'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (3.5)

Given the subject (adultery), the likability of the main character should not be surprising. Yet, in my rereading of this classic, I was once again surprised. Oddly it was not her adulterous ways, but her attitude and selfishness and the acts resulting from her disregard for others that caused me to find her quite despicable. I guess Flaubert’s lesson to his readers is that her many betrayals in money, love and family were the obvious result of such a personality. As the wife of a small town, incompetent Doctor, Mme. Bovary quickly becomes bored. She’s bored of her husband, her daughter, the town and the neighbors. Her husband idolizes her and cannot see in her any flaws. Eventually she falls victim to her romantic ideas of how her life should really be. This becomes the justification for the first betrayal. I found her second relationship more interesting as she became more confident (Leon has moments of wonder at her prowess in all matters of ‘love’) and more destructive. I do believe this is a classic, but I found the first half too boring and predictable to give it a ‘4’. The second half is interesting and reveals more of the complexity of several characters.

'Homeland' by Cory Doctorow

Homeland, Cory Doctorow (3.5)

For those familiar with Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’, this is the long awaited sequel. It follows the same main characters a little further into the future after their experiences with the Internet, cyber spying and government interventions in that book. Doctorow continues with his rightfully paranoid protagonist, Marcus, who once again finds himself in the middle of a cyber war between those wanting freedom of information and those against. In this case, he receives a wikileak-type drop of documents (800k files on a flash drive) from a former adversary at the Burning Man festival. Side note: the book starts with a great description of the event and characters at the festival. Marcus ends up working for an up and coming politician in San Francisco while trying to publish the documents anonymously (and presumably not end up exiled in Russia). I found it interesting that this book was published prior to the Edward Snowden NSA document leaks. The parallels are very scary. While this book is not as fresh and unique as it’s predecessor, Doctorow’s predictions of technology’s abilities and abuses are uncanny. Any fan of his work will enjoy this book.