Lately my reading has been all about comfort reads, as I've mentioned how hard I am finding it to concentrate on certain books. Now, however, a little guilt kicks in. I already have a couple of classics languishing on my night table, but I was lucky enough to win a copy of the new Lydia Davis translation of Madame Bovary compliments of Frances, who is also having a readalong of the book. Of course I had every intention of reading along, but as the date came closer and knowing how topsy turvy my reading has been of late I thought I would put if off until later. Do y ou see where this is headed? Now that the time has arrived and I've started reading everyone's thoughts on the book, I want to jump in, too. I'm sure I'll trail well behind, and that's fine, but maybe something a little more serious and challenging is what I need to balance my reading out?
I read Madame Bovary for the first time back in 2006 (read my ever so insightful post at your own peril), and I noted that a single read would probably be superficial and little better than skimming the surface, so here is an opportunity to reflect more on the text, the new translation and perhaps see what Flaubert had in mind with his creation. As I've not read enough to write about the first part (Frances has a list of links to other posts if you're curious), it might be interesting to share a little of the recent review that appeared (written by Kathryn Harrison) in the NYT Book Review. First of all she calls the new translation the one the masterwork deserves and calls Davis's effort "transparent".
It sounds as though Flaubert was a serious craftsman when it came to detail. He would spend hours and hours at his desk looking for the right words and often threw away more material than he kept.
"The power of Madame Bovary stems from Flaubert's determination to render each object of his scrutiny exactly as it looks, or sounds or smells or feels or tastes. Not his talent to do so--that would not have been enough--but his determination, which he never relaxed. Madame Bovary advanced slowly, as slowly as it would have to have given an author who held himself accountable to each word, that it be the right word, of which there could be only one. 'A good sentence in prose', he wrote, 'should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable'."
I'm already familiar with the comparisons that have been made between Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, so it was with interest that I read Harrison's comments about the two books, since Anna Karenina is one of my 'languishers'. The stories are similar--infidelity, betrayal and then, well, what comes after. But Anna, Davis writes, is considered a more sympathetic character. It's not just character flaws that make Anna do what she does but the strict conventions of 19th century Russian society.
"Readers root for Anna and watch Emma with increasing horror, because Emma forces us to confront the human capacity for existential, and therefore insatiable, emptiness. Fatally self-absorbed, insensible to the suffering of others, Emma can't see beyond the romantic stereotypes she serves, eternally looking for what she expects will be happiness. Anna remains vulnerable to her husband's threat to take away the son she loves; when Emma isn't being actively cruel, she ignores her daughter, motherhood having turned out to be one more reality that didn't measure up to her fantasy of it."
Despite Harrison's characterization of Emma (one that I don't exactly disagree with), from what I recall, I still felt a fair amount of sympathy for Emma. Did she deserve the ending she got? Well, if I do manage this (and it doesn't join Anna K on my night stand for an uninterrupted vacation), I'll be very curious how I see Emma now. And I suspect this will only add to my recent feelings of inspiration in terms of picking the Tolstoy back up sooner than later! I think I know what I'll be reading this weekend.