How tickled Madame Bovary herself would be by the latest homage paid to her — a feature in the September issue of Playboy  magazine! For the “original desperate housewife,” as she’s been called, the knowledge that she’s the object of the collective male gaze might have relieved some of the dismal boredom that characterized so much of Emma Bovary’s provincial life. Of course, what the Playboy connoisseurs are surveying is not Madame Bovary’s fine form, nor her much-commented-upon smooth bands of black hair or great dark eyes.

No, what’s wresting attention away from the latest lineup of hydroponically enhanced models is an excerpt from Lydia Davis’ new translation of Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece. “The most scandalous novel of all time!” hisses a headline on Playboy’s cover. It’s cheering — isn’t it? — the way Playboy upholds the primacy of the erotic canon over the claims of postmodern challengers like Roxana Shirazi’s salacious memoir, The Last Living Slut.

For a translator, even one as renowned as Lydia Davis, Flaubert, the great apostle of le mot juste — using exactly the right word — must surely be the Matterhorn of authors.  As Davis says in the introduction to her translation, Flaubert created Madame Bovary through a process of ruthless pruning: sometimes, he would report in letters to his mistress, a weeks’ worth of hard labor would result in one meticulous page. “To be simple,” wrote Flaubert, “is no small matter.” Repetitions of words, sounds and even letters annoyed him, particularly so in this emotionally radical novel where so much depends on style alone.

See: npr