In which Kristen dredges back out Madame Bovary

Excuse #1: I didn't finish the book. I didn't think I would make it to this book club meeting, so I returned the book to the library.

Excuse #2: I am pretty sure I had a fever at some point in the evening, complete with muscle aches and shivers.

Excuses aside, ohhhh, Madame Bovary, what power you hold between your covers to make us question our strongly held beliefs about ourselves and our fellow women! This novel stirs up a lot of debate and emotion, as Febe said it would. Flaubert had serious literary guts in tackling the adultery issue, at least writing from the 19th century. It takes us awhile to really get into the adultery question, and I don't know if we ever really discuss the adultery aspect at all. We are all quick to judge Emma for her poor choices, saying how it was difficult to empathize with a protagonist who kept running away from her problems and digging herself deeper into a financial and moral hole. We lament about her terrible mothering instincts, how she never gave poor Charles a fighting chance, and how she escaped into materialism when life didn't live up to her romantic fantasies. As we are wont to do, we ride off of each others' opinions, secure in our disdain for poor Emma's string of choices that culminated in her suicide.

And then it is Febe's turn to share. (She swears that her ability to say it like it is is a cultural thing, part of her Latina roots. She gets frustrated with our inability to just "say what we mean!" and we sometimes widen our eyes in response to her frankness.) Febe expresses her frustration that we could not empathize with Emma, that we judged her so harshly, especially when we are looking back at her with 140 years of feminist history. Suddenly, we all furrow our brows and feel our suppositions shrink a bit. "I see so much of myself in Emma," Febe explains, "when I have looked down on someone because of their class, or bought something I didn't need to make me feel better, or made bad, bad choices in my marriage." And with that declaration, we are all free to think of Emma differently, and in some ways, to think of ourselves differently.

The realization dawns around the circle that of course, we are similar to Emma, and that we had quickly raced to condemn her choices because we are always the hardest on those who remind us of ourselves.
Febe brings up that Charles was not so innocent and sweet as we might be making him out to be--remember the scene where Rodolphe asks if he can take Madame out for a ride, and while she refuses, Charles insists she go with him? What kind of a protector-husband is that, who would thrust his wife into a situation like that with another man? Febe's voice rises in intensity as she exclaims how upset she would be with her own husband if he did something like that, when he is supposed to be her shield. I feel a twinge of
discomfort at this notion; it doesn't sit well. My husband and I have been going round and round for months about his new best friend and photography mentor, a lovely (married) young woman named Ashley. The two of them share this artistic passion and a sense of humor, and they work well together, shooting weddings on Saturday evenings. I have felt a current of jealousy through my body for the last four months, and the desire to clamp down on my husband, to protect him from confusing feelings that could crop up. But he has assured me that no such feelings exist, and that to clamp down is a violation of his freedom and trust. I see his point, but it still kind of sucks. Where is my protector?

In fact, the more I think about it, I feel more like Charles in our analogous relationship. I have been dutifully cooking for, raising children for, loving my husband, and he seems to be chasing after his happiness, unable to settle into it with me. Is this a recent change of heart, or has it been brewing awhile? I can't tell yet. I come back from my thoughts and blurt out, "Maybe she just never loved him and she really tried but they were just wrong for each other." Ouch.