Reimagining one of literature's biggest losers

A book devoted to the most famous, most risible cuckold in all of Western literature. [CHARLES BOVARY, COUNTRY DOCTOR]( Portrait of a Simple Man JEAN AMÉRY Translated from the German by Adrian Nathan West Charles Bovary, Country Doctor is one of the most unusual projects in twentieth-century literature: a novel-essay devoted to salvaging poor bungler Charles Bovary, the pathetic, laughable, cuckolded husband of Madame Bovary and the heartless creation of Gustave Flaubert. As a once-promising novelist who was tortured by the Nazis and survived a year in Auschwitz, author Jean Améry had a particular sympathy for the lived experience of vulnerability, affliction, and suffering, and in this book—available in English for the first time—he asserts the moral claims of Dr. Bovary. What results is a moving paean to the humanity of Charles Bovary and to the supreme value of love. "In his half-fictional monologue, half-philosophical tract, Améry interrogates literature and realism through his obsession with this side character in not just a novel but the novel. A meditation on failure and the loser to rival Thomas Bernhard’s." —Kate Zambreno [READ MORE]( For three days only, [Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: Portrait of a Simple Man]( will be available at 30% off. Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: Portrait of a Simple Man is the September selection for the [NYRB Classics Book Club](. If you join the club by September 12, Charles Bovary, Country Doctor will be your first selection. You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from NYRB. You can [choose the types of mailings you wish to receive](: [Update preferences]( New York Review Books 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 Not a subscriber? Sign up for our newsletter [here](. [Unsubscribe](