[Janet Kenny]

Originally posted by Mike Slippkauskas:
Janet,

Thank you. (I think you cross-posted with my P.S.) I do know that Moncrieff was ornate and that he bowdlerized certain passages and metaphors. And that there have been textual advances since the first translations. These are issues that Enright deals with in his revisions of Moncrieff. And these revisions are more direct, plainer, dare I say more masculine, than those very first versions. Proust is at his absolute best, most moving, when utterly plain (I'm think in particular of the grandmother's long death scene.) I had looked forward for years to Richard Howard's announced complete translation but it was, alas, never to be.

My French is nil so I make do. The experience in English is huge enough. (And I do know of your general, and wise, distrust of translations. I just didn't know it extended as passionately to prose, ordinarily thought of as "translatable.")

Michael,
I learned to love Russian novels by way of what very knowledgeable Russian editors have told me was Constance Garnett's production line. I didn't know that the translations were dreadful because something of the original reached me and changed my life. Five minutes' conversation with the Russians convinced me that I had barely scratched the surface of the novels. Still, without Constance Garnett I wouldn't have even guessed at the world the novels represent.

I intended to improve my French but something always got in the way. I could sing in it and I still cook in it but now I wonder about trying some childish Pinyin Mandarin instead. Probably neither will happen.
Janet