Friday, April 13, 2012

Madame Bovary


Gustave Flaubert's first novel "Madame Bovary" was published on April 12, 1857.  It was about a bored housewife who has multiple affairs to stave off the emptiness of her life.  The beautiful Emma Bovary is married to Charles Bovary, a provincial doctor.  Together they lead an ordinary life in a small French village, but she harbors fantasies of an elegant and passionate existence.  She reads romantic novels which only increase her dissatisfaction with her own life.  She spends all their  money on expensive clothes and furnishings for their house and runs up huge debts with the all the shopkeepers in town.   Motherhood brings her no happiness.  She embarks on two love affairs and suffers no guilt. The novel caught the attention of the authorities and Flaubert was charged with corrupting public morals.  He was acquitted and the publicity from the trial made the book a bestseller.

"Madame Bovary" is thought to be the first masterpiece of realistic fiction.  Flaubert attempted to tell the story objectively, without romanticizing or moralizing.  This style was the reason for the outcry on the part of the authorities who deemed the book immoral.  It was so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for Emma Bovary. Flaubert took five long years to write the book and was fastidious about each word.  He wanted to find a style "as rhythmical as verse and as precise as the language of science."

Here is the famous (and shocking at the time) cab ride that Emma and her lover take:

"From his seat the coachman now and again glanced at a tavern with a despairing eye.  He could not understand what mania for locomotion was compelling these individuals to refuse to stop.  He would sometimes try, and he would immediately hear exclamations of rage behind him.  Then he would lash his two sweating nags all the harder, but with no regard for bumps, catching a wheel on one side or the other, not caring, demoralized, and almost weeping from thirst, fatigue, and gloom.

And at the harbor, among the drays and great barrels, and in the streets, at the corners by the guard stones, the townspeople would stare wide-eyed in amazement at this thing so unheard of in the provinces, a carriage with drawn blinds that kept appearing and reappearing, sealed tighter than a tomb and tossed about like a ship at sea.

Once, at midday, out in the countryside, when the sun was beating down most fiercely against the old silver-plated lamps, a bare hand passed under the little blinds of yellow canvas and threw out some torn scraps of paper, which scattered in the wind and alighted, at a distance, like white butterflies, on a field of red clover all in bloom.

Then, toward six o'clock, the carriage stopped in a lane in the Beauvoisine district, and a woman stepped down from it and walked away, her veil lowered, without turning her head."

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This edition of "Madame Bovary" (pictured above) has the most recent translation by Lydia Davis.  And isn't the cover beautiful!  It has been hailed as the best translation of this great classic.  Reviewers have written that it honors the nuances and particulars of a style that exists in the original French version and gives new life in English to Flaubert's masterpiece.  If you want to reread this great book, this edition would be an excellent choice.  After reading the passage above and realizing how important each word was for Flaubert,  I cannot wait to read this new translation and savor the beautiful language.

12 comments:

  1. It has been decades since I read Madame Bovary. Your quoted passage and lovely post make me want to pick up this new translation and read it anew, Sunday.

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  2. I knew nothing about the background and trial surrounding Madame B. I read it for book club a few years ago so look forward to reasing more of your thoughts.

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  3. Will be stopping at Diesel today ~ coincidentally, had just been thinking about Madame Bovary and felt it was time for a read again. And although a huge YES to the cover, wonder what Flaubert would think of it?

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    1. That's a good question, Kathy. I'm sure many writers from the past would be surprised to see the covers on their books. And by the way, aren't we lucky to have Diesel in the neighborhood!

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  4. Very grateful for this handsome announcement of the new translation. The novel was (is) of passionate interest, if not lifelong absorption, of the highly gifted and entertaining Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, a recent winner of the Nobel Prize, residing through a long and sometimes politically stormy career in Paris as well as Lima, whose own work on Mme Bovary might delight you very much. His recurring influence by Flaubert's great character has shown, to me, how very powerful that original creation does remain. Straight to my bookseller.

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  5. I've read this novel several times during my reading life and each time I find it more interesting and thought-provoking. I bought the Lydia Davis translation when it was released a couple of years ago, but am waiting for the right time to read it again. I'm never quite sure how I feel about Emma - it changes each time I read the novel. Now that I think of it, this is one of the novels that helped form my reading tastes!

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  6. I actually have a 1949 edition, translated by Gerard Hopkins. I found it while browsing at one of my favorite antique stores in St. Louis. It is filled will underlinings and penciled remarks by a previous owner. It would be interesting to compare the translations: male and female. Or, does gender have an influence? The cover of the edition you highlight is very beautiful.

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    1. Bonnie, I would imagine if you compared that translation from 1949 to the new one, you would find many differences. Gender may have an influence. You have a treasure there, and is the translator the poet Gerard Hopkins?

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    2. After a bit of research it seems Mr. Hopkins is best known for his translations. One critic states he takes the liberty of adding to the text. I am even more inclined to compare the two now. This might need to be a summer study. Bonnie

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  7. It's the most gorgeous cover I've ever seen!

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  8. What a beautiful jacket - I will have to see who did it, although I have a suspicion!! Madame Bovary is one of those books on every literary minded person I admire's top ten list, including one of my oldest publishing friends who now runs an entire publishing house. Did you see Lydia Davis' comments to questions about it on the Paris Review a while back - not major, just a few tidbits.

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  9. We used to have the most wonderful used book store here. Being a university town, the store was filled with possibilities. One day a beautiful edition of Madame Bovary fell into my hands. Its spine etched in gold leaf with title and lovely simple decoration. Two mysteries went home with me. Why would someone give up such a beautiful book and why was I so lucky?

    I just finished Lady in Gold, the story of the Adele Block-Bauer's Klimt portrait. And just think, the answer to fight the Austrian government was found in a used book store in LA!

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