Customer Reviews

Madame Bovary

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This new translation is an absolute masterpiece and a treasure. The prose is so profound, you will find yourself re-reading paragraphs and sentences over and over again to savor both the writing, and the thoughts expressed. It has been said that a "classic" is a book that withstands the "test of time." Curiously, besides meeting that definition, this book is also "timeless" as it could have been written yesterday as regards marriage, relationships, and human nature. In that regard, particularly for the baby boomers, with such a high divorce rate, it is a lesson for us all about when is "good enough, good enough," or, alternatively, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

What a wonderful novel! I've been meaning to read it all my life and am so glad I finally did! As the jacket says, Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. You don't "like" her, but you know her, and this cautionary tale is a masterful study of love and passion and foolishness. The very end is brilliant. Gustave Flaubert worked famously -- painstakingly -- hard on every sentence, and translator Lydia Davis does him justice. Allez-y. Jump in.

I read Madame Bovary twenty years ago and was thoroughly unimpressed. I passed it off as one of those "classics" that everyone reads, for some reason, but no one really enjoys. Then, in October I heard a review of Davis' newly published translation, and how she endeavored to keep to Flaubert's deliberate and precise style. I was fascinated. I had never considered that the reason I didn't like the novel, was due to the translation.

I read Davis' translation with a copy of a previous translation at hand, making comparisons. I was amazed at what a difference just a word could make, how it could change the whole feeling of the sentence. Thanks to Davis, I was able to immerse myself in Flaubert's painstaking, detailed writing and come away in awe of his ability to turn a phrase.

The plot of Madame Bovary is familiar to many: Emma is a spoiled, vain young woman who spends too much time with her head in novels and, as a result, expects--no demands!--that life, romance especially, be like it is in her books. After her marriage, she becomes depressed that there is no "grand passion", and this leads to restlessness and eventually to affairs. Her husband, Charles, is blind to Emma's dissatisfaction, flaws and infidelity; he worships her very belongings. Emma takes advantage of Charles' love-blindness in a variety of ways, including running up a debt so severe that it bankrupts him.

In the midst of all this drama, Flaubert has the reader stand back, just slightly emotionally detached. One can't feel fully compassionate for Charles, because Flaubert shows him as a buffoon and sometimes as an idiot. One can't sympathize with Emma, because Flaubert delights in holding her vices up to the light. He also interjects bits of every day life from the townspeople, as another way to keep the reader from being overly focused on the crises of the Bovarys, and he paints all the working class with a brush laden with boorishness, and the upper class as heavy handed snobs. It's hard not to feel superior to many of these characters, and I believe that was Flaubert's intention--to keep the reader from forming an attachment to any character and thereby keeping the book from being a "moral tale". There is no moral here, it simply is.

It's rare to say that a book with a disagreeable plot is fantastic, but if the writer is good enough no matter what the subject (think Nabokov and his Lolita), the reader will be swept away by the sheer force of the words. This is the case with Flaubert and Madame Bovary--thanks to Davis' excellent translation.

If you've ever tried to read it and failed, or wanted to read it and just haven't, now is the time. Other translators did an injustice to Flaubert. Lydia Davis has redeemed this masterpiece for the English language.

Love the book, but the kindle edition is not very helpful. No notes indicated in the text. Clumsy jumping back and forth to look things up.

And I wish the notes were a touch less detailed. Too many spoilers in there.

Other books master the process of adapting an analog edition for kindle use. And it's not that hard! An intern could easily get it done in a week ;-)

Disappointing that the publisher didn't take the time to get it right. Because the book itself is great. Could we get one of those updated texts that the Kindle publicity machine promised? Fix the problems with the notes? And while you're at it, put something in that doesn't auto-sync the last page of notes I've looked at to be the furthest I've read in the text.

Thanks!

I've read Madame Bovary in French and the older translation version by Francis Steegmuller. But I like Davis' translation much better - the details, the choice of words and the introduction are great.

As she said, it's very difficult, if not impossible to translate Flaubert's masterpiece, for every sentence in Madame Bovary was painstakingly and beautifully crafted. And Davis did an excellent job in attempt to preserve Flaubert's mindset.

While Madame Bovary's story might not fit in the 2011 FACE BOOK TWITTER era, but it is exactly the reason why we need beauty and art in this brainless, high-speed, texting-only, FB-TWITTER era!

The book arrived perfectly bound and included a protective clear plastic cover.
It makes reading it feel all that much more special. Nicely done.

I'm not big on books about 19th century domestic life, but damn, I found this hard to put down. Flaubert is a fierce writer, and he's able to generate an entire little world with these deft, precisely chosen details and descriptions. I found Madame Bovary to be cinematic, you can see almost every scene playing out in your head, and there are some really ass-kicking set pieces to boot. I don't think anyone ever invested an agricultural fair with so much pathos; even the part where they go to the opera, which seems like it would be a great opportunity to indulge in a little corny melodrama, feels almost searing. Flaubert just does a brilliant job of showing how ordinary, day-to-day unhappiness and vague yearnings for "more" actually work. It's not romantic, it's not hip, it's just how it is. Well, minus the Arsenic. Jane Austen is for little kids who want life to be one big, stupid tea-party. Madame Bovary is for people who realize that all of the little compromises and defeats we all make every day with our desires are not just some little side show, but are what living in the world is actually about (i.e. Adults). Davis' translation is masterful.

I first read Madame Bovary over ten years ago in high school. I remember being absorbed in the story, but did not understand all the hullabaloo about the novel's structure and sophisticated language. As my tastes have matured I've always had a lingering desire to return to it, and thought that Davis's well-received new translation would be an interesting way to get reacquainted with it.

It's like I read two different novels. Davis's translation is everything this perfect novel could hope to be in a different language. Flaubert was a master of description, tone, mis-en-scene, and showing rather than telling, and having the story's true meanings hidden enigmatically below the surface. Davis grasped this perfectly; you could tell every page it carefully modulated with respect to the original. I look forward to improving in my French to make a more well-informed comparison someday with the original. Emma's boredom with the world- and what she and her tedious neighbors say about human nature- is fascinating to read, to ponder, to compare with your own views. The book's classic scenes- Emma and Rodolphe meeting in the garden, Emma- and Leon's carriage racing through town- are as exciting as they have ever been.

Madame Bovary is one of the very best novels ever written, and this stunning reincarnation is reason enough for even the most casual of readers to experience this masterwork. It really cannot be praised enough. Hopefully this will be the definitive translation.

Not only easy to read, well documented, annotated and thorough, this translation provides the reader with Flaubert's beautiful imagery, descriptive narrative, and dialogue. I am studying this book in a post-graduate course and others are using Norton and other translations. We all come back to Lydia's every time - whether it is when reading passages aloud or for specific points of clarification.

Had not read this in decades and heard good things about this translation.

Flaubert could really tell a story and he could really write a sentence. The choices of which details to describe with how much elaboration makes him such a literary icon. While reading the first few pages I was struck by the beauty and power of the writing.

Wanted to strangle Madame Bovary starting on about page six. She was an awful, awful person. I remembered the storyline pretty well and knew things would not end well for her but had forgotten what an awful, awful person she was.

This is a great book that most everyone should read at some point in their life as it one of our cultural touchstones and this translation seems to be fine.