Amabilem Conjugem Calcas

Mike Stanford used to say that what distinguished Joyce’s writing, for him, was how much Joyce loved his characters. I know what he meant, but I’d call it fidelity–Joyce never took a shortcut in characterization. A single line might capture the essence of a person, but that alone wouldn’t make a character real, and he devoted much of his gift to the loving construction of real characters. As readers, we trust Joyce. We believe every word.

I’ve been trying to think of a character in Madame Bovary who comes off looking decent, and I can’t identify a single one. The closest are the physically grotesque–the sightless beggar who haunts Emma, the clubfooted servant whom Charles maims. Flaubert may not have given us a villain like Edmund or Claudius, but who needs them when he populates the novel with dozens of variations on Gloucester and Polonius. But though he presents the entire French people as exponentially more foolish in miserable than they could really be (I hope!), I’d still say of Flaubert what I’ve said of Joyce. I don’t doubt Homais, Charles, or Emma for a minute. Flaubert’s eye for detail, in the human and natural landscape, along with his ear for dialogue, is as good as any I’ve ever read.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

At the head of the table, alone among ladies, was an old man. His napkin was tied around his neck like a child’s, and he sat hunched over his heaped plate, gravy dribbling from his mouth. The underlids of his eyes hung down and showed red inside, and he wore his hair in a little pigtail round with black ribbon. This was the marquis’ father-in-law, the old duc de Laverdiere, favorite of the duc d’Artois in the days of the marquis de Conflans’ hunting parties at Le Vaudreuil: he was said to have been Marie-Antoinette’s lover between Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur de Lauzun. He had led a wild, dissipated life, filled with duels, wagers, and abductions; he had gone through his money and been the terror of his family. Now, muttering unintelligibly, he pointed his finger at one dish after another, and a servant standing behind his chair shouted their names in his ear. Emma’s eyes kept coming back to this pendulous-lipped old man as though he were someone extraordinary, someone august. He had lived at court! He had slept with a queen!

Wow. And this:

It was the beginning of April, primrose time, when soft breezes blow over newly spaded flower beds, and gardens, like women, seem to be primping themselves for the gaieties of summer. Through the slats of the arbor, and all around beyond, she could see the stream flowing through the meadows, winding its vagabond course amid the grass. The evening mist was rising among the bare poplars, blurring their outlines with a tinge of purple that was paler and more transparent than the sheerest gauze caught on their branches. In the distance cattle were moving: neither their steps nor their lowing could be heard, and the steadily sounding churchbell sent its peaceful lament into the evening air.

And this:

Leon walked meditatively, keeping near the walls. Never had life seemed so good. Any minute now she would appear, charming, all aquiver, turning around to see whether anyone was looking–with her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her dainty shoes, all kinds of feminine elegancies he had never had a taste of, and all the ineffable allurement of virtue on the point of yielding. The church was like a gigantic boudoir, suffused by her image: the vaults curved dimly down to breathe in the avowal of her love; the windows were ablaze to cast their splendor on her face; and even the incense burners were lighted, to welcome her like an angel amid clouds of perfume.

And, finally, this:

The next day Charles sat down on the bench in the arbor. Rays of light came through the trellis, grape leaves traced their shadow on their gravel, the jasmine was fragrant under the blue sky, beetles buzzed about the flowering lilies. A vaporous flood of love-memories swelled in his sorrowing heart, and he was overcome with emotion, like an adolescent.

Just devastating. And so good.