Fixing up Proust

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Fixing up Proust

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1eromsted
Redigerat: okt 23, 2006, 3:10 pm

I just spent a little time trying to get Proust's epic, variously translated as "In Search of Lost Time" or "Remembrance of Things Past," into order. Some work had clearly been done before, but I think its still not quite right.

Its a mess because the work has been published in several different editions with different parts combined together in different volumes. Of particular difficulty is that there seem to be both two volume and three volume editions titled "Remembrance of Things Past" and unless people indicate the contents in the volume titles, I don't know how to tell them apart.

Also needed are folks who speek other languages to ensure that the non-english editions are in the right places.

2rebeccanyc
okt 23, 2006, 5:21 pm

I will take a look at this at some point, since I have several versions of this, some from when it was translated as "Remembrance of Things Past" and a full set from the most recent more correct translation as "In Search of Lost Time." Don't have time to do it now.

What do the others here think about combining versions by different translators? (I'm referring just to different English translations here.) Also some versions use different French texts, and there are differing approaches to the later volumes which Proust never had a chance to edit himself.

I am NOT a Proust scholar; I just learned the above by reading the prefaces to the most recent English translation.

3SimonW11
okt 25, 2006, 3:37 am

i am in general against combining different translators. Most especially of literary work.

4rebeccanyc
okt 25, 2006, 7:56 am

I took a look at Proust yesterday and someone (eromsted?) did a terrific job of combining by title and combined volumes (i.e., different versions can contain different volumes of Remembrance/In Search combined in different ways). I think it would be very difficult at this point to separate by translator because it is far from apparent on the combine/separate page which book is which. This may be something that has to be left for each LTer's individual book page.

5lilithcat
okt 25, 2006, 9:00 am

If you look at Tim's remarks about combining, it would seem that combining of different translations is expected.

6eromsted
okt 26, 2006, 9:36 pm

Perhaps I can clarify why I bothered to post the original message. I frequently fix up combinations and if I think I've done the best possible job I wouldn't bother writing to this group about it. This may be the case here, but their are a few special complications with Proust that I thought someone with more knowledge or an even more meticulous temprement might like to work on.

1 - The non-English language editions. Except in limitied cases I don't have the language skills to combine these.

2 - When Proust's work was translated under the title "Remembrance of Things Past" there seem to have been both 2 volume and 3 volume editions produced. Volume 3 of the 3 volume set is easy enough to combine, but I don't know how to tell volumes 1 and 2 of the 2 volume set from volumes 1 and 2 of the 3 volume set unless the user happens to provide additional information.

3 - I agree with lilithcat that different translations should usually be combined. Usually sucessive translations are based on the same foreign language original. And as long as we are combining across languages, how would we pick which translation to combine and which to exclude?

However, this is a special case. According to the notes in my Modern Library edition, Proust never saw his full work through to publication. Only the first three volumes were published in his lifetime. As successive editors have tried to discern Proust's intentions, three distinct French editions of Á la recherche du temps perdu have been produced: first by Nouvelle Revue Française, then in 1954 a significantly reworked "Pléide" edition was published, and finally a second edition of the Pléide which appeared between 1987 and 1989. The differences are big enough that one could argue that these should be seperate "works" in LibraryThing.
The English translations have followed the successive French editions. Montcrieff's was based on the "Nouvelle Revue", Kilmartin's 1981 reworking was based on the first "Pléide," and Enright's 1992 revision for the recent Modern Library edition was based on the second "Pléide." One could argue that the translations should only be combined with their corrisponding French originals.

This is all more than I want to bother with. But I leave it as a challenge to others.