Tea at Trianon: The Return of Emma Bovary

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 12, 2011

The Return of Emma Bovary

There is a new translation of Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece, Madame Bovary. It sounds atrocious. According to Taki's Magazine:

Madame Bovary: A New Translation by Lydia Davis sounds exactly like what it is—a book written in 21st-century America. Hollywood period movies can be dated by the hairstyles; here the turn of phrase is a dead giveaway. There is “give me a hug” in place of “embrace me,” “deep in her soul” instead of “at the bottom of her soul,” and “waiting for something to happen” rather than “waiting for an event.” Little things, little things, though some would say that even a comma is big when it comes to translation and that a translator should be a slave to the original as the Slav Nabokov was to Pushkin, as the poet Baudelaire was to Poe—“servilely attached to the letter” at the risk of producing baroque and even painful results.

There is no pain for the reader in Madame Bovary: A New Translation by Lydia Davis—just smooth, easy, up-to-date, democratic Americanness. It’s a choice, but it’s a shame, because it doesn’t do justice to Flaubert’s style, and however one may dislike what he chose to write about, Flaubert knew how to write. (Read entire article.)

Stephanie A. Mann said...: When Flaubert agonized over every word! 21st century "dynamic equivalence"--it does sound dreadful.; May 12, 2011 at 7:29:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: When we studied MADAME BOVARY in French Lit in college we learned that every word and every turn of phrase was latent with meaning. So much is lost even in a good English translation much less a bad one....; May 12, 2011 at 9:42:00 AM EDT