In response, Flaubert contends that his story is about forgiveness and that many women like Emma exist in the real world.

Then, without missing a beat, she switches to smug, cynical satisfaction, as Rudolf admires the letter and congratulates himself on his close escape.In 1857, French author Gustave Flaubert is ordered to stand trial to defend accusations that his novel, Madame Bovary, is 'an outrage against public morals and established customs.' During the trial, prosecutors argue that the subject of the book, Emma Bovary, is a 'disgrace to France and an insult to womanhood,' and that the book should be banned for its indecency. In a swoony, sighing voice full of noble suffering, Jackson reads his flowery letter of tears and regret, saying he loves her too much to ruin her life and her reputation. To Rudolf, Emma is just one in a long series of conquests, and he gets cold feet at the thought of being permanently responsible for her welfare and that of her child. Jackson is especially outstanding in the scene which takes place the night before Emma plans to run off with her lover, Rudolf. Emma's unrealistic dreams (she yearns for a perfect, romantic love that will sweep her away into perpetual bliss) lead her into one affair after another, and then to financial ruin and suicide.

Her reading perfectly captures the restlessness of Emma Bovary, a character perpetually dissatisfied with her solid, steady husband and bourgeois life in provincial 19th-century France. Glenda Jackson hits the mark in this superb narration of Flaubert's classic novel.

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