I finished Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout. Wonderful. Heart rending. Beautiful writing. In the novel, Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert is mentioned. I have yet to read it and it has literally been at the top of my "to read" list. Maggie B (thanks for the book idea Maggie!) and I are going to start reading it soon. If any of you dear readers care to join us please do. We could talk about it via email or blog or something. Lydia Davis' recently translated version is supposed to be a masterpiece..."[Davis] has a finer ear for the natural cadences of English, in narrative and dialogue, than any of her predecessors, and there are many moments in her Madame Bovary when one pauses to admire how clean and spare a sentence seems by comparison with its earlier translated versions. . . . Only a very good writer indeed could have written it. . . . The bones of the original French show clearly through her English, and the rawness of her translation is, on the whole, invigorating."
-Jonathan Raban, The New York Review of Books
2 comments:
hooray for digital book clubs! i must warn you: it may take me a while to get through madame b. i got sidetracked at borders and picked up a little nonfiction number(self help book in disguise) called "what french women know about love, sex, and other matters of the heart and mind." i was having a weak moment/had neither chocolate nor hot bath with lavender salt at my immediate disposal...
that nonfiction number sounds like a lot of fun. Well we can do a "book club light". I f we read something particularly lovely or intriguing we can share ( carefully to not reveal any spoilers). I actually have a pretty intense semester coming up and already feel swamped with reading but I always have to have a bit of fun reading on the side to preserve my sanity. that and bread, chocolate knitting, lavender salt baths, ya know...
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