joyeux anniversaire

Smashing idea to launch this group on his birthday!

Tisane, non. Cotes du Rhone? That's better.

thanks for joining

david

Hi all! I just noticed this group and am coincidentally in the middle (almost) of In Search of Lost Time. Halfway through the third book, The Guermantes Way to be exact.

Hi everyone! I just finished Sodom and Gomorrah and am about to embark on The Captive, The Fugitive. Unfortunately I don't speak French, so I'm reading it in translation and I fear that means I'm missing out on the whole point of Proust!

Err...a Proustian slip. I forgot to mention that I also am reading the english translation. I'm scratching my head on some of the noted puns that don't work in English despite my impressive three years of French in high school.

Translations, mon dieu - where to begin? I know those who are passionate about Moncrieff/Pleiades but I must say the recent Penguins are very good. Lydia Davis, in particular, does a wonderful job in Swann's Way - deft and humorous.

With Moncrieff, it wasn't until my third reading (what's that in human years? 7, I think) that I realized, "Hey, this guy is funny..."

My fault, I know, but Davis nails it.

I have a friend who has read all of In Search of Lost Time thru once. His comment to me was that

you need to read all 7 parts in order

Swann's Way he found to be the most difficult

It all comes together in the last part, everything fits together.

david perrings

Yes, absolutely. Proust is a formalist above all else, and his creation - which he likened to a Cathedral - is a magnificent structure - approached part by part, but upon completion - exquisite in its totality. Expansive, sublime.

They don't make 'em like that any more. And the effort killed Proust, it should be noted.

i have created a new proust topic with the first post. it is titled

favorite excerpts from proust

David Perrings

I wrote this brief note a while back.

In search of lost time
I would like some feedback on Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I just started reading the book and have been struck by the sensory nature of the writing. Also Picasso and the theory's of space and time came to mind. In Leonard Shlain's book Art and Physics he has a brief discussion of the book in a chapter titled "Literary Forms/ Physics Formulas.

I read the whole thing in English first. Took me years.

Then I got hold of a French edition of Swann's Way (that I had bought, if truth be told, on my first visit to Paris years ago, and never got very far with) and, in a most Teutonic and un-French way, worked my way through the French and the English together. Paragraph by paragraph, mostly, but - occasionally - sentence by sentence.

There are, as any fule kno, some very long sentences.

Still, I can confirm - for the true flavour of it, you have to read it in French, but if you can't - even by my strange hybrid method - the updated Scott-Moncrieff is as close as you're ever going to get.

Three in English: Moncrieff, Moncrieff, and the Penguin crowd. Only once in French - yes, difficult. I agree that Moncrieff comes closest to the French language but I have a hunch that the new translations deliver a more immediate Proust experience - something akin to what his original audience (those most fortunate of readers) were getting.

Have you read them (Davis, et al), desultory?

I haven't read them, but I like the Proust I get from Scott-Moncrieff (updated etc.), and to me, in my inexpert opinion, it seems close to the feel, the vibe, of the original.

Here's an extract from a NYRB review of the Davis translation:

"Although Lydia Davis's prose translation seems to use the most current, idiomatic English, it runs into problems of a totally different order. These are not problems of style. Like Enright and Kilmartin and Scott Moncrieff before her, Davis is perfectly capable of keeping pace with the intricate folds of Proust's long sentences; nor is her problem one of not reproducing Proust's tone, which she never betrays. She knows how to reach those peaks of lyricism just as she is cautious to convey every nuance of implied humor. Rather, her problem is one of cadence. Scott Moncrieff had crafted a language—a syntax, a voice, a register—which, as I pointed out earlier, despite some noticeable shortcomings and inaccuracies, was able to convey the scope and sweep of Proust's vision in a language that did what Proust's language had done in French."

I'm not saying he's right about Davis, whom I haven't read. However, I do think he's right about Scott-Moncrieff.

Yes, I agree about Scott-Moncrieff - but I'll never know if when I was reading the French I was merely translating Scott-Moncrieff - such are the limits of reading in the non-native language first. I have similar problems with the Russians - and take a bit of comfort that the translation effort acts as a linguistic sieve and leaves a more refined product. A distilled version, more nuanced and certainly more potent.

Proust comes through beautifully because we are working with material of the highest quality.

"Proust comes through beautifully because we are working with material of the highest quality."

Yes, I agree, it is, but isn't that sort of thing all the easier to damage if not handled with the greatest care?

To take an extreme example, you can't really go wrong if you're translating (mentioning no names) some authors who can't really write at all; they just tell a story, so all you have to do is translate the narrative - there's nothing else to lose.

Proust, though - tricky stuff!

Yes, I do see your point. And I would even say that you end up with distinct works with each effort, each worthwhile. I dare say that Proust himself would delight in the progeny of his original work.

While it might be nice to read proust in French, that is not anything i see myself doing in this lifetime. I have enough trouble with english.

So I am greatful for the translations.

David Perrings