Madame Bovary

Miss Bovary is the OG desperate housewife, and it’s wild how modern this nearly 200 year old meditation on the drudgery of feminine expectation is. Even if you don’t like oldies, this one still feels fresh as hell. Lydia Davis- a genius in her own right, just bought her meditation on COWS- does a gorgeous translation that allows Flaubert’s singular style to really sing and cuts to the heart of sentences that, in other translations, can feel flowery and laborious.