Exquisite, moving, at times ferociously satirical and always psychologically acute, "Madame Bovary" remains one of the greatest, most beguiling novels ever written. This title presents a translation of "Madame Bovary".
Over 150 years since its first publication the power of Madame Bovary remains undiminished. Stunningly translated by Adam Thorpe, this edition brings us closer to Flaubert's original.
Weaned on sentimental novels, Emma Bovary longs for a life of luxury and high romance. She is married to a kind but mediocre country doctor and is plagued by expectations of something more, some more intense experience, some wider horizon if she could only find it. She seeks to escape from boredom in extravagant shopping sprees and eventually, adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and so begins her descent into ruin and despair.
First published in 1857, Madame Bovary is one of the richest novels ever written; a mille-feuille of nuance, subtlety and psychological acuity. Linguistically meticulous, Thorpe delicately transposes the rhythms ofMadame Bovary bringing us closer to Flaubert. This stunningly translated edition ofMadame Bovary is destined to become the definitive English translation for our time.
Recenzijos
The first great shopping and fucking novel -- Julian Barnes * London Review of Books * Madame Bovary is a great novel that is also an inexhaustible pleasure to read * Guardian * Flaubert's 1856 novel begins with marriage and what follows is the archetypal tale of a desperate housewife * Daily Telegraph * Mesmerising * Independent * The most scandalous novel of all time * Playboy *
Daugiau informacijos
Over 150 years since its first publication the power of Madame Bovary remains undiminished.Stunningly translated by Adam Thorpe, this edition brings us closer to Flaubert's original.
Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821, the son of a distinguished surgeon and a doctor's daughter. After three unhappy years of studying law in Paris, an epileptic attack ushered him into a life of writing. Madame Bovary won instant acclaim upon book publication in 1857, but Flaubert's frank display of adultery in bourgeois France saw him go on trial for immorality, only narrowly escaping conviction. Both Salammbo (1862) and The Sentimental Education (1869) were poorly received, and Flaubert's genius was not publicly recognized until Three Tales (1877). His reputation among his fellow writers, however, was more constant and those who admired him included Turgenev, George Sand, Victor Hugo and Zola. Flaubert's obsession with his art is legendary: he would work for days on a single page, obsessively attuning sentences, seeking always le mot juste in a quest for both beauty and precise observation. His style moved Edmund Wilson to say,'Flaubert, by a single phrase - a notation of some commonplace object - can convey all the poignance of human desire, the pathos of human defeat; his description of some homely scene will close with a dying fall that reminds one of great verse or music.' Flaubert died suddenly in May 1880, leaving his last work, Bouvard and Pécuchet, unfinished.
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, and he has written nine others - most recently Hodd - two collections of stories and five books of poetry. He lives in France with his wife and family.
