I have decided to live-blog the reading of this novel here, as it's a long book but a (fairly) quick read. To save myself a ton of time, I am reading the freely-downloadable, public-domain PlanetPDF copy of the book (if you'd like to follow along), though I will be bringing the Norton Critical Edition version of the text to class. I will also preface this by saying I've never read the book before, and will warn you that this is a very long post, with some very colorful language -- so if you'll be offended by that, read no further.
We cool?
Okay. Below, of course, it begins...
Pages 1-56: Christ, enough with the over-explanation/over-description already. We're aware that this takes place in a room/field/house/etc. We don't need to know what color the boiling pots are (or how many of them exist), nor do we need to know every single piece of food Charles and Emma will be serving at the wedding.
Page 57: First signs that Emma may be a heartless bitch who doesn't love her husband Charles.
Page 58: N-word alert! N-word alert!
Pages 59-66: Why do we need to know *anything* about Emma's time spent in the convent? Seems useless; it's in the past. The story's in the present.
Page 68: Okay, it's settled, she's a bitch. Charles is basically described as not being good enough for her, despite the fact that he is a DOCTOR, loves her dearly, kisses her all over, takes care of her, and she wants for nothing -- she's just bored. Yeah, I already hate Emma.
Page 73: Emma says "Good heavens! Why did I marry?" What a stuck-up, unsatisfiable little shit.
Page 99: It's revealed that Emma's chastising of servant Nastasie has made her leave the house forever. Again: bitch.
Page 102: "But Charles had no ambition." ...perhaps because he's married to you, you little snot, she-who-will-not-be-satisfied.
Pages 103-109: Emma whines a lot.
Page 110: "Emma was growing difficult, capricious." ...what, just now? Ugh.
Page 113: Emma is pregnant. How Charles could deign to fuck her when she's such an ungrateful little shit is beyond me.
Start of Book II: Good lord, this book had better get going soon. Where's all the scandalousness I've heard about over the years?
Book II, Chapter One: Fucking boring. More unneeded description. Who the hell are these new people, why do we care, etc etc.
Page 130: Oh yes, Emma, because blaming Charles for your dumb fucking dog running away solves the problem.
Page 138: Emma declares reading poetry to be "tiring in the long run," and denounces the novels of naturalists. This statement is as yet the only redeeming quality I've found in her character.
Page 147: Emma is pissed off when she gives birth to a daughter instead of a son; does nothing make this woman happy?
Page 159 (end of Chapter Three): I have this distinct feeling that Leon is going to fuck Emma, isn't he?
Page 178: "But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate." Best description of Emma's character thus far.
Page 178 also: Admits she's in love with Leon. Who would've seen that coming?
Page 181: More bitching/moaning about her marriage.
Page 190-191: Wow, she pushes away her own child, tells her to leave her alone, and the child ends up screaming and injured with a cut to the cheek when Emma knocks her down. This is not quite Moll-Flanders-bad-mother material, but getting there. Again, what a bitch. She also calls her own child ugly.
Page 215: So now this Boulanger guy wants to fuck her too? Ugh, this is tiresome. Someone had better start fucking someone else soon.
Pages 216-270: Rodolphe spends these pages trying to seduce Emma. Emma falls in love with him. He ends up refusing her, saying she has compromised herself. No sex takes place. WTF. I've also realized that I still can't stand Emma as a character, but for all the sex that's supposed to be happening in this book, none of it has yet occurred. Right now I want some of it to happen just so that something exciting actually happens in this damned novel.
Page 280: Wait a minute, is there sex going on? I can't tell if it's implied or not. Surely Emma and Roldophe aren't just "hanging out together" for six months, right? Ugh. Just come out and say it, book.
Page 281-302: Charles screws up a club foot surgery, the guy has to have his leg amputated by gangrene, Emma takes this as another opportunity to be a bitch by thinking that her husband is a failure -- and I sit here reading, frantically fucking hoping that something interesting will happen in the last 200 pages of this novel, because it has not yet earned the hype or reputation of being "scandalous" as it was labeled.
Page 305: Rodolphe and Emma rekindle their romance/affair. I can still not figure out whether there is actual sex taking place. This is tiresome. I'd so much rather be watching the Jets/Ravens game -- which is on in the background, but I cannot pay attention to it and the book at the same time.
Page 313: Emma calls herself Rodolphe's "concubine," and he calls her his "mistress." From this point forward, I've just decided to assume that they've been having sexual relations of some sort during this whole time. I say "assume" because the book tells you nothing.
Page 317: Okay, so she's going to run off with Rodolphe? Yeah, I still hate her character, but at least something's happening now, and I can see where she's coming from.
Page 325: Okay, it's quite heavily implied that they're having sex in the woods on this page. I'm cool with that. Book, please continue.
Pages 328-29: Rodolphe abandons/betrays her! HAH! Karma's a bitch, isn't it? Good.
Pages 352-53: By opening her home/heart to orphans and doing other charitable deeds after recovering from grief sickness, it is the first time in the entire novel that Emma has done something for someone other than herself. This does not last long.
Pages 353-370: Blah blah, let's go to the theater. Blah blah nothing important happens.
Page 371: Leon returns to the book, after three years' worth of "book time." Finally.
Around the beginning of Book III: Come on, book, you were interesting for a short while, but you've still got about 150 pages left. Please, something, anything...please let something fucking happen that will actually hold my attention for those pages.
Page 400: Wait, did Emma and Leon just have lots of sex in the back of a cab as it drove around town for hours? Dammit, book, just tell me what's going on. I hate this indirect shit.
Page 407: Emma's father-in-law, Charles' father, dies.
Page 417-420: Apparently Emma and Leon have sex for three days. Or not. Who knows, because the book never comes out and says anything.
Page 425 onward, my thoughts began to consist of Oh for fuck's sake please let this book end soon; I have suffered enough.
Pages 430-33: More sex, with a little more detail that this is exactly what's going on between Emma and Leon.
Page 438: Emma says all men are evil. Pot, meet kettle, you little harlot.
Page 443-47: Money talk. Power of attorney talk. Yawn. Do something, book.
Page 460 onward, my thoughts began to drift; half of them consist of get to the fucking point, book, while the other half say things like how can she be this much of a slut and not get pregnant again?
Page 462: Emma admits that she loves Leon. Again. As if this wasn't apparent the entire time they'd been riding the train to bootytown together.
Pages 464-69: More money talk that has really nothing to do with the story at hand. Again, do something, book.
Page 472: Leon swears he won't see Emma again. This is, of course, a lie.
Page 480: Hm. Suddenly the money-talk becomes important. Emma needs to pay 8,000 francs of bills, and has no idea where she'll get the money. Please tell me the little shit is going to become a whore, oh please? It would so serve her right.
Page 502: YES.
Page 503: Rodolphe returns to the novel, as I expected he eventually would. Emma basically says he's worthless and that he never loved her because he won't give her the money she needs, which just goes to show you what most women in this world are truly after.
Page 508: "and there is a spot on the carpet where at my knees you swore an eternity of love!" Bow-chicka-wow-wow..
Page 510ish: She said she was going to start whoring on page 502. Well...get to it, Emma. I'm waiting.
Page 513: She's trying to kill herself instead? Laaaaaame.
Page 523: Yeah, I'm sorry, that much arsenic would've killed her by now, almost immediately.
Page 530: WHY IS SHE STILL ALIVE? DIE BITCH DIE
Page 531: She dies.
Page 532 forward: Why does this book have to go on after she's dead? Mourning, mourning, blah blah. Is it over yet?
Page 551: Oh good lord, bury the bitch already!
Page 556: She's finally in the ground. This is the first page of the final chapter of the novel, finally.
Page 558: So Charles finally figures out/possibly guesses that she's been nailing other guys for, practically, their entire marriage, and dismisses the notion just as easily as it came? WTF. Seriously.
Page 566: Finally Charles finds all of Leon's letters (and Rodolphe's portrait) and realizes his wife was a big ol' ho-bag. Wow, it only took until the last five pages of the book. Again, WTF.
Page 569-70: Charles finally confronts Rodolphe, makes his peace by saying he doesn't blame him, and then Berthe (his and Emma's daughter) finds him dead. The end.
...okay. Wow. I spent the entire day reading that? And it was supposed to be scandalous? Well, yeah, to a certain degree, but still. I feel cheated. I want my nine hours back.
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