I wasn't expecting this book to be so fucking funny. The first half wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a realist novel, but the second half, once Emma starts her affairs, is non stop genius comedic situations after another.The clubfoot guy. Rodolphe writing the letter. The theater. The punchline at the climax with Emma hearing the blind guy. Good lord. So good.Probably the funniest book I've ever read.Discuss.
>>24700158Many great novels are way funnier than you'd expect. My favourites are probably Confidence-Man, Magic Mountain (Naphta, Settembrini and Mynheer Peeperkorn are all comedy gold) and Ulysses (Cyclops, Circe).
>>24700158I agree it has its humor, but you're also exaggerating. The tragic character masks the comedy beneath. There's also no punchline involving the blind crazy man? Unless it was lost in translation, explain my nigga. This is my favorite novel and i'm curious to know what you mean.
>>24700158I don't care what anyone says. Emma was a feminist heroine. Her only sin was daring to dream of a better and more exciting life at a time the patriarchy only offered mediocrity to non-rich women. She was a romantic soul that deserved better. Charles wasn't a bad man, but she was too bright, too beautiful, too authentic for him. She was Madame Bovary.
>>24700158Flaubert is a comic genius. Sentimental Education had me in stitches.
>>24700181>implying Ulysses wasn't meant to be a comedy
>>24700158I've long had a desire to read this but kept getting dissuaded by a sense it would be too unremittingly cold and austere. Thanks for convincing me otherwise.
>>24700158I liked Bouvard et Pécuchet
>>24700158Everything you just listed is more cruel than funny and you seem to have a very bizarre sense of humor.
>>24700244During it's time she was read that way, mainly by women.
>>24700287While I wouldn't call the book a comedy, it's clearly meant to be satirical and it's ripe with black comedic moments. Things like Emma getting mad at the botched surgery only for how it was going to reflect on her own reputation and then nagging Charles to buy Hippolyte a second wooden leg because he didn't want to wear the first one for being too nice are obviously meant to be funny.
>>24700317>>24700287The entire character of Homais is satirical
>>24700244At the start I definitely sympathized with her circumstances, but she's just way too fucking dumb.
>>24700281It's a wonderful novel
>>24700244That and bankrupting her family, killing herself out of sheer stupidity, and causing the premature death of her husband and the misery of her child. Yes, an icon of feminism indeed.
>>24700317Yeah, okay, that part was funny, but if you laughed at any of the tragic things that happened to Emma then you obviously aren't a real feminist.
>>24700378Okay? She was still better read than you. So much for her being dumb.
>>24700403And whose fault was that? Emma or the patriarchy? Yeah. I'll leave you with that thought.
When was the last time an author was censored and put on trial by a state for their work?
>>24700464For an artistic work? It's been a long while. If you count non-fiction and pornography it's not unthinkable in Europe.
>>24700317Those are vaguely humorous but they're equally if not more so included to illustrate Emma's vanity. Characterizing them as kneeslapping hilarity like OP did is strange
>>24700657>vaguely humorousWhy won't you tell us what you find funny then, Mr. Comedian?
>>24700666If we're talking literature then Gogol is the comedic gold standard.
>>24700681Gogol is pretty funny, yeah, but Flaubert is funnier. Gogol humor cues are too obvious. It gets too zany.What do you think of Dostoyevsky? I find him hilarious, but I have a feeling you'd also think I laugh at cruel bits. Notes from the Underground is obviously laugh out loud funny, but probably the funniest thing I've ever read is Katerina getting hysterical during the funeral dinner party in Crime and Punishment.
>>24700244>more exciting lifeyou mean more sex? that really is all women care about isn't it?
>>24700713more exciting than being the wife of a mediocre country almost-doctor who's as dull as a box of hammers
>>24700703>Gogol is pretty funny, yeah, but Flaubert is funnier. Gogol humor cues are too obvious.Idk what you really mean by that but idk I'd have to read Dosto again. When the doctor offers the MC of The Nose snuff to calm him down forgetting that he's literally missing his nose is peak. I'm not even moralfagging I legit just don't think there's much humor in the guy singing while Emma dies of arsenic poisoning
>>24700730Am I the only one who pictured Charles as Timothy Spall? That's not a man you want to do the sex with. Rodolphe though... now that's a MAN.
>>24700738>When the doctor offers the MC of The Nose snuff to calm him down forgetting that he's literally missing his nose It's funny, but it's funny in the way something like Dr. Strangelove is funny. It's very disconnected from reality.Nigga, don't spoil the book. This thread is to get anons to read it. But the blind man's role in Emma's death is constructed like a gag. From Homais making a bullshit promise to cure him, to him walking all the way to Yonville exactly at the moment of the climax, and then how Homais gets rid of him. It's comedy gold. Also don't act like Emma going straight into eating the arsenic wasn't a funny moment too.
>>24700317>Things like Emma getting mad at the botched surgery only for how it was going to reflect on her own reputationThis was the least comic chapter for me. The accusations of a wife towards her husband, of being useless, of lacking any skills, of bringing her shame, and so one, are particularly vivid in my memory. I just replaced Emma with my mother and Charles with my father kekVery accurate represention of the vanity and cruelty of a wife such as Emma.
>>24700341I have always thought that Flaubert being a liberal, and possibly anti-clerical, that likewise Homais had a little of Flaubert in him. The secular, positivist attitude of the character, and how he always seemed to outwit the town's cleric (and how religiosity is portrayed in general) seem to aid my case.
>>24700741Rodolphe was pure evil thougheverI read the first chapters hoping that Emma wouldn't fall into adultery despite everything, then came this absolute Chad seducing her in front of her husband. Made me dislike him
>>24701019Even when she was with Leon she could never forget Rodolphe. His name alone was enough to get her weak. A complete Chad-widow.
>>24701028To be honest, Leon was particularly pathetic. Even in his Rouen phase. He seemed to be faking whatever confidence he had, and to me it seemed Emma became disillusioned with Leon herself whilst Rodolphe straight up dumped her.That beta didn't deserve such a goddess
>>24701003He's also a quack pharmacist who thinks himself a doctor (Flaubert's father was an important and respected doctor) and forms part of the growing Bourgeoisie that Flaubert disliked, the kind that don't care for art and are more into it for entertainment. He's mocking the middle class of the July Monarchy and the Second Empire.He's the sort that quotes Shakespeare without knowing it's Shakespeare, because he read the quote in the newspaper. He's the new sort of man that puts science, even when he doesn't understand it or bother to learn it, above everything else.
>>24701049Unrelated by my favorite scene ever in literature is the Rouen Cathedral walk between Emma and Leon, and the following carriage action. It's Flaubert writing sacrilege for fun. No wonder the novel was censoredAbsolute /lit/ kino.
>>24701057>and the following carriage actionI didn't like Leon, but I must admit that section gave me a hard on.
>>24701019>Made me dislike himDislike the husband? Yes. What a cuck.
