Product Description

Gemma is the bored, pretty second wife of Charlie Bovery, the reluctant stepmother of his children and the bete-noire of his ex-wife. A sudden windfall takes them across the Channel to France. Is it a coincidence that Gemma has a name like Flaubert's notorious heroine, that she is bored and adulterous? Is she inevitably doomed?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13203 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Chunnel has made no difference. The French remain utterly foreign in English eyes, a peculiar and self-absorbed race that can give us cartoon books, call them la bande desinée and pretend they are as high an art form as, say, the novels of Gustave Flaubert. When plain English folk venture even as far as Normandy, they are letting themselves in for culture shock on a grand scale. Gemma is your average girl-about-London. Dumped by her ambitious lover, she rebounds onto a safe bet, gentle furniture restorer Charles Bovery. But Charles comes with an ex-wife and children and Gemma baulks at being the unpaid baby-sitter. When money falls into her lap, Gemma flees London and drags Charles to Normandy, where she spices up her increasingly dull marital life with a bit on the side named Patrick Large. But then she dies, under mysterious circumstances.

The English would see this as poetic comeuppance for adultery and emigration, of course, but to Bailleville baker Raymond Joubert, it's a tragedy of epic proportions, as befits Gemma's namesake (OK, near-namesake), Emma Bovary. So, with brilliant novelistic pomposity, Joubert traces Gemma's life through the diaries she left, reading Gallic depth and meaning into every trite occurrence. Posy Simmonds is of course best known for her Posy cartoons in the Guardian, but if you have never believed you could get through an entire book of cartoons, think again. This is a brilliantly funny and beautifully sustained book, that in its very form skilfully illuminates the gaping void between English and French sensibilities. You don't need to know Flaubert to read Simmonds, but after reading this, then Madame Bovary is bound to be back on your wish list of Books You Always Meant to Read. --Alan Stewart

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Chunnel has made no difference. The French remain utterly foreign in English eyes, a peculiar and self-absorbed race that can give us cartoon books, call them la bande desinée and pretend they're as high an art form as, say, the novels of Gustave Flaubert. When plain English folk venture even as far as Normandy, they're letting themselves in for culture shock on a grand scale. Gemma is your average girl about London. Dumped by her ambitious lover, she rebounds onto a safe bet, gentle furniture restorer Charles Bovery. But Charles comes with an ex-wife and children and Gemma baulks at being the unpaid babysitter. When money falls into her lap, Gemma flees London and drags Charles to Normandy, where she spices up her increasingly dull marital life with a bit on the side named Patrick Large. But then she dies, under mysterious circumstances.

The English would see this as poetic comeuppance for adultery and emigration, of course, but to Bailleville baker Raymond Joubert, it's a tragedy of epic proportions, as befits Gemma's namesake (OK, near-namesake), Emma Bovary. So, with brilliant novelistic pomposity, Joubert traces Gemma's life through the diaries she left, reading Gallic depth and meaning into every trite occurrence. Posy Simmonds is of course best known for her Posy cartoons in the Guardian, but if you've never believed you could get through an entire book of cartoons, think again. This is a brilliantly funny and beautifully sustained book, that in its very form skilfully illuminates the gaping void between English and French sensibilities. You don't need to know Flaubert to read Simmonds, but after reading this, then Madame Bovary is bound to be back on your wishlist of Books You Always Meant to Read. --Alan Stewart

Customer Reviews

Down to a T
Posy Simmonds has taken the graphic novel into new territory. Brilliant narrative, outstanding illustrations. And she has people down to a T. Especially French people. Especially French women. Anyone who's ever lived in France will recognise people they've met and shiver at the memory. The beauty of this book is that in addition to the characters' words, the author is also able to show us how they look, and she does it with an accuracy that can only come from hours of observation. The attention to detail in the drawings is such that it's worth going back to the book time and time again. I wish I could meet Joubert and have him ask me what I like and dislike about France. As long as his wife wasn't hovering.

Too good for words.A must see.
This is the first work I have seen by Posy Simmonds, and for sure not the last.I work as a comic artist myself and it it so rare that anything comes out with such a caliber of quality in both art and writing. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.It is a tour-de-force of comic storytelling.I thank an article with this book recommendation from Hilary Spurling. WE WANT MORE.Pleeeease...Teddy H.Kristiansen

Down to a T
Posy Simmonds has taken the graphic novel into new territory. Brilliant narrative, outstanding illustrations. And she has people down to a T. Especially French people. Especially French women. Anyone who's ever lived in France will recognise people they've met and shiver at the memory. The beauty of this book is that in addition to the characters' words, the author is also able to show us how they look, and she does it with an accuracy that can only come from hours of observation. The attention to detail in the drawings is such that it's worth going back to the book time and time again. I wish I could meet Joubert and have him ask me what I like and dislike about France. As long as his wife wasn't hovering.