{"id":12931,"date":"2022-07-11T01:20:32","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T01:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/?post_type=product&p=12931"},"modified":"2022-07-11T01:23:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T01:23:59","slug":"lost-in-translation-proust-and-scott-moncrieff","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/fr\/lost-in-translation-proust-and-scott-moncrieff\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost in Translation Proust and Scott Moncrieff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Moncrieff’s English translation of Proust’s\u00a0A la recherche du temps perdu<\/em>\u00a0is widely hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. His rendering of the title as\u00a0Remembrance of Things Past<\/em>\u00a0is not, however, considered a high point. William C. Carter explores the two men’s correspondence on this somewhat sticky issue and how the Shakespearean title missed the mark regarding Proust’s theory of memory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Although Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff\u2019s<\/a> translation of\u00a0\u00c0 la recherche du temps perdu<\/em>\u00a0is considered by many journalists and writers to be the best translation of any foreign work into the English language, his choice of\u00a0Remembrance of Things Past<\/em>\u00a0as the general title alarmed the seriously ill Proust and misled generations of readers as to the novelist\u2019s true intent. It wasn\u2019t until 1992 that the title was finally changed to\u00a0In Search of Lost Time<\/em>. \u201cRemembrance of Things Past\u201d is a beautiful line from William Shakespeare\u2019s sonnet 30, but it conveys an idea that is really the opposite of Proust\u2019s own. When Scott Moncrieff chose this title, he did not know, of course, where Proust was going with the story and did not correctly interpret the title, which might indeed be taken to indicate a rather passive attempt by an elderly person to recollect days gone by.<\/p>\n

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Proust\u2019s theory of memory<\/a> rejects the notion that we can simply sit and quietly resurrect the past in its true vividness through what he called voluntary memory. When we attempt to do this, we find that it doesn\u2019t work very well. We remember very little and often only in a haphazard and rather bland way. On the other hand, Proust\u2019s title should be taken to suggest a different approach: the Narrator\u2019s search (recherche<\/em>\u00a0means both search and research in French) is an active, arduous quest in which the past must be rediscovered\u2014largely through what Proust called involuntary memory, as demonstrated in the famous madeleine scene\u2014then analyzed and understood, and finally, if your ambition is to preserve it in writing, transposed and recreated in a book. As we will see, Proust lived long enough to see the title\u00a0Remembrance of Things Past<\/em>\u00a0and, while he objected to it, did not take measures to change it.<\/p>\n

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A native of Scotland, Scott Moncrieff had served as a captain in the Scottish Borderers during World War I. Before reading\u00a0A la recherche du temps perdu<\/em><\/a>, he had already made a name for himself as the translator of major French works, such as\u00a0La Chanson de Roland<\/em>\u00a0(The Song of Roland<\/em>) and Stendhal\u2019s two masterful novels\u00a0Le Rouge et le Noir<\/em>\u00a0(The Red and the Black<\/em>) and\u00a0La Chartreuse de Parme<\/em>\u00a0(The Charterhouse of Parma<\/em>). After the Great War Scott Moncrieff had served as secretary to Lord Northcliffe, in addition to being an editor at\u00a0The London Times<\/em>. In January 1920, a thirty-year-old Scott Moncrieff resigned his post at the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0in order to devote himself entirely to translating\u00a0\u00c0 la recherche du temps perdu<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Proust was completely unaware of his good fortune in having such a translator; his misgivings were founded in large part by a letter from Sydney Schiff, a British novelist and translator who wrote under the pseudonym of Stephen Hudson. He and his wife Violet, who both knew French, had been among the first in Britain to discover and love\u00a0Swann\u2019s Way<\/em>\u00a0and had subsequently struck up a friendship with Proust. In London, on September 9, 1922, Schiff read this announcement in\u00a0The Athenaeum<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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Messers Chatto & Windus, as publishers, and Mr. Scott Moncrieff, as author, have almost ready the first installment of M. Marcel Proust\u2019s \u2018Remembrance of Things Past\u2019 in the English translation. The title of this initial volume is\u00a0Swann\u2019s Way.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Schiff, who had long thought he was the only Englishman capable of translating\u00a0\u00c0 la recherche du temps perdu<\/em>, objected to Scott Moncrieff\u2019s titles. As incredible as it seems, Schiff did not realize the overall title came from Shakespeare\u2019s sonnet, whose opening lines read: \u201cWhen to the sessions of sweet silent thought\/I summon up remembrance of things past. . . .\u201d In his letter to Proust, Schiff lamented the loss of the French title\u2019s double meaning \u2014 time wasted and lost, with its \u201cmelancholy nuance, etc.\u201d But even more surprising, was Schiff\u2019s total misreading of his native language; he translated\u00a0Swann\u2019s Way<\/em>\u00a0for Proust as \u201cA la mani\u00e8re de Swann,\u201d (In the Manner of Swann<\/em>), as though that were its only possible meaning. (Schiff would later make amends and become a good friend of Scott Moncrieff\u2019s.) Naturally, Proust, who knew something about the art of translation from his own translations of works by John Ruskin, became alarmed on reading Schiff\u2019s reaction and his rendering of Scott Moncrieff\u2019s titles.<\/p>\n

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Proust wrote to Schiff, saying he certainly did not intend to \u201clet\u00a0Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann<\/em>\u00a0appear under the title you gave me. I knew nothing about this translation.\u201d Of course, Proust did know \u2014 or should have known \u2014 about Scott Moncrieff\u2019s translation, since his publisher Gallimard had offered to let him inspect it months earlier and the novelist had declined. Proust, whose health worsened again, waited nearly a week before writing to Gallimard. Now, he said, in addition to \u201cfalling with every step,\u201d his speech troubles had returned. He then conveyed Schiff\u2019s concerns about the translation to Gallimard. The author could not accept the title that meant \u201cIn the manner of Swann.\u201d That was \u201cintolerable.\u201d He reminded Gallimard that\u00a0Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Le C\u00f4t\u00e9 de Guermantes<\/em>\u00a0indicated the two separate walks at Combray. The English title was \u201cnonsense;\u201d surely it must be an error. Proust concluded: \u201cI value my work too much to allow an Englishman to demolish it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"