Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
If not mistaking it, I have read Madame Bovary three times in my life. The first
time was in the nineties when I was accommodated in the local medicine school while doing internship at the city hospital. My despisal and aloofness towards medicine allocated me lots of time to read books for the school book-renting shop.
Madame Bovary was one of the books I could relate. But only just. The rigid Chinese translation style was only the impression left on me.
Then in 2005, the year I finished my university degree, I bought Madame Bovary from the local bookstore myself. This time it was translated into English. I bought it after I finished my postgraduate entrance exam and carried it with me when
I went back to my hometown for Spring Festival. I was sad that time. I read it
in my noisy little room on the third floor of my parents’ house to dodge other
people, to dodge the unsettled feeling due to the uncertain future and the disappointing reality.
I think I even tried to write something about the book afterwards. But the memory of it became blurry and remote as time wafted away. So last time when I went to the library I picked it up from the bookshelf and carried it home with me. It
was still an English version, but with much better translation. Margaret Mauldon
allowed the style of Flaubert remained as much as possible, and kept the tinge
of French as originally as possible.
In doing that, lots of subjects such as names of people, place, and even the courses at the characters’ table were kept as close to its original writing as possible. Here is an example: “It was in the wagon shed that the table had been set up. On it stood four sirloins, six fricassees of chicken, a casserole of veal,
three legs of mutton, and, in the center, a fine roast sucking pig, flanked by
sorrel-flavored pork sausages. The brandy, in carafes, had been placed at the corners of the table…” This scene was for the wedding celebration of Monsieur Bovary and Mademoiselle Emma. Hardly could anyone have mistaken the foreign style
as any other then French.
But I love Madame Bovary more for the writer’s adroitness of writing. I have hardly met anyone else who could delineate the emotion part of his characters and
who could mingle the silhouette of his characters into the environment as well as Flaubert. Sometimes reading his story, you would forget if it was the environment or the distinctive characters that made you melt into the fictional world and drink into the virtual bewildering atmosphere.
I think lots of people had had a similar experience as me: A book barged into your life more than once and each time it would leave you a totally different experience than ever before. It was either because the time and place you are in have changed; or what happened in the book offered you each time something new and
discernible to reflect upon due to the past events running through your life.
|
轻松英语