Gemma Bovery

At first glance, this graphic novel completely enticed me with its alluring feminine features and literary qualities but its appeal also became its downfall in my opinion.

As the title already suggests, Posy Simmonds revamps Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary about a good girl who turns into an adulterous wife with one too many debts and in the end decides that eating some rat poison is the noble thing to do. Gemma Bovery on the other hand, is a bored and pretentious illustrator living in London who after a failed relationship with someone even more narcissistic than herself decides to marry an older divorcee named Charlie Bovery and drags him off to Normandy so she can live a quaintand rural life. Her boredom is now back with a vengeance, so she takes a lover and the rest is literature.

This story is however told after her death by the local baker who was completely obsessed with our sensual heroine. He steals her diaries and tries to find out if life really did imitate art. The result is a mixture of detailed, elegant girly drawings mixed with an abundance of dialogue in French and English, thought-bubbles, diary excerpts, letters and chunks of narrative just like a 19th century novel. Simmonds truly excels in combining classic narrative elements with Bridget Jones’ neuroses and modern day illustrations.

Posy Simmonds started writing and illustrating children’s books as well as running a series of cartoon strips in The Guardian before she decided to give her drawings a literary infusion. Gemma Bovery was just the beginning and was soon followed by Tamara Drewe, a very loose interpretation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd. Both were published in episodes in The Guardian before being issued in book form. The same way many 19th novelists first brought their work to the attention of readers.

Turning Madame Bovary into a contemporary graphic novel surely makes an otherwise dense and tedious story more accessible but it still isn’t a quick or easy read. It took me a week to finish 106 pages! It is a fresh and pretty (once again emphasizing the girly aspect) way of looking at this heroine and emphasizes the timeless quality of the social satire. Simmonds is also without a doubt a very talented illustrator but for some reason wasn’t able to dazzle me.