Madame Bovary: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
The award-winning, nationally bestselling translation, by Lydia Davis, of one of the world’s most celebrated novels
“The best English version by far, because its deadpan reminds us that the book is both a great realist novel and a satire of realism.” —Merve Emre, The New Yorker
Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs in an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter. In this landmark new translation of Gustave Flaubert's masterwork, award-winning writer and translator Lydia Davis honors the nuances and particulars of Flaubert's legendary prose style, giving new life in English to the book that redefined the novel as an art form.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Community Reviews
Despite my obsession with the classics, this is the first time I've read this book. Overall, it is a well-written, interesting story, although I find Emma to be insufferable. I understand that she is a repressed woman of her time, but that does not excuse her behavior--her husband loved her and did all he could to make her comfortable and happy, his only crime was being boring (in her eyes.) Not to mention the fact that she was a terrible mom (when she pushed Berthe--omg!)
I would still recommend reading this book, it's a good story and really illustrates the atmosphere of provincial French middle class life, but Emma is, in my opinion, an insufferable main character. But that's also part of what makes the story interesting!
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