THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest authors of nineteenth century France, was one of the first writers to introduce realism into novels.  Flaubert, born in 1821, died in 1880.

 

Charles, a medical doctor who has yet to escape the influence of his mother, marries an older woman of her choosing.  On a chance meeting, Charles meets Emma Rouault, a farmer’s daughter.  Charles, upon the death of his wife, marries Emma with whom he is bewitched.  Emma marries Charles believing she married into wealth and spends beyond their means.  Unhappily married to Charles, a country doctor, Emma spends her time in affairs with other men under the nose of her witless husband.

After the town’s merchant, who facilitated her easy credit, calls in Emma’s debts, Emma pleads with former lovers and friends for help.  Rather than face social and economic demise, Emma ingests arsenic.

Charles, unable to bear the loss of Emma, slips into a depression and loses his practice.  However, he is still liable for Emma’s debts for which he sells his possessions.  After finding her lovers’ letters, Charles breaks and dies.  Their young daughter, sent away, suffers the fate of work in a cotton mill.