Mary,
Oh Mary. Do try again if you must but don't hold me responsible for several more years of misery! I do respect differences of opinion.
Janet,
You know I love you from afar but your comments on the translatability of complex Latinate sentences into English seem doctrinaire, almost silly. Particularly when one considers that Proust modeled his prose style on that of John Ruskin. Almost everyone agrees that Proust in English reads wonderfully, even French scholars.
I've looked at the new Penguin tag-team translations of Proust. In almost every passage I've compared, I prefer the original Moncrieff (revised by Enright, etc.)
Best,
Slipp
P.S Editing in to say, Janet, I do appreciate that you grappled with the Italian into English and have an intimate view of the exigencies involved. And I know you admire and respect the differing capacities of different languages. But my comment largely stands.
[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited July 29, 2008).]
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