Marcel Proust – the three translations
a comparison of the three generally available versions
There’s no doubt about it: if you’re going to tackle Proust, you need to be in good intellectual shape. The sentences are long, the paragraphs are huge, and at a million and a half words his great novel is one of the longest ever. But it can be done – and the benefits are enormous. Proust delivers gems on every page. He is of course celebrated for his psychological insights. His characters live and breathe in a way which makes you feel they become your personal friends. Don’t expect plot, suspense, or even story in a conventional sense. This modern classic is one of characters circling around each other in a way which depicts an entire world of upper-class fin de circle France before and shortly after the First World War.
However, the greatest depths he offers are in the form of profound reflections on some of the most important issues any novelist can approach – love, desire, memory, time, and death. These are written in the form of extended aphorisms, embedded as part of his narrative in such a way that you will hardly be aware where one ends and the other begins.
Other people are, as a rule, so immaterial to us that, when we have entrusted to any one of them the power to cause so much suffering or happiness to ourselves, that person seems at once to belong to a different universe, is surrounded with poetry, makes of our lives a vast expanse, quick with sensation, on which that person and ourselves are ever more or less in contact.
Eventually, it comes down to which translation should you read – and in English there are three options currently in print. My favourite is the oldest by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. It was first to appear as the original volumes were published, and it even had Proust’s own blessing. Although it is based on a version of the French original which was not complete, it has a charm all of its own. There may be technical errors here and there, but it will take a long time for any of the subsequent translations to supersede its elegance and the powerful influence it has had. It is still held in high regard as a work of literary interpretation.
The second option is an edition which is based on the Scott Moncrieff original translation, but which was revised and re-translated by Terrence Kilmartin in the 1990s. This version is also informed by updated versions of the original text in French, including new material which has come to light since the author’s death. Kilmartin’s work was then itself edited by D.J.Enright
So this version comes to us with a guarantee of completeness and accuracy, but with the traces of three different translators’ hands since the original work. Each volume contains its own notes, addenda, and a synopsis, so readers new to Proust can feel supported by this additional material.
There’s also a more recent version produced by seven different translators. This has the advantage of being the most up to date. It is based on the latest version of a text with a very tangled provenance, and each translator writes a preface on the problems of translation. This version got a mixed reception when it first appeared.
Some people argue that it removes a certain prissiness which had clung to the English version of Proust since Scott Moncrieff’s translation. Others have claimed that it introduces new problems and lacks a unifying voice. Perhaps the best reason for choosing it is that it’s now generally available at a cut-down price in a handy boxed set.
If you feel in need of extra help, The Cambridge Companion to Proust provides essays on the major features of Marcel Proust’s great work. These investigate such essential areas as the composition of the novel, its social dimension, the language in which it is couched, its intellectual parameters, its humour, its analytical profundity and its wide appeal and influence. This is suitable for those who want to study Proust in depth. The discussion is illustrated by textual quotation (in both French and English) and close analysis. This is the only volume of its kind on Proust currently available. It contains a detailed chronology and bibliography.
George Painter produced the definitive biography of Proust. This study has become famous in its own right, because it combines deep insights with scholarly rigour – and it is also written in a very stylish manner. Painter sketches in the background to Parisian society, which provides a historical context for what follows. He then traces Proust’s singular life (the neurasthenia, the ‘job’ he kept for one day, the cork-lined bedroom) up to his death in 1922 – where he was still revising his masterpiece in bed, which is where he had written most of it. This is regarded as a classic of modern biography, and in 1965 it was awarded the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize.
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