About this audiobook
In Gustave Flaubert's novel, Emma Bovary longs for a life as passionate and splendid as the romances she has read. Marriage to Charles, a provincial medical practitioner, brings her little of the excitement she imagined. Everyday routines deepen her dissatisfaction, and she begins to seek an escape through love affairs and purchases she cannot afford.
Yet neither romantic adventure nor luxury closes the gap between Emma's dreams and her circumstances. Disappointment and debt become increasingly entangled, exposing how fragile a life built on imagined happiness can be. Flaubert observes his heroine and the society around her with psychological precision and a restrained irony that leaves room for both sympathy and criticism.
This is a novel about desire, self-deception and the pressure of provincial respectability. It will appeal to readers who value complex characters and stories that examine the distance between the lives people lead and the lives they wish for.
