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Introduction Entering the Garden

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The Gardens of Desire
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Proust remains as light and inviting as a feather bed, a nearlyinfinite mass of prose gently sighing up and down, like a calm seaglinting with myriad coins of moonlight.... Scott Moncrieff ’sornate and sinuous English prose, based upon the first, highlyfaulty French texts, was the gate that opened into Proust’sincomparable gardens, and one resists any alternation to sites ofenchantment.... Scott Moncrieff ’s was a labor of love, andProust has attracted other such labors in the form of precioussmall books of devotion. —John UpdikeA PROUSTIAN IDYLL: THE ORIGINS OF A “READING”This too is a book of devotion. I share Updike’s sentiments for Moncrieff ’s flawed translation: if some ofthe accuracy of the original text may have been sacrificed in translation, littleof its charm has been—which seemed more important to me at the time Ibegan writing this book, and still does. Added to this was the knowledge thatMoncrieff ’s translation had met with Proust’s approval—as if the author wasspeaking through this particular translator. In a letter to Moncrieff shortlybefore his death, Proust writes that he is “very flattered and touched by thepains you have taken over the translation of Swann. . . of all my translators indifferent languages, you are the only one to whom I have written. Perhaps itwas seeing the fine gifts you have brought to this translation... kindly giveyour publishers my compliments on a most noteworthy translation of Swann.”The objections Proust raises regarding Moncrieff ’s translations of his title forthe work and for its first volume are “tempered with much praise” (Selected Let-ters1918–1922, 448–449). Proust’s own success as a translator of Ruskin lends1introductionEntering the Garden
© 2004 State University of New York

Proust remains as light and inviting as a feather bed, a nearlyinfinite mass of prose gently sighing up and down, like a calm seaglinting with myriad coins of moonlight.... Scott Moncrieff ’sornate and sinuous English prose, based upon the first, highlyfaulty French texts, was the gate that opened into Proust’sincomparable gardens, and one resists any alternation to sites ofenchantment.... Scott Moncrieff ’s was a labor of love, andProust has attracted other such labors in the form of precioussmall books of devotion. —John UpdikeA PROUSTIAN IDYLL: THE ORIGINS OF A “READING”This too is a book of devotion. I share Updike’s sentiments for Moncrieff ’s flawed translation: if some ofthe accuracy of the original text may have been sacrificed in translation, littleof its charm has been—which seemed more important to me at the time Ibegan writing this book, and still does. Added to this was the knowledge thatMoncrieff ’s translation had met with Proust’s approval—as if the author wasspeaking through this particular translator. In a letter to Moncrieff shortlybefore his death, Proust writes that he is “very flattered and touched by thepains you have taken over the translation of Swann. . . of all my translators indifferent languages, you are the only one to whom I have written. Perhaps itwas seeing the fine gifts you have brought to this translation... kindly giveyour publishers my compliments on a most noteworthy translation of Swann.”The objections Proust raises regarding Moncrieff ’s translations of his title forthe work and for its first volume are “tempered with much praise” (Selected Let-ters1918–1922, 448–449). Proust’s own success as a translator of Ruskin lends1introductionEntering the Garden
© 2004 State University of New York
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