Madam B Day

[muckefuck]

Still reading Bovary, by the way (or "Madame B" as some of my colleagues would call it--though for an operagoer like me that could only mean Cio-Cio San). Three weeks and I'm just a few pages shy of the two-thirds mark (which fortuitously coincides with the conclusion of the deuxième partie). A week ago, I was depressed at my progress, but then I discovered from reading the footnotes that Flaubert spent three months composing a single banal conversation. The GWO informs me that he was notorious for writing only a page a day before stopping. I find it charming that the text of my (French) edition is exactly 365 pages. This provides me with a new lens through which to view my progress. The page I'm on corresponds to August 22nd, which means that yesterday morning I just passed my birthday.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Kudos to you. I have never gotten past page 50 with any Flaubert (including his travelogues talking about Kutchuk Hanem). Gwyn