Product Description

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation. Each book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135365 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is now generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris giving himself entirely to writing IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME.

Customer Reviews

The last leg of the Proust marathon is worth the effort, but perhaps not this edition
This final volume of 'In Search of Lost Time', which in the original French is titled 'Le Temps Retrouvé', has been translated into English at various times as 'Time Regained', 'The Past Recaptured' and, as here, 'Finding Time Again'. These different titles highlight one of the difficulties of translating Proust: do you go for the most literal meaning of the French or do you try to capture the essence of the original and worry less about accuracy? The general consensus seems to be that the earlier translations, by Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, are better at giving us the feel of the original, while the later works such as this recent Penguin edition are more literally accurate and feel less dated, but are not necessarily 'better'.

Proust died before finishing the manuscript and consequently this final volume has even more room for different interpretation than earlier volumes did. This version opens with Proust staying with his old friend Gilberte, now married to Saint-Loupe, at their Tansonville country retreat around the beginning of the First World War, looking back over his life and considering how he should write these memoirs. There are several accounts of visits to Paris, interesting in themselves as accounts of the city during the war.

As with all but the first volume of 'In Search of Lost Time', this book doesn't really work as a stand-alone novel. You need to have read the whole work to know enough about the characters to get the most out of it, so assuming you've already read the first five (or six, depending on which edition) volumes, you're likely going to read this one. The decision therefore is which version to go for. One criticism I would make of this edition is that it crams too many words onto a page, making it more difficult to read, and bearing in mind the long rambling sentences and paragraphs of Proust, this is not helpful. For this reason alone I prefer my 1992 Vintage edition, a DJ Enright revision of the Kilmartin translation (titled 'Time Regained') which runs to 450 pages (not counting all the notes etc) rather than the 355 of this one, the difference being almost entirely due to the type size.

In other respects too I prefer the earlier translation, which, to my mind, flows better. And what is the point in an English translation of keeping some quotes in French, as this new edition does? And also of using the French system of dashes to designate speech instead of quote marks? It all makes it less easy to read. So five stars because this is Proust, but really I don't recommend this particular edition, I'd go for the earlier Vintage version.

A satisfying climax
Like the previous one, I found the last volume very lucid and involving; I wonder if this is really the case, or just reflects my increasing comfort level with Proust's prose? It's quite a break with the previous volumes in some ways, chronicling the effects of the 1914-18 war on France, on Paris, on the places the narrator loves and on his social circle; then an accidental encounter with a gay brothel; then a fifty-page reflection on memory while the narrator walks upstairs from the courtyard to the Guermantes' party; then further meditations on age, on death, on what has happened in the previous volumes and on what drives the narrator to write it all down and turn it into a book. It is very satisfying, and now I want to go back and read it all again.