The Library Vault

The books that are catching my attention recently have not been that of best sellers, nor of romance, or any nonfiction. The novels that are fulfilling my needs and feeding my desires are the classics. Classic literature is a funny genre, because is it a really a genre? Or a grouping of novels that people have deemed great. Why are these novels perched on a pedestal? The answer is because we have placed them there. I would have to say, after reading a so-called “classic” you begin to unwind the stereotypes and the knowledge of what is known, and put your own spin on an impeccable work of art. 

It could be the cool weather entering our shortened days. Or the breeze that pierces through you, leaving a fresh hint of autumn in its wake. Either of these reasons could be an aspiration for sitting in a cozy chair, with Miles Davis playing softly in the background, holding a warm glass of red and delving into worlds that once existed a short time ago. We enter these worlds through the words of men who have written about controversial women. In today’s world, we may not call these women controversial, but pity them for the world they inhabited. It is the observance of these women and their characters through the eyes of men that their story is portrayed. They rattled not only the literary world, but society. The wound that two women have made will never completely heal, but scar to mark their burden. 

Who could these two women be? Two significant female characters, in which the novel is their name: Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. Madame Bovary, written in 1857 by Gustave Flaubert, takes place in Northern France. Young, beautiful Emma Rouault leads an uneventful life. Until Charles Bovary’s makes eyes upon her and is instantly swoon by her. Emma and Charles marry . He has swept her away from being a country bumpkin. Charles is not the excitement that has been nourished by her desires, through voluptuous romance novels. Their married life is monotonous. Charles believes that changing their scenery will do the trick. They decide to have a child, a girl, in which Emma is disappointed. Emma did not want to bring another girl into a world of dull, listless experience to be at the hand of a man. Emma begins to look in other directions for affection. These infatuations mirrored her romance novels, these desires were coming true. However, what is read, is not always the truth.

Emma not only wants romance, love, desire but she wants all the riches in life. Being a country girl, attending school in a convent is not the desire we aspire to. Being married and swept away to another man, is not desired. Emma desires the riches in life, but has been mislead throughout the acts of men. Charles, we pity, as a good man he was never going to be enough for Emma. Men used and abused her, with their own desires, and ruptured her dreams. Emma comes to terms with the plot that has been laid down for her, all written by men. The debt has reached beyond her means and drives to tragedy. Emma did not choose her life, her life was picked apart and chosen by the men that surrounded her. Society took a young woman who had all the beauty in the world, to play out like a novel, but only to burn within its pages. Flaubert wrote a novel not in harm of women, but in commentary of how men and society had destroyed something beautiful. 

Years have past, and now enters Anna Karenina from the empire of Russia. Published in 1878, written by the famous Leo Tolstoy, it is a commentary of what is acceptable by society’s standards of desire, depending on your sex. Tolstoy plays characters against each other. The husband who has a wandering eye to that of a stoic man who stands by his wife while her eye wanders. The story is more than just Anna. The story is that of family, death, desire, betrayal taking place in Imperial Russia. It is a play on words, as it is on characters. ”Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Tolstoy paints a morbid and forgiving picture of a young woman, in wake of the czars. He creates a boisterous relationship between the reader and Anna. As the reader, we troubled by her, but we can relate. We hate her, but love her. We never pity her, but are confused by her actions. Tolstoy has pitched ourselves, as the readers, against the characters, like he has pitched the characters against one another. We stream into their  consciousness like a river running is way through earth’s terrain. We feel for this family, but we feel most honestly for Anna because she causes her own tragedy — a fear we dread as humans.

Anna and Emma are similar female characters brought down by the patriarchal society to literary tragedy. There are parallels to their stories; Anna and Emma were married off young to escape their childhood worlds, to then be disappointed with their own realities. They look for a great love and affection, other than their husbands’, to fulfill desire that swoons in their souls. They both have little girls that they can’t bare to look upon with love because they cannot fathom bringing them up in a world where their decisions lie in the fates of men. They both have husbands that we pity because these women are too exceptional and deserve the romantic hero they yearn for as young women do. The world that possesses Emma and Anna is undeserving and traumatizes their souls to untimely dooms. 

The wine that will satisfy these prolific novels of love and tragedy is that of a Beaujolais, a favorite of mine. Beaujolais is a region located France in the district of Burgundy. The grape varietal that has stood the test of time is that of a Gamay. It has been planted in the area since the 17th century and has expressed itself through time, just like Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. Gamay rolls through the twelve appellations that make up Beaujolais with a cheerful taste that is lively and bright, to be consumed either young or slightly aged.

Beaujolais are similar to that of our protagonists. Anna and Emma are promising young women with the world ahead of them, only to be consumed at a young age by the perils that foster within their worlds. Gamay requires attentive care and attention, and needs to be tamed to maintain its balance, as do Emma and Anna. Once off their rails, the plot thickens and as does Gamay. There are countless facts and nuances to discuss when it comes to a Beaujolais. Just the concept of the twelve appellations could be that of a fall semester course in wine school, but to say the least. The wine that is brought forth today, and a fruitful Beaujolais to answer to Anna and Emma is that of Chateau Thivin Cote de Brouilly – Les sept vignes.

Cote de Brouilly is one of the twelve appellations located in Beaujolais and Chateau Thivin is the producer. The French create simple labels to help us understand their wines; the Italians, well that is a story for another day. Thivin is one of my favorites and imported by the one and only Kermit Lynch. Kermit Lynch is a household name in the wine world, he basically discovered small wine producers in Europe and opened them up to the American market. Lynch revolutionized the wine industry in so many ways.

Now, back to the wine, the estate has been established since 1877 — a similar time in which these novels were published and popularized. To describe this specific Beaujolais: a medium body, with a wondrous nose of berries and a vibrant finish to leave the palette determined to have more. Determined just like our leading ladies. We wanted to see more of Anna and Emma. As readers we didn’t want it to finish so tragically, but it does -like this bottle from Chateau Thivin. Please enjoy and drink responsibly, these novels take your for one hell of a ride.

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