Madame Bovary, C'est Moi

MADAME BOVARY, C’EST MOI!: THE GREAT CHARACTERS OF LITERATURE AND WHERE THEY CAME FROM: Andre Bernard: W.W. Norton: Nonfiction: 135 pages

This is a quick, fun read with interesting facts about literary characters that everyone should really venture into the 800s to read. Here are a few of the things I learned from Bernard’s anecdotes. Margaret Mitchell based Rhett Butler, her leading man in Gone with the Wind, on her ex-husband. The ex-husband recognized himself in the story and called up Mitchell to tell her that the book was proof she still loved him. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter was based on his Puritan relatives and E.B. White dreamed about a fully clothed mouse, which was the beginning of Stuart Little. Daphne Du Maurier wrote Rebecca because she was jealous of her husband’s first wife. She was charged with plagiarism and became very worried that the charge would land her in court, because she didn’t want to confess that the book was inspired by her own life. This is a charming book for anyone at all familiar with the classics.

MBC