Madame Bovary - Softcover

Flaubert, Gustave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1420930621 ISBN 13: 9781420930627

Publisher: Digireads.com, 2008

Synopsis

Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" is the classic tale of its title character, Emma Bovary, the wife of a doctor, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of her everyday life. Heralded as a seminal work of Realism, "Madame Bovary" is considered by many as one of the greatest novels ever written. Attacked for obscenity when it first appeared in Paris in 1856, "Madame Bovary" was an instant success for the author. His quest for literary perfectionism can be seen in this work, his masterpiece, as his craft for writing is greatly exemplified.

About this title

Review:

Acclaim for Lydia Davis and her translation of "Swann's Way"
"[Her] capacity to make language unleash entire states of existence reveals the extent to which Davis's fiction is influenced by her work as a translator."
-"The New York Times"
"Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more."
-Jonathan Franzen
"Davis is the best prose stylist in America."
-Rick Moody
""Swann's Way" is transformed into something even more enchanting in Lydia Davis's new translation."
-"Vanity Fair"
"Davis is closer, "much" closer, to Proust's French. . . . [Her] "Swann's Way" is one of those translations . . . that put the question of "languages" out of your mind, and leave you only with questions of "language.""
-"The Village Voice"
"Accessible and faithful to Proust. Davis replicates the hesitations and digressions, the backward looks and forward glances that swell Proust's sentences and send them cascading to their conclusion-without s

From the Back Cover:

The year 1857 propelled Flaubert into the law courts and into celebrity. It was not exactly the kind of celebrity he had wished for. 'Madame Bovary' had appeared serially in 'La Revue de Paris'. Now the imperial prosecutor was attacking the work for being offensive to religion and morality. Not only the seduction scenes, but the episodes dealing with religion and the description of Emma's death, came under direct censure. More than the subject, the general tone of the novel was denounced as immoral: the pervasive eroticism, the poetry of adultery, the so-called 'realism' of the style. Flaubert, excellently defended by his lawyer, was acquitted. The book was published soon after, benefiting from the advance courtroom publicity.

About this edition

• Publisher: Digireads.com
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1420930621
• ISBN 13: 9781420930627
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192