This week on the Paris Review blog, the Paris Review Daily, Lydia Davis answered this question. Why a new Madame Bovary? Well, given my near obsession with her new translation of the Gustave Flaubert (best name ever to say - go ahead, repeat it a few times, accent and all, don't hold back) novel, I tweeted a link a minute after reading the post. And of course, Emily, who is also girl-crushing on the mind of Lydia, picked it up and responded, "Davis's list of translations of "bouffées d'affadissement" is hilarious if read as a poem. Probably one written in high school." And "Yes!" I responded. And what the hell am I talking about?
"Each version will be quite distinct from all of the others. How many ways, for instance, has even a single phrase (bouffées d’affadissement) from Madame Bovary been translated:
gusts of revulsion
a kind of rancid staleness
stale gusts of dreariness
waves of nausea
fumes of nausea
flavorless, sickening gusts
stagnant dreariness
whiffs of sickliness
waves of nauseous disgust"
"Gusts of revulsion" captures my imagination, but that is probably not important. The shades of meaning here are. Go read the post now and check in over the next two weeks as Davis writes about "the tasks and sins of the translator." Also in the current edition of The Paris Review, read "Ten Stories from Flaubert" by Davis. As I am off to do now.