New translation for the “Certosa di Parma”, a mainstream classic of the 19th century

The educated reader, or who perceives himself as such, always feels a certain shame in admitting that he has never read Madame Bovary, Joyce’s Ulysses, The Leopard or other highly cited masterpieces of literature. This is why the classics are not read, they are always re-read – or at least that’s what others are told. And the new translation by Margherita Botto, just out for Einaudi, of the Charterhouse of Parma it is an opportunity to take up one of the most mainstream classics of the 19th century, with the excuse of “re-reading” it in a new Italian version. Having it come out in a hardback edition, instead of the usual paperback, helps the first reader think he’s reading something new and not a high school paperback. Stendhal’s book, written in 1838 – it is said in just fifty-two days, when the author barricaded himself in the Parisian apartment on rue de Caumartin – has become Walter Benjamin’s favourite. It was Balzac, reviewing it, who discovered the writer Stendhal. An often inaccurate writer, who had no desire to rework the draft of the book to correct it. In this he is anti-Flaubert.