"The reason why Madame Bovary might be described as “perfect” is because this ground-breaking novel — considered to be the first “realist” or objective work of long fiction, thus making this the forerunner to today’s literary fiction — is because the language is so floral. I wonder what the original French must read like, but Davis’ translation is largely beautiful and easy to read. It is said that Flaubert would spend a week on a particular page of the text — revising it and rewriting it wholesale until the prose sang like poetry. That attention to craft shows. Plot-wise, though, the book is a little slow until the novel’s final third, which gathers itself up with the ferocity of a tidal wave. Still, that language makes this the sort of thing that you might have to re-read a few times just to pick up on all the nuances of what the book is trying to say.
The other striking thing about this work is that it is, in many ways, a proto-feminist novel. Emma struggles with being a barefoot and pregnant housewife who yearns for something more. Doesn’t that sound like a first-wave feminist to you? It does to me. The thing that struck me is how few women populate this novel. Aside from Emma, the next major female character is an innkeeper — but we don’t see her often and she doesn’t do anything to forward the plot of this book. Emma Bovary is a woman who lives in the kingdom of men, and the book shows us the consequences of that “upbringing.” Having grown up in a monastery, Emma is cloistered and can only dream of a better life — the type of life that one might find in grand romance novels".
source: https://zachary-houle.medium.com/book-review-madame-bovary-by-gustave-flaubert-20a16f91ef06
