A series of writings on Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary. The essays below are in Chinese; the order below is the recommended reading path — start at the Chinese entrance, then read through the work, the craft, the reading list, the trial, and the writer’s century.

My main references include Flaubert’s novels in various translations, his private letters (commonly known in Chinese as Literary Letters), the chapter on Madame Bovary in Literary Lectures, critical biographies, Flaubert’s Parrot, and other works.

Select a spine to jump to its volume. Thickness reflects the amount of published text, not completion or printed editions.

Prologue · The Chinese Entrance

  1. My Translation of the Names in Madame Bovary

Volume I · How Emma Is Made

  1. Emma’s Four Lovers
  2. Emma’s Reading List
  3. Emma’s Idols

Volume II · Charles’s Hat

  1. Charles’s Hat
  2. Term Limits in the Provinces
  3. Emma’s Gifts
  4. From Tostes to Yonville
  5. The Seven Doctors of Yonville
  6. The Agricultural Fair Symphony

Volume III · Flaubert’s New Prose

  1. Flaubert’s New Prose
  2. All the Isms in the Room
  3. Madame Bovary Is Me
  4. Flaubert the Purple Hermit

Volume IV · Flaubert’s Reading List

  1. Flaubert Reads Rousseau, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine
  2. Flaubert Reads Voltaire
  3. Flaubert Reads Cyrano
  4. Flaubert Reads Turgenev
  5. Flaubert Reads Zola and Maupassant
  6. Flaubert Reads Cervantes

Volume V · The Trial of Madame Bovary

  1. The Trial of Madame Bovary
  2. Pinard’s Prosecution Speech
  3. Sénard’s Defense Speech
  4. The Verdict on Madame Bovary
  5. Madame Bovary Censored

Volume VI · Flaubert’s Nineteenth Century

  1. Flaubert’s Nineteenth Century
  2. The Du Camp Memoir
  3. The Death of Flaubert
  4. Sunday at Flaubert’s
  5. Visiting Rouen’s Graves