The adult men's magazine Playboy will publish an excerpt from a new translation of a classic of French literature.
The novel Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, is touted by the magazine as "the most scandalous novel of all time."
The new translation is by Lydia Davis, a US writer already praised for her translations of French authors such as Marcel Proust.
Speaking to The Times (London), Davis said she found earlier translations of Bovary "clunky" in their faithfulness to the original text. Her aim in this new translation was to combine good writing and flair with closeness to the French.
The story concerns Emma Bovary, who has affairs to compensate for the dullness of life as a doctor's wife in 19th-century provincial France.
The excerpt Playboy will publish tells of Emma's seduction by the wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger.
Despite being hailed by the American author Henry James as "perfection," the novel provoked accusations of indecency and insult when it was first published in France, in 1857.
It is precisely this indecency, however, which appeals to the editors of Playboy. "Emma's transformation … to enthusiastic adulterer reminds us what a scandal it can be to be human," the magazine reads.
Although the publication is best-known for its nude women, it has traditionally featured serious literature alongside soft pornography. Saul Bellow, John Irving and Doris Lessing are among the esteemed fiction authors to have appeared in its pages.
The excerpt from Madame Bovary will appear in the September issue of Playboy. Davis's full translation of the novel will be published by Penguin on September 23.
30 August 2010
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