First of all, this post is filled with spoilers. But I’m guessing that Flaubert is not on the summer reading list of most PF Bloggers. Or else you’ve suffered through reading it once already for school. This is not the Cliff Notes. If you’re looking for that, go somewhere else.
1) Ennui – Boredom is not a good reason to spend money. And basically she has affairs out of boredom, which leads to her spending money.
2) Poor financial management – She runs a tab at the haberdashers and doesn’t concern herself with paying the bill in a timely fashion.
3) Lavish gift giving – The objects of her affections receive elaborate gifts (from said haberdasher). One of them attempts to refuse them, but accepts them anyway.
4) Signing financial documents she doesn’t understand – Her biggest mistake in the end is signing to debt instruments she doesn’t comprehend. In fact, in reading this part, I wasn’t sure how it worked either. She should have just settle the debts and wised up.
5) Tragedy – Debtor’s prision doesn’t exist anymore, but how many folks contemplate suicide or bankruptcy over the slow inexorable process of paying down the bills? Rather it seems an inexorable process if you keep running up the credit cards. Truly you can pay off your debts if you try to curb your spending and diligently pay stuff off.
I read this book when I was 12. It was the Holt, Rinehart translation from 1949, hardback. I got it used for $2.95 from a secondhand bookstore. I never really understood it when I was 12, but now that I’m a good deal older than that, I thought I should give it another try. It was a much shorter read than before. (1 day vs 2 weeks) I still don’t understand Emma Bovary very well, but I get the story a lot more.
I don’t think Flaubert set out to write a book that was a cautionary tale of financial mismanagement, but I sure got that message out of it this weekend. (Ironically, I was reading it out of boredom and a curiosity about what I’d missed when I was younger.)
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This is great! I too recently reread Flaubert – kudos to you for taking Madame’s financial mess and applying it to modern day PF!