Landmarks
Thursday 7 December 2006 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)
Playlist
Madame Bovary
In this month's edition of Night Waves Landmarks Philip Dodd talks to writers Andrew O'Hagan and A.S. Byatt about the original sex and shopping novel.
As part of the series that looks at landmarks in our culture they discuss the 1857 provincial novel that shocked the French nation and led to the prosecution of its author; Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
A. S. Byatt describes why this book, about a woman trapped in a downward spiral of adultery and debt, terrified her more than any other book when she first read it.
Andrew O'Hagan explains why it is unique in style and content and is, for him, the first modernist novel.
