Proust in Translation

— In Defense of Reading the New Translation

The legitimacy of C.K Scott Moncrieff, the original translator of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (first translated as A Remembrance of Things Past), has been put into question since the printing in 2002 of Lydia Davis’ translation of the first volume of the novel, Swann’s Way. A contemporary of Proust, Moncrieff shows a tendency to Edwardianize Proust’s work. By this, we mean that he tends towards a more ornate use of language than Proust himself did and shows a more Edwardian sensibility towards religion and sex. Moncrieff often fails to translate the more modern, revolutionary aspects of Proust as, for example, in his avoidance of sexual taboos in refusing to translate slang sexual terms.

He also often Christianizes the work. The first sentence of the third paragraph in the introductory bedroom scene in Swann’s Way is translated by Moncrieff as: “When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host.” The last clause is translated very differently by Davis. Instead of “heavenly host,” Davis writes: “the order of the years and worlds.” After checking the original French we found that “years and worlds” is the more literal translation. This clause introduces the idea that a year can, itself, be a world from which one may enter and depart, leading us more deeply into the problems of time and memory that Proust attempts to untangle in the course of the novel. Whether this decision was made by Moncrieff out of a desire to please an English audience or from his own personal beliefs is uncertain, but Moncrieff’s impulse to adapt the novel to suit himself and his audience diffuses the more radical implications of Proust’s word-choice.

Lydia Davis’ modern translation also strips Proust’s prose of Moncrieff’s poetic qualities and yields a clearer work as a result. Moncrieff’s choice of the word “chain” is more poetic; a chain can imply an abstract concept (of imprisonment) and a literal object. As a result, when one reads Moncrieff, the exact nature of the sentence, whether it is literal or abstract, is not revealed right away. Davis starts with the more abstract word “sequence,” thus eliminating the ambiguity found in the Moncrieff translation. For this reason, Davis’ prose does not reveal its meaning slowly, but instead conveys information directly to the reader. Another example of Davis’ “transparency” can be found in her translation: “I crossed centuries of civilization in one second.” Moncrieff, by contrast, writes: “in a flash I would traverse and surmount centuries of civilization.” The two sentences express a similar meaning, but Davis’ work is a more direct, elegant, and simple approach.

— In Defense of the Moncrieff Translation

While more poetic – often blending metaphorical and literal meanings – the Moncrieff often reads, counter-intuitively, as more colloquial and conversational in comparison to the Davis translation. In the first paragraph of Swann’s Way, Moncrieff’s translation reads, “Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit,” while the same sentence from Davis’ translation reads, “Then it began to grow unintelligible to me, as after metempsychosis do the thoughts of an earlier existence.” The striking difference between these two translations lies with the choice of “reincarnate spirit” over “metempsychosis.” The term “reincarnate spirit” feels more casual; it is the vernacular one might expect to find in a journal or hear from an oral storyteller. Indeed, this is an idea that people would be familiar with from religious contexts and such familiarity makes the language easier to process and read. The soft vowel and “r” sounds accentuate this; they roll off the tongue with ease. The word “metempsychosis” has the opposite effect. The mind pauses for a moment and has to consider not only what the word means but how, even, to pronounce it. Examples like these from Davis’ translations, which are not always more “pretentious” but often more impersonal (as metempsychosis arguably is), are exemplative of the more “writerly” aspect of her translation.

Moncrieff’s oral/aural translation also sometimes feels present, natural, and fully there in comparison to Davis’ mechanical and almost artificial choice of English words. How do the cheeks of a pillow feel when you rest against them? Moncreiff’s description is vivid: “I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my pillow, as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood.” The words “plump” and “blooming” bring to mind the visual and tactile aspects of a cushion pressing against your cheek as you lay down, but more so, they are words that are associated with childhood. As babies, we are plump, while in childhood, we are blooming into adulthood. Davis, on the other hand, uses “full and fresh.” These words fail to inspire the imagination in the same way but are rather just “words” on a page. While Moncrieff’s pillow cheeks evoke the feeling, almost, of human cheeks against which the narrator presses (foreshadowing later bedtime scenes), Davis’ pillow – its freshness and fullness – seems more inert and inanimate.

Moncrieff’s translation often seems more inviting:

Riding at a jerky trot, Golo, his mind filled with an infamous design,

issued from the little three-cornered forest which dyed dark-green the

slope of a convenient hill, and advanced by leaps and bounds towards

the castle of poor Geneviève de Brabant.

Davis’ translation reads:

Moving at the jerky pace of his horse, and filled with a hideous design,

Golo would come out of the small triangular forest that velveted the

hillside with dark green and advance jolting toward the castle of poor

Genevieve de Brabant.

Davis’ is, in our opinion, a sharper and at times more confusing description. Moncrieff, for example, doesn’t need to mention the horse because he has used a more active verb (Golo rides, not moves on a horse). Moncrieff’s description is also more intuitive in the context of moving through space, as a “three cornered forest” is more accurate to how one would experience the traversing of one as opposed to Davis’ “triangular” which implies a more removed and map-like familiarity with the space. Like the term metempsychosis mentioned above, Davis translation reads as more scientific and abstract.

— Final Comparisons

A final example of the very different reading experiences can be found in the opening lines. Moncrieff begins his translation of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past with: “For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say ‘I’m going to sleep.’” Davis begins with: “For a long time, I went to bed early. Sometimes, my candle scarcely out, my eyes would close so quickly that I did not have time to say to myself: ‘I’m falling asleep.’” Moncrieff’s translation lacks brevity; Davis’ translation is more concise and eschews unnecessary verbiage. Instead of Moncrieff’s, “I used to go to bed early,” Davis writes a more succinct “I went to bed early.” And, instead of Moncrieff’s, “when I had put out my candle,” Davis writes, “my candle scarcely out.”

Some readers will, no doubt, find Davis’ translation more appealing. Certainly, when directly translating Proust’s novel from the original French, Davis’ translation is more literal as a word-for-word translation. And yet, Davis’ language comes across as stiff, mechanical, and without movement. In comparison, Moncrieff’s translation, while perhaps less consistent with Proust’s French, feels more colloquial, more conversational, more personal – as though we are being spoken to by a distinct voice.

C.K. Scott Moncrieff recognized the enduring value of Proust’s work much earlier than the public as a whole did. He began translation of the first volume in 1921, before the last four volumes had been published. As a result, Moncrieff lacked the overview necessary to foresee the surprising new directions that would emerge in the course of the novel. William C. Carter notes that Proust himself could not envision in 1921 the final form of In Search of Lost Time. The choice to translate the title “Du côté de chez Swann” as “Swann’s Way” is a perfect example (and one with which Proust took issue). The Lydia Davis translation has not only the benefit of the entire novel as published, but also the benefit of decades of examination that have illuminated the importance of Proust’s careful choices in structure and vocabulary.

On the other hand, countless Anglophone writers have read Moncrieff’s translation, and it is his translation that has inspired so many of our great novels written in English. Moncrieff’s interpretation of À la Recherche du Temps Perdu may not be as accurate as Davis’, but it is a masterpiece in its own right. We should be cautious to dismiss a translation that has done so much to influence literature even if it does not stay as true to Proust’s language.