Read a lot? You may Suffer from Bovarysme


I’ve asked myself the same question. Why does there seem to be a complete antinomy between the worlds of romance and our own? When you’re young, reading the great classics, stories of Ulysses, Achilles… Hard not to imagine being the hero of a great quest. When we read all those great love stories, hard not to think of living our own.

But, as in everything, the dose is the poison. Reading also has its victims. Some of us, fed up with a world that doesn’t offer enough, use reading to escape from it. They read but can’t get out of these fictional universes. Let these fantasies greatly influence their vision of the world. An idealization of romance, love, social relationships…

They suffer from Bovarysme.
The term Bovarysme comes from Gustave Flaubert’s famous novel Madame Bovary. It refers to the illness of its heroine, Emma Bovary.

Click