# Who’s afraid of realism? ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert (part two)

An episode of [Close Readings](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1669485143), 2 Feb 2026, 10 min.

Audio: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/LRB6191946595.mp3

‘He opened him up and found nothing.’ These are the doctor’s findings at Charles Bovary’s autopsy near the end of 'Madame Bovary'. Taken on its own, it’s a simple medical observation. In the context of Emma Bovary’s tragic story, it serves as a condemnation not just of Charles’s emptiness but the whole provincial world Flaubert has been describing. In the second part of his analysis of 'Madame Bovary', James Wood considers the major episodes leading to Emma’s death and argues that what made Flaubert’s realism dangerous was not its depictions of infidelity, but its use of cliché to expose French bourgeois lives constructed entirely of received ideas and second-hand emotions. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrwaor Other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingswaor Further reading in the LRB: Julian Barnes on translations of Madame Bovary: https://lrb.me/realismep201 Michael Wood on 'Sentimental Education': https://lrb.me/realismep202 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.