her first lover and very quickly - too quickly I might add - falls in love with him, you realise there is no skill to Flaubert's writing - it is just a splatter of words on the page. There is no thought, no intellect, just a random amount of words vented out. He tells too much. I know I'm no expert - I'm still starting out and all that jazz but something I firmly believe - and told my students when I was in America - is you shouldn't tell unless you need to tell, you should show and, in some cases, there's a way you can tell by telling through showing. 

Flaubert, maybe in a few years I will return to you, but right now, you fail me. Sorry!