Madame Bovary

Following 'The Nabokov Paper' an invitation from Kate Briggs to reactivate the examination conditions at Cornell University, in which participants were invited to select and respond to one of Vladimir Nabokov's questions on seven major literary works, Kivland selected Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856) and the instructions to: Describe Emma's eyes, hands, skin, sunshade, hairdo, dress, shoes, paying particular attention to and correcting any blunders in the translation. From her collection of French and English paperbacks of Flaubert's book, Kivland has assembled the covers, and two annotated pages (French and English), in which Emma's appearance is described for the first time, Her book has two versions, a cheap softback, and a luxury hardback edition, with red endpapers and gold blocking. She describe this as the difference between Emma dead and Emma alive.