Exactly how steamy is this story?
R
Madame Bovary is about as sexy as it gets in the world of nineteenth century novels. We’re talking secret rendezvous in a moving cab, clandestine moonlit embraces, and – let’s count ’em, folks – not just one, but TWO adulterous affairs in one three-hundred page book.
That being said, there are no actual sex scenes in this book – remember, this is steamy by stodgy nineteenth century standards. However, the very clear suggestion of sex was enough to get Flaubert put on trial for obscenity.