Seeking advice from the bookish

[My Good Babushka]

For my birthday this year I’ve decided to start reading In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past). I am halfway through the complete works of Charles Dickens and I want to mix it up with something equally dense and impossible. I must have a bound book, I do not have an e-reader. I want to get the very best translation of Proust, so whom do you like?

[UTUSN]

1. In my pre-internet life of much yore, there was only the MONCRIEFF

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http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/01/07/which-translation-of-proust-should-i-read/

Ask The Paris Review
[font size=5]Which Translation of Proust Should I Read?[/font]
January 7, 2011 | by Lorin Stein


I am preparing to tackle Marcel Proust’s mammoth, his tomb of involuntary memories and I cannot decide on a translation. Should it be the original English translation by Moncrieff? Or the revision of Moncrieff by Kilmartin? Or the revision of the revision by Enright? Or the new translation that begins with Davis and continuous with six different translators? I prefer a translation that is as close to the original as possible, without the translator attempting to “update” the language for modern readers, without inserting words that the writer would have never originally used. Which translation should be trusted when it comes time to read the mammoth? —Manuel Garcia


For Swann’s Way, you can’t really go wrong. All of those translations are wonderful. My favorite is Lydia Davis’s. It sticks very close to the French, which I think you will like. And I think you will like Davis’s sensibility: she is no vulgar updater. On the other hand, the Scott Moncrieff translation may appeal to you because it’s contemporary with the original. In fact, Proust’s French is often more modern then Scott Moncrieff’s English. The anachronisms are all in the other direction.

I can’t vouch for the new translations of the later volumes. My advice is to read Swann’s Way in the Davis translation, then switch over to Enright. It will also be fun for you to compare Davis to Enright every once in a while. You’ll hear the difference right away.

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[My Good Babushka]

2. Awwww!

Indecision!
I have the Moncrieff trans. of Swann's Way, that I got at a church basement book sale last year. I guess that's a good enough place to start.