Madame Bovary

By: Gustave Flaubert

Narrated by: Bobbie Frohman

Emma Bovary lived in a world of romantic dreams. Her selfish and demanding ways led to a gradual corruption that showed her to be an utterly shallow and quite stupid woman, but her escapades and caprices draw us into her story until the tragic end.(P)2005 Alcazar AudioWorks

Critic reviews

"If one were to ask, 'World, which is the most perfect novel ever written?,' the world would immediately answer: Madame Bovary." ( Washington Post's Book World)

Audio Quality and Narrator Distracting

I can't fault the text. Madame Bovary is renowned as one of the world's great books.

But in this instance I felt that the Narrator was poorly matched to the text. Her accent and deadpan delivery would be better suited to a more modern novel as her pronunciation and tone detracted from the precise nature of the language that the author was using to the point that I found it distracting. I managed 2 and half hours before giving up.

Additionally the quality of the recording is relatively poor, particularly given that it is a 2005 release, which only added to the distraction.

I'm glad this only cost me one credit I would be very upset if I had paid full price. A Lesson to us all to check the sample recording before finalizing the purchase.

seriously marred by narrator

The story and characters are unreachable through this narrator. I felt like I was being read to by a sunday school teacher. Several words were mispronounced, which distracted from the story. Occasional lines of dialogue read by other actor/narrators are stilted and unbelievable. I finally had to quit this one after several chapters and will try a different production.

Spare yourself the pain

My first review, ever, but I feel compelled to spare others from what I found to be the worst book/reading I've ever encountered. I gave up after Part 1... I don't know if the problem was the work itself because the reading was so bad that I couldn't get past the gimmicky, multi-narrator format.

Madam Bovary

I have had wonderful luck with audiobook readers until now and have never bothered to listen before buying. But I will do so in future. This narrator reads poorly, mispronounces English words and has an atrocious French accent. It is hard to listen to the book. The translation is not very elegant, but the real problem is with the way it is read.