Oh, Emma

Is every book about unhappy marriages and I'm just realizing it now that I'm engaged? Finished Madame Bovary recently and can't say I loved it. How can adultery be so boring? Oh, I mean I get it - I get why MB is such a classic. There is such a wonderful lack of sentimentality, a coldness in the description that is certainly admirable. I can also take some sort of glee of wonderment in considering all the different ways the subject matter would have created such a stir when it first came out. I was torn in my sympathy toward Emma. I found myself unable to excuse her for her feelings toward Charles or her wealthy aspirations, but I pitied her the sheer boredom of her life. Get a job! Then mightn't she have been able to resist her promiscuous tendencies?

Depressing as they may be, all of these anti-marriage books made me grateful for what I have.

Look how good I am with kids:



(That's my niece gnawing on a raw ear of corn.) I mean, that's something else I've got on Emma, right?