Alongside slowly continuing Madame Bovary this weekend, I have been reading about the novel and its author. The posts and discussions that arose both here and on the blogs of others participating in Nonsuch Book’s shared reading prompted me to think more deeply about the hazards of translating Flaubert’s intricate prose.
Nabokov’s lecture on Madame Bovary is often the measure, but many critics have written perceptively about Flaubert’s art. Hugh Kenner and Harold Bloom both offer valuable insights, yet it is James Wood who, in recent years, seems to have offered the most penetrating analysis.
Wood’s The Broken Estate and How Fiction Works both contain helpful reflections. In particular, one paragraph lingers in my mind. In the Lydia Davis translation, the sentence appears as: “The idea of having engendered a child delighted him,” showing how closely Davis remains to the original. Wood writes: “So what did Flaubert mean by style, by the music of a sentence? This, from Madame Bovary — Charles is stupidly proud that he has got Emma pregnant: ‘L’idée d’avoir engendré le délectait.’ So compact, so precise, so rhythmic. Literally, this is ‘The idea of having engendered delighted him.’ Geoffrey Wall, in his Penguin translation, renders it as: ‘The thought of having impregnated her was delectable to him.’ This is good, but pity the poor translator. For the English is a wan cousin of the French. Say the French out loud, as Flaubert would have done, and you encounter four ‘ay’ sounds in three of the words: ‘l’idée, engendré, délectait.’ An English translation that tried to mimic the untranslatable music of the French — that tried to mimic the rhyming — would sound like bad hip-hop: ‘The notion of procreation was a delectation.'”
>I will have to read Wood now, especially if he addresses Flaubert in such a way. I like that Davis' translation removes Emma from the sentence, rightly so, since Flaubert leaves her out. But it makes sense how Wall translates it. A tough choice.
>Removing Emma from the sentence is inspired. It lessens her role, in Charles' mind, in the act, and therefore highlights the boorishness of his partly sympathetic character.
>This is the Latin problem, isn't it? Engendered, delectable, impregnated – delighted is clean, maybe. The Latinisms in English suggest an elevated or formal rhetoric. In French, they're just regular French.Davis's trick of just keeping the one big Latin word is excellent – Charles is pompous, but not as bad as, say, Homais might be. Homais, if he spoke English, would use "delectable."
>That's a useful observation, each of those translations is overly formal and stylised, Wood's point about English as a wan cousin of French. Perhaps we should be aiming for more earthy Anglo-Saxon words. But, you are right, retaining just one formal word works for Charles.
>I thought Jonathan Raban did a good job of reviewing the Lydia Davis translation recently, if you are interested. Here's a link at the NYRB, but I think one has to be a subscriber…http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/14/flaubert-imperfect/By the way, Wood on Flaubert is great. He won me over when I read his commentary on A Sentimental Education in How Fiction Works.
>whh – Wood's Broken Estate has a good chapter on Flaubert too.