Proust - In Search of Lost Time on R4 (2019) & 4 Extra (2013)

[Belgrove]

In Search of Lost Time - R4

BBC R4 is serialising this in ten episodes across the Bank Holiday weekend:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007xsq

[Nick Armstrong]

BBC Radio having another crack at it this weekend: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007xsq - 10 hour-long episodes this time, on Radio 4 over this weekend (and all currently available on the website/iPlayer).

Currently half-way through Part 1: a treat to hear Derek Jacobi narrating

This is currently being dramatised on Radio 4 Extra in six 1-hour episodes :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03h709q/episodes/guide

[Conchis]

I’ve read the Painter biography and the ‘personal reminiscence’ written by Proust’s maid of all work (who was a major character in Alan Bennett’s 102 Boulevard Haussmann). I enjoyed both.

Proust had quite supernatural good fortune in having the short-lived Scott Moncrieff as his English translator. A case of the perfect candidate for the job.

Controversial personal opinion: I’m not normally in favour of positive discrimaitnion, but I think Proust should only be translated by a homosexual male. Although A La Recherche can, and should, be enjoyed by all, I think it takes a homosexual sensibility to really get inside the work. They say you can’t truly appreciate Michaelagnelo’s David if you’re straight....well, the same sort of thing applies here, I feel.

Hst, the very straight Harold Pinter adapted the book for film that was never made: his screenplay is a masterpiece, and possibly the best thing he ever wrote. If you haven’t read it, do so now.

[un barbu]

I listened to the first two instalments with considerable pleasure (Jacobi is especially good as a narrator). The 'feel' of Combray was very well achieved, I thought. Some of the dialogue seemed rather clunkily expository but that may be a result of the difference in the medium, the wireless demanding that characters voice the original narrator's words. I may, of course, be wrong in that. I have read the Scott Moncrieff and this wireless version has stimulated me to read the Kilmartin/Scott Moncrieff: an autumn project (after which I vow to tackle 'The Man Without Qualities', started twice but never finished.) I look forward to catching up with today's instalments at leisure.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I heard about half-an-hour of it - enough to make me agree with un barbu's assessment.

Couldn't understand why they were using Elgar's Sally Dammer, though?!

[Bryn]

I listened to the first two instalments with considerable pleasure (Jacobi is especially good as a narrator). The 'feel' of Combray was very well achieved, I thought. Some of the dialogue seemed rather clunkily expository but that may be a result of the difference in the medium, the wireless demanding that characters voice the original narrator's words. I may, of course, be wrong in that. I have read the Scott Moncrieff and this wireless version has stimulated me to read the Kilmartin/Scott Moncrieff: an autumn project (after which I vow to tackle 'The Man Without Qualities', started twice but never finished.) I look forward to catching up with today's instalments at leisure.

Strangely, all ten episodes (misleading schedule numbering notwithstanding) appear to be available via the iPlayer, already. All at 320lbps AAC_LC (a.k.a. HD Sound) too.

[Nick Armstrong]

Can’t place the piece they’re using for Vinteuil’s sonata... (1:08:30 on, and 1:14:40 on, in Part 1 & 2, for instance, is an arrangement for piano. Debussy, but what?). Can anyone identify it?

[un barbu]

Strangely, all ten episodes (misleading schedule numbering notwithstanding) appear to be available via the iPlayer, already. All at 320lbps AAC_LC (a.k.a. HD Sound) too.

Thank you for pointing out that fact, Bryn. I was out indulging in my hobby today and am glad to know that I can dip into the fleuve as and when.

[un barbu]

Couldn't understand why they were using Elgar's Sally Dammer, though?!

I'm still puzzling out my response to the sound effects/ incidental music. Some of it (trotting horses. rolling carriage wheels) were rather a cliché, but, given the importance of tinkling spoons in saucers, the feel of a loose paving stone, and so on in the novel then the clang of the garden gate at Combray, the church bells and the bell for dinner were all rather important and deserved their place. I don't know enough about the appropriate music of the period to comment.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thank you for pointing out that fact, Bryn. I was out indulging in my hobby today and am glad to know that I can dip into the fleuve as and when.

I’d flagged it in #17 above, in fact

But yes, a great resource. Oddly, some episodes are available for 28 days, others claim to be for 106 days.... shome mishtake surely.

[Bryn]

I’d flagged it in #17 above, in fact

But yes, a great resource. Oddly, some episodes are available for 28 days, others claim to be for 106 days.... shome mishtake surely.

Indeed, but not only did I miss your #17, I was also intrigued by their episode numbering feck-up following their listing of episodes 1 and 2 as a single item. Thus from 3 onwards, each became n-1 of 10 and the "NEXT" is said to be "Coming soon". Can it also be that once they have been broadcast, their availability reduces from 3 months to 30 days? "Curiouser and curiouser!".

[un barbu]

Simon Russell Beale is a magnificent Charlus and Fenella Woolgar has in her Duchesse de Guermantes something of an 1890s Pandora Ingleby-Thomas. I am finding more and more to enjoy in this production.