‘Gemma’ modern tale about age-old desires

She was proud, vain, excessive, greedy and unfaithful. Like Jezebel or Delilah, Gustav Flaubert’s Emma Bovary is often thrown up as the archetype of a “fallen woman” – the selfish hussy whose desires cause her eventual downfall.

But in Posy Simmonds’ new graphic novel “Gemma Bovery,” the legacy of “Madame Bovary” is reimagined and handed on to a young Londoner. First published as a comic strip in The Guardian, Gemma isn’t a direct translation, but rather a refreshingly modern look at the hidden needs that drive these women.

The similarities between the beautiful young Gemma Bovery and Flaubert’s heroine haunt the reader as much as they haunt Gemma’s neighbor Joubert, who narrates the story.

We know from the beginning what Gemma’s fate is, as Joubert stumbles upon her journals after her funeral. But this story isn’t so much about her end as it is about her beginnings and who she was – a fascinatingly self-involved creature who hid a vulnerable heart.

Simmonds uses a nice hybrid of text and graphic panels to tell the story, although the layout can feel cluttered at times, making it occasionally difficult to follow the progression on the page.

Her drawings are wonderfully clean, subtle and uncomplicated – a perfectly modern way to tell a perfectly modern story about age-old desires.