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  • amateur51

    Originally posted by umslopogaas View Post

    Back to Proust: I have just started on the new translation. Proust does require a large committment of one's time. I read the original Scott Moncrieff translation, which was a heroic undertaking but apparently left the rude bits out. Then I read the Kilmartin revision, which put the rude bits back in. Now here we go again. If there is ever another translation I'll have to give it a miss, I havent got enough time left.
    Brave fellow, umslopogaas!

    Who is this new translation you're trying written by?

    Comment

    • french frank
      Administrator/Moderator
      • Feb 2007
      • 30206

      Originally posted by Mandryka View Post
      Paul Scott is the name you're looking for.

      I've never read anything by CP Snow. He has acquired a reputation for dullness...is it justified?
      Yes, Paul Scott. I enjoyed Staying On. Is CP Snow dull? Yes, probably. I quite enjoy that in a novel.
      It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

      Comment

      • amateur51

        Originally posted by french frank View Post
        Yes, Paul Scott. I enjoyed Staying On. Is CP Snow dull? Yes, probably. I quite enjoy that in a novel.

        Comment

        • DracoM
          Host
          • Mar 2007
          • 12955

          The Road / Cormac McCarthy.
          Must be a Nobel Prize winner some day.

          Comment

          • umslopogaas
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 1977

            The new version of Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time" is in six Penguin Classics volumes, with seven different translators:

            1. The Way By Swann's, trans. Lydia Davis
            2. In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower, trans. James Grieve
            3. The Guermantes Way, trans.Mark Treharne
            4. Sodom and Gomorrah, trans. John Sturrock
            5. The Prisoner and The Fugitive, trans. Carol Clark and Peter Collier
            6. Finding Time Again, trans. Ian Patterson

            The whole is under the "general editorship" of Christopher Prendergast.

            The guy in my local bookshop, who is clearly an enthusiastic reader, said he thought some volumes worked better than others, so no doubt we can look forward to further revisions.

            I will report back, eventually, but dont hold your breath, you cant rush Proust.

            I'm looking forward to vol. 2, Young Girls In Flower are delicious, and James Grieve is an equally delicious eating apple. Cant wait for the first bite.

            Comment

            • Richard Tarleton

              Just finished re-reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, prior to starting his latest, The World until Yesterday. I'd like to see GG&S on the introductory reading list for every university history course - a mind-expanding book.

              I'm a short way into Alan Rusbridger's Play It Again, about taking up the piano again and learning Chopin's G Minor Ballade in a busy year in a Guardian Editor's life. I note he's Sarah's guest on Ess. Classics next week.

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              • JFLL
                Full Member
                • Jan 2011
                • 780

                I thought I’d have another go at Proust (started but abandoned in my twenties), and have almost finished Du côté de chez Swann, and wondered whether our own M. Vinteuil could say whether he thinks Proust might have had a real violin sonata in mind behind as a basis for the one by Vinteuil which so moved and obsessed Swann. I’ve seen Fauré, Franck and Saint-Saëns mentioned.

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                • vinteuil
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 12765

                  Originally posted by JFLL View Post
                  I ... wondered whether our own M. Vinteuil could say whether he thinks Proust might have had a real violin sonata in mind behind as a basis for the one by Vinteuil which so moved and obsessed Swann. I’ve seen Fauré, Franck and Saint-Saëns mentioned.
                  ... happy to oblige!

                  Proust evolved his thinking about the little phrase over many years - he didn’t want people to pin it down to any one particular work. In his dedication copy of ‘Swann’ to Jacques de Lacretelle on 20 April 1918 he wrote:



                  «... Dans la mesure où la realité m' a servi, mesure très faible à vrai dire, la petite phrase de cette Sonate, et je ne l' ai jamais dit à personne, est (pour commencer par la fin) dans la Soirée Saint-Euverte, la phrase charmante mais enfin médiocre d' une Sonate pour piano et violon de Saint-Saëns, musicien que je n' aime pas. Dans la même soirée un peu plus loin, je ne serais pas surpris qu' en parlant de la petite phrase j' eusse pensé à l' Enchantement du Vendredi Saint. Dans cette même soirée encore quand le piano et le violon gémissent comme deux oiseaux qui se répondent j' ai pensé à la Sonate de Franck (surtout jouée par Enesco) dont le Quatuor apparaît dans un des volumes suivants. Les trémolos qui couvrent la petite phrase chez les Verdurin m' ont été suggérés par un Prélude de Lohengrin mais elle-même à ce moment là par une chose de Schubert. Elle est dans la même soirée Verdurin un ravissant morceau de piano de Fauré.»

                  [ “to the limited extent to which I have made use of real examples, the ‘little phrase’ of the Sonata (and I have told no-one this) is … the charming but ultimately banal phrase from a sonata for violin and piano by Saint-Saëns, a composer I don’t care for. Later on, when speaking of this little phrase, I shouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t also thinking of the Good Friday Music. Later, when the piano and violin sob like two birds, I was thinking of the sonata by Franck (above all as played by Enesco), whose quartet appears in a subsequent volume. The tremolos covering the little phrase at the Verdurins’ were suggested to me by the prelude to Lohengrin, but the phrase itself by something from Schubert. And the phrase is also at the same Verdurin soirée from a ravishing piano piece by Fauré.” ]

                  Comment

                  • Mandryka

                    Originally posted by JFLL View Post
                    I thought I’d have another go at Proust (started but abandoned in my twenties), and have almost finished Du côté de chez Swann, and wondered whether our own M. Vinteuil could say whether he thinks Proust might have had a real violin sonata in mind behind as a basis for the one by Vinteuil which so moved and obsessed Swann. I’ve seen Fauré, Franck and Saint-Saëns mentioned.
                    As mentioned, there were several models for the sonata, but I prefer to think of it as the Saint-Saens one. I suppose you can take your pick!

                    I'm currently halfway through the Painter Proust biog: can't say I've yet detected any homophobia in Painter's attitude to Proust's 'activities' - then again, maybe that's just me! :)

                    Comment

                    • JFLL
                      Full Member
                      • Jan 2011
                      • 780

                      Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
                      ... happy to oblige!
                      Thank you indeed for this, vinteuil – very much to the point. It seems to have been a composite inspiration, then, unless of course Proust merely wanted to put de Lacretelle and posterity off the scent. (I like ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t also thinking of …’.) I’m glad to hear that Franck’s great string quartet is to appear later – a particular favourite of mine.

                      Comment

                      • teamsaint
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 25190

                        I am reading "Elgar's third symphony. The story of the Reconstruction. "Anthony Payne.
                        Interesting.
                        I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                        I am not a number, I am a free man.

                        Comment

                        • JFLL
                          Full Member
                          • Jan 2011
                          • 780

                          Originally posted by french frank View Post
                          Is CP Snow dull? Yes, probably. I quite enjoy that in a novel.
                          I'd say not dull, but unshowy, but you won't like him if you don't like reading about middle-class English professional people, politicians or academics, who some people find dull as a matter of course. The ones I most like are the Cambridge ones, particularly 'The Masters'. Take no notice of Leavis.

                          Comment

                          • amateur51

                            Originally posted by JFLL View Post
                            Thank you indeed for this, vinteuil – very much to the point. It seems to have been a composite inspiration, then, unless of course Proust merely wanted to put de Lacretelle and posterity off the scent. (I like ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t also thinking of …’.) I’m glad to hear that Franck’s great string quartet is to appear later – a particular favourite of mine.
                            Great stuff, JFLL - I adore the recording by the Fitzwilliam Quartet

                            Comment

                            • teamsaint
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 25190

                              don't know if this has appeared on this thread before, but "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole is a cracking read.
                              I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                              I am not a number, I am a free man.

                              Comment

                              • amateur51

                                Originally posted by teamsaint View Post
                                don't know if this has appeared on this thread before, but "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole is a cracking read.
                                One of my all-time favourites too, teams

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