Proust in the original.

Enkidu

I was wondering if anybody here could help me. I want to read Proust, even if only to get a feel for his work. I was just wondering are the English translations of his novels any good? My trust in translations has decreased a lot lately after reading some of Cicero and seeing how much is lost from the Latin in most translations. However since French is somewhat more similar to English than Latin (especially culturally) it might be the case that translations of Proust don't lose much. Anybody here know?

Permabear

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Enkidu

Thanks Permabear, that's a great help.

Permabear wrote: »

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I often read French, although I'm more comfortable with medieval French since I've kept it up, but let my modern French slide and wanted something to boost it up.

Permabear wrote: »

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This is my major fear with translations, the Shakespeare-style translations of foriegn language novels. I don't know if you can read Ancient Greek, but I really dislike the way it is often translated. For example in many translations of Sophocles' work, Agemennon is described as "Agemennon, delighter in women" or something to that effect, where as the Greek itself says something more like "cúnt loving Agemennon".

I can understand the impulse, Elizabethan-style language is the register of English which matches the "literary height" of the Greek and it gives some appearance of continuity of Western literature. However to me it removes the "alien" features of the language's culture and makes the author appear like just another Elizabethan sonnet writer, to some degree. You don't get the feeling that here is somebody from a different time, who experienced humanity in totally different way and has written something incredible. Instead you get a style of writing you already are familiar with.

Anyway rant over, I will try your suggestions, thank you very much. I can see the advantage of a unified (if flawed) work over an accurate disjointed one.

Have you read him in French yourself? In any case, what do you think of his writings?

(Also I assume from your writing style that I'm talking to the artist formerly known as donegalfella?)

Permabear

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Enkidu

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes, exactly. Which is a pity really. I love the fact that some of the great intellectuals were really coarse.

Of course I realise that there are some linguistic walls that cannot be climbed. For example English only has an active and passive voice, where as Ancient Greek had active, passive and middle, so any middle voice construction simply has no analogy in English and there is nothing the translator can really do about that. It's unfortunate because Plato uses the middle voice to great effect in Euthyphro and other works. In fact Plato is a master of the middle voice, something invisible in translation. Such is life though.

Actually, if you haven't already, I would really recommend learning the pronounciation of Middle English (very easy to do actually), because you will appreciate Chaucer a lot more when you're able to hear and speak the music of his prose.

My French isn't quite up to reading Proust in the original without assistance, but I do read it well enough that I could keep both the original and the translation open and read the dual text, cross-annotating as I went. It took a while (Proust is 1.25 million words!) but it was simply a wonderful experience.

Wow!, that's dedication. I never annotate anything, but all the literary types around here seem to, maybe I'll give it a go with Proust. Going through dual texts is wonderful, I love the Loeb Classical Library.

I love Proust, as you might have guessed. Reading À la recherche... takes dedication, but it's an unforgettable experience.

Well that's it, I'll have to get Moncrieff's translation:). I'll also get the original.

The very same!

Ah good! I was afraid you were gone.

Permabear

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Hermy

Fascinating thread - thanks.

Enkidu

Well I've worked my way through the first four volumes at this point and I've compared them with the French, although the comparison was more in depth for the first two volumes.

Without a doubt the Moncrieff et al edition, which I obtained as a box set, is superior to the other translations as a whole. This is mainly due to the fact that it maintains a consistency of tone throughout, as Permabear has said.

However the best translation of them all is the first volume of the Prendergast edition by Lydia Davis. Her translation is the most accurate, but more importantly she manages to preserve in English Proust's "light"* Parisian way of thinking. It actually manages to be Proust speaking in English. This is almost impossible in any translation and it's very impressive that she managed to do it. For this reason I've read her edition of "Du côté de chez Swann" several times and at times I miss her style in the latter English translations which do suffer from making the text too Anglophonic**.

However this isn't maintained in the rest of the Prendergast text, which really does suffer from having different contributors, so to read the whole thing you must read Moncrieff.

So, get the Moncrieff boxset, but buy Lydia Davis on her own. The former so you can actually read the thing and the latter to imprint the real Proust on your brain.

Others may disagree, but that's my two cents.

*Not sure how to convey this.

**Proust at times loses his real "French" personality and starts to sound like another Edwardian writer, not too much, but it is there.