Madame Bovary of the Suburbs, by Sophie Divry

The translation of the title in English is more explanatory than the French's: if you liked Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, you will love this one.

The life of this new madame Bovary takes place between the 1950's and 2025, in a small provincial town of France. M.A has everything she could have wished for: after a childhood in a loving family and a successful education, she studies in Grenoble and meets her husband, François, who is fond of her. Together, they have three children and they buy a detached house in a quiet neighbourhood.

This could be the end of the story.

But M.A is bored, despite her new washing machine, her job and her garden. Terribly bored. Thus she takes up all sorts of outlets to make something happen in her life: yoga, adultery, esotericism, house-cleaning... All the flaws of our era are described precisely, sometimes with harshness. When her lover abandons her, M.A becomes aware her life will never change. Eventually, she dies in the same detached house, surrounded by her grandchildren.

Sophie Divry dramatises the conflict between freedom and material comfort: her characterization of the middle classes is very interesting, and well-written with precision and irony. But the reader sometimes feels pity for M.A, being so harshly treated. Her dreams make us smile but aren't they the sign of a society where middle classes tend to disappear, muffled by the very rich and the very poor?

Nevertheless, this dramatisation of the conflict between freedom and material comfort shows us how absurd our era can be, although suicide is not the only solution.

At the end of this beautiful book, at least we understand that our salvation might be found in books and reading, to make us aware of all this absurdity. But eventually, we should laugh about it, and that might be the only point on which I disagree with Sophie Divry.

Translated by Alison Anderson

Published by Maclehose Press