On Translating Proust by His Translators - Maria Antonia Blandon

 

In the case of Brian Nelson, who recognized the importance of C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation and remarked how translations of an already translated text form a critique for their predecessor, he didn’t really stepped away from doing just that: criticizing Moncrieff’s choices, not out of spite, but with the argument that Proust’s style remained hidden beneath the embellishments in the English. Nelson highlighted the author’s style or tone in such a way that not even me, who has read In Search of Lost Time before, could associate with Proust. He describes it as plain, precise, rigorous, exact, when most readers (not just English readers, since I read it in Spanish) would use opposite words. In this regard we can side with Nelson in considering that embellishing Proust’s prose influences readership experience through the removal of those features that make French readers recognize his strangeness: “[…] a strikingly original new voice given shape in his native language” (14). Instead of discovering that stylistic disruption in language, readers of past translations would think of an outdated, rusty words that recall to a century before Proust.

In the case of Lydia Davis, whose reading I found to be particularly helpful in its pragmatism and in-depth illustrations, an invitation is made not to nitpick past translations, even though they are mentioned constantly, but to take a preferential look at the process of translating such a classic work. Her concept of close translation, a first approach to the whole process that implies blindness to the work, its critical ecosystem (in Proust’s case, related to his biography) and its previous translations, which allow concentration on the word-to-word, page-to-page, in a more manual instance to translate. She considers that close translation is hard and easier: “[…] harder because the confines are so tight, but easier for that same reason — you don’t have as many choices” (5), which makes up the first draft. For the second draft, Davis gives the reader a practical breakdown of the steps she takes to be influenced, little by little, by the author, his style and his life, with the purpose of stepping into a more creative process: “In the second draft, I began moving away from the very closest versions, but only as far as necessary to make a good piece of writing” (5).

In the case of Shirley Hazzard, who takes it upon herself to make a history of translating Proust, starting from Scott Moncrieff and going through the revisions or reworkings from Terence Kilmartin, D.J. Enright, and Peter Collier. From her reading I will only recall that almost arrogant drive subsequent translators for Proust feel when doing everything they can in differ from Moncrieff; as David Young eloquently wrote in his Petrarch introduction, “Why quarrel with success?” (32). Even though there is a lot to be suspicious about in Moncrieff’s translation, we cannot deny its favor by readers in past and present times who still consider it to be unchallenged; I guess it has to do with the voice Moncrieff has created in his translation, which takes from Proust but it’s not representative enough of his cadence, as Nelson commented, but that we can no longer disassociate from the author since Moncrieff's translation was the only access for his voice in a very long time.