menu
cover image SWANN'S WAY: A New Translation

SWANN'S WAY: A New Translation

Marcel Proust, , trans. from the French by Lydia Davis. . Viking, $27.95 (496pp) ISBN 978-0-670-03245-7

Relax: it's fantastic. There's no question that Davis's American English is thinner and more literal than C.K. Scott Montcrieff's archaically inflected turns of phrase and idioms, at least as revised by Terence Kilmartin and later by D.J. Enright. The removal of some of the familiar layers of the past in this all-new translation gives one a feeling similar to that of encountering an old master painting that has just been cleaned: the colors seem sharper and momentarily disorienting. Yet many readers will find it exhilarating, allowing the text to shed slight airs that were not quite Proust's and making many of the jokes much more immediate (as when he implies that sense-organ atrophy in the bourgeois is a defense mechanism and the result of hardening unarticulated feelings). As accomplished translator and novelist Davis (The End of the Story) notes in her foreword, she has followed Proust's sentence structure as closely as possible "in its every aspect," including punctuation, word order and word choice. To take just one case, where Montcrieff/Kilmartin describe Mlle. Vinteuil finding it pleasant to metaphorically "sojourn" in sadism, Davis has the much more definitive "emigrate." Proust's psychological inquiry generally feels much sharper, giving a much more palpable sense of Freud and Bergson—and of the young Marcel's willful (if not malefic) manipulations of those around him. For first-timers who don't have French and are allergic to the slightest whiff of euphemism, this is the best means for traveling the way by Swann's. BOMC, Reader's Subscription and Insightout Book Club; 4-city translator tour. (Sept. 15)

Forecast:Look for a fall blitz of Proustiana, reviving everything from the Montcrieff to Alain de Bouton's How Proust Can Change Your Life. Copyright restrictions will keep the last three of the six planned volumes out of American editions until 2019, 2020 and 2022, respectively, but devoted readers will seek them out via British booksellers—and have probably already begun to do so, since they were published there last year.

close
Details

Reviewed on: 07/14/2003

Genre: Fiction

Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-57270-092-5

Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-55685-607-5

Compact Disc - 978-5-555-34455-7

Compact Disc - 979-8-200-11098-8

Compact Disc - 17 pages - 978-1-84379-606-0

Downloadable Audio - 978-962-954-601-4

Hardcover - 496 pages - 978-0-14-312469-6

Hardcover - 488 pages - 978-0-554-31683-3

Hardcover - 396 pages - 978-1-5154-3317-0

Hardcover - 530 pages - 978-1-7317-0281-4

Hardcover - 530 pages - 978-1-7317-0768-0

Hardcover - 496 pages - 978-0-14-118323-7

Hardcover - 978-0-394-60429-9

Hardcover - 640 pages - 978-0-679-60005-3

Hardcover - 488 pages - 978-0-554-22380-3

Hardcover - 325 pages - 978-0-394-70594-1

Hardcover - 21 pages - 978-0-7887-2186-1

Hardcover - 298 pages - 978-1-77323-033-7

MP3 CD - 979-8-200-11099-5

Mass Market Paperbound - 656 pages - 978-0-8129-7209-2

Open Ebook - 978-1-4192-5009-5

Open Ebook - 1 pages - 978-1-4121-4716-3

Open Ebook - 630 pages - 978-0-486-11533-7

Open Ebook - 978-1-105-82152-3

Open Ebook - 432 pages - 978-1-4385-7692-3

Open Ebook - 417 pages - 978-1-62558-067-2

Open Ebook - 978-1-4121-6987-5

Open Ebook - 978-1-4709-5527-4

Other - 499 pages - 978-1-4237-8044-1

Other - 517 pages - 978-1-4237-9599-5

Other - 558 pages - 978-1-4237-5213-4

Other - 497 pages - 978-1-4237-7880-6

Other - 503 pages - 978-1-4237-7678-9

Paperback - 452 pages - 978-1-4953-9519-2

Paperback - 270 pages - 978-1-4637-1435-2

Paperback - 496 pages - 978-0-679-72009-6

Paperback - 452 pages - 978-1-4264-2172-3

Paperback - 396 pages - 978-1-60459-705-9

Paperback - 358 pages - 978-1-5123-8194-8

Paperback - 140 pages - 978-1-5120-7843-5

Paperback - 584 pages - 978-1-5330-4735-9

Paperback - 656 pages - 978-0-375-75154-7

Paperback - 232 pages - 978-1-7212-0957-6

Paperback - 530 pages - 978-1-7317-0282-1

Paperback - 400 pages - 978-0-486-42123-0

Paperback - 530 pages - 978-1-7317-0769-7

Paperback - 450 pages - 978-1-61382-419-1

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-5353-4024-3

Paperback - 410 pages - 978-93-90001-40-8

Paperback - 588 pages - 978-1-9798-2633-4

Paperback - 588 pages - 978-1-9798-2549-8

Paperback - 394 pages - 978-93-90852-94-9

Paperback - 464 pages - 978-1-68137-629-5

Paperback - 422 pages - 978-1-396-32434-5

Paperback - 176 pages - 978-1-153-74059-3

Paperback - 404 pages - 978-1-4839-7650-1

Paperback - 280 pages - 978-1-4953-7908-6

Paperback - 456 pages - 978-606-983-492-3

Paperback - 432 pages - 978-1-4385-1244-0

Paperback - 168 pages - 978-1-4996-6405-8

Paperback - 456 pages - 978-1-5029-7673-4

Paperback - 394 pages - 978-1-5031-2939-9

Paperback - 454 pages - 978-1-366-51359-5

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-5150-8926-1

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-5237-9783-7

Paperback - 534 pages - 978-1-5331-1425-9

Paperback - 434 pages - 978-0-14-028326-6

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-7206-8927-0

Paperback - 230 pages - 978-0-368-27537-1

Paperback - 782 pages - 978-1-7951-5101-6

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-7262-4204-2

Paperback - 414 pages - 978-1-7271-8276-7

Paperback - 551 pages - 978-0-07-553647-5

Paperback - 534 pages - 978-1-5355-1653-2

Paperback - 476 pages - 978-1-5354-4429-3

Paperback - 454 pages - 978-1-5374-0818-7

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-5373-6909-9

Paperback - 466 pages - 978-1-5373-8263-0

Peanut Press/Palm Reader - 1 pages - 978-1-4121-4718-7