Henry James once said of Madame Bovary, “Emma Bovary’s poor adventures are a tragedy for the very reason that in a world unsuspecting, unassisting, unconsoling, she has herself to distil the rich and the rare. Ignorant, unguided, ridden by the very nature and mixture of her consciousness, she makes of the business an inordinate failure, a failure which in its turn makes for Flaubert the most pointed, the most told of anecdotes.” Along with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Flaubert’s tragic novel stands as the ultimate portrayal of infidelity in Western literature. Inciting a backlash of immorality charges, the novel was an overwhelming success, and today retains the power to generate empathy and compassion for one of society’s lowest stations.Sylvere Lotringer is professor of French & Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the editor of Semiotext.