I never buy comics – I don’t think I’ve bought a single one. Eric, on the other hand, buys lots, and sometimes gives one to me to read. “You might like this one.” Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, but by now he knows enough about my taste to get it right almost all the time. Gemma Bovery was one of his recent recommendations, and I liked it a lot. Gemma Bovery is small and light-weight but very well done and I really enjoyed reading it.
To be honest I’m not even sure if it qualifies as a comic or even a graphical novel. It floats somewhere in the no-man’s-land between an illustrated book and a graphical novel. There is about as much text as there is illustration, both are equally important, and often the two are integrated. Some parts of the story are told through both channels; others only through one.
As you may be able to tell from the title, the story is inspired by Madame Bovary. Like that book, it is set in France, and there is a frustrated young woman with a love affair and a tragic death. Except in this case the woman is English, and the action takes place in the present time. All the people in the village notice the similarity between names Emma Bovary and Gemma Bovery, and then one man notices striking similarities in their lives as well.
The story itself is not particularly complex or exciting or even that interesting, to be honest. But it is expertly told, using the two mediums – image and text – to great effect, and utilising the strengths of each one. Pictures describe places and faces and scenes, while text sections narrate thoughts, feelings and sequences of events.
The drawings are simple but expressive in black and white and lots of gray. Every detail is carefully chosen, observed and exhibited; there is nothing superfluous. The same goes for the text. And both are often very funny. I am quite impressed that one person has done both, and done them so well: comics are often collaborations between a writer and an artist (or more).
As an extra twist, the text and captions freely mix French and English. The French speak French; the English speak English. Longer and more complicated French utterances are translated, but many shorter ones are not. I guess the reader is expected to either ignore those, or deduce their meaning from the rest of the conversation. So for full enjoyment of the book you should probably learn some French. I especially liked the way the characters sometimes read a text in the other language and struggle with colloquial expressions that any native speaker wouldn’t think twice about, but that most dictionaries would exclude. It’s a feeling I recognise very well!
It would also be helpful to have read Madame Bovary. I read it some time in high school and only remember the plot vaguely – enough to recognise the parallels between the major plot turns of the two works, but I am sure I missed a lot of more subtle allusions.
If you’re interested, and perhaps want to hear more about the plot, you can find another good review here (good both in the sense that it is a positive review, and in the sense that it is well-written).
Leave a comment