I read it alongside the original, and alongside three other English translations (by Eleanor Marx Aveling, Francis Steegmuller, and Geoffrey Wall) and I consistently admired Davis’s attempts to get as close as possible to a quality of hardness, or coldness, in Flaubert’s own prose. Unlike Valtat or Foulds, Davis got lots of attention, but rarely of the right kind, because her translation was too often reflexively praised by people who were not familiar with Flaubert’s French, or wanly criticized (see Julian Barnes in the London Review of Books) by people who have possessive agendas. Production: Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporainsĮxhibition: Panorama 3, salon du Prototype.Lydia Davis’s translation of “ Madame Bovary” was one of the most important books of the year.

Viewers/readers are confronted with their own feelings about the work through the different mediums. The video is shown on a table with a copy of Flaubert’s work annotated by the artist. In the film, the artist looks at literary adaptation through ten extracts from the book and makes a silent film coupled with collage.

The story of Madame Bovary also reflects the artist’s analysis of the relationship between fiction, reality and autobiography. Michaux chose Flaubert’s Madame Bovary because the work has often been adapted for cinema. In this work, she looks at the artistic legitimacy of film and its affect on literary heritage. Continuing her examination of narration in film, Michaux proposes a work on literary adaptation.

Instal the new Madame Bovary