6/3/2023 0 Comments Madame bovary flaubert![]() "We love what tortures us," said its author. Flaubert's unexotic story of boredom and adultery in the flatlands of 19th-century Normandy is the Everest of translation, and the slopes are crowded with foolhardy expeditions. It is, admittedly, harder to justify a 20th stab. Having several good translations is no bad thing – they are autonomous creations, yielding different aspects of the original text. What is lost – imagine DH Lawrence's very English pulse rendered into the far fainter beats of French – can be partially made up for by the qualities gained in the host language. ![]() A good translation holds faith with the original's aura, and then it should soar. For most of us this is the only way we receive non-English literature, so a poor translation is a serious issue. For a start, although no translation is perfect, some are poor. ![]() ![]() So I find myself on the back foot, explaining why great foreign classics need more than a single rendering into English. When I tell people this, there are two reactions: the first is a sympathetic groan, the second a question: "What's the point? It's already been done." Yes, about 19 times – and the latest was just a year ago, by the American short-story writer Lydia Davis. I have spent the last three years translating Flaubert's Madame Bovary into English. ![]()
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