Kilmartin's Folly

Notes on "In Search of Lost Time"

Robert Homes

This essay is a criticism of Terrance Kilmartin's "correction" of the Scott Moncrieff translation of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I start with a brief introduction, followed by a few examples that demonstrate the folly of Kilmartin's work, next discuss my own love of and experience with Moncrieff's original translation, then debate the value of Kilmartin's new title "In Search of Lost Time" and end with a heartfelt conclusion.

Introduction

Fiction and Non-fiction are not identical or even fraternal twins. They're distant cousins. Non-fiction is not intended to be art, it is read strictly for information. Fiction is, or is intended to be, art and is read primarily for pleasure and entertainment.

We read fiction for two different reasons, primarily.

Some fiction we read for the sake of the plot. Most "genre" fiction (mystery, thriller, western, romance) is read for this reason, and its chief value is in its plot. Art may improve fiction of this kind, but basically we read it because it has a plot we enjoy.

The other reason we read fiction is for its artistic content. Usually, this means enjoying just "listening" to an author "speaking" to us, the artistic value of his (or her) sentences, and the brilliance or surprising nature of his ideas. This is the highest form of fiction. The best fiction of this kind is akin to poetry. It is this kind of fiction found in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

When a piece of "artistic fiction" is translated from a foreign language, the translator has a difficult job. Not only must he include the information conveyed by each sentence, he must also incorporate therein a sense of the art of the original. This is a job the difficulty of which we often take for granted; we don't appreciate the art of the translator himself.

In the case of Moncrieff's translation of Remembrance it is easy to see the translator's art in every sentence. Moncrieff's translation has got to be one of the greatest translations of an artistic work ever produced (in fact, the consensus of the experts is that Moncrieff's translation is just that), and the proof is evident on every page. Moncrieff's translation is, in itself, a true work of art.

The Moncrieff translation was the only version of Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu in English from 1922 (when Moncrieff's translation of the first book, Swann's Way, was published) until about 1980, when Terrance Kilmartin produced a version that attempted to correct Moncrieff's. Initially, the Kilmartin "correction" of Moncrieff kept Moncrieff's title, "Remembrance of Things Past." A later edition changed the title to "In Search of Lost Time." Random House, which published Moncrieff's original translation, owned the copyright to it. Moncrieff himself died in 1930. Random House adopted Kilmartin's new version of Moncrieff and has continued publishing Moncrieff's translation with Kilmartin's changes under the title, "In Search of Lost Time."

Kilmartin, while tinkering with Moncrieff's masterful and artistic translation, said his goal was to ensure that Moncrieff's translation stated the meaning of each sentence of Remembrance perfectly and exactly. The problem with this approach is that you can't always perform that task and at the same time provide a true sense of the art in Proust's original French. Art just doesn't translate exactly from one language to another. Moreover, a sentence or phrase may have two or more relevant meanings in the original language, but only one in the language of the translation. The translator of La Recherche must inject into the exact meaning of each sentence something of the art of Proust's original. This is not an easy thing to do. But Kilmartin, intent on his goal of forcing English words to state the exact meaning of Proust's French words, often forgets the art which Moncrieff so beautifully captured and conveyed.

Kilmartin didn't do the almost impossible job Moncrieff did, not even close; he simply took Moncrieff's translation and changed, added, or subtracted words in an attempt to force the Moncrieff work to state in English exactly what he thought Proust said in French; "art" seems to have had nothing to do with it.

This is evident everywhere in Kilmartin's "translation." Look at some of the greatest sentences ever written, as they appear in Moncrieff, and compare them to Kilmartin's dreary production. Everywhere you look, Kilmartin's changes to Moncrieff actually don't achieve his stated goal at all –- they don't change the meaning of Proust's sentences in any substantive way. Moreover, in the process of trying to force "exactness" – which he doesn't achieve in the first place -- Kilmartin diminishes or eliminates Moncrieff's art.

Kilmartin claimed that his corrections were needed because Moncrieff's original translation was "notoriously imperfect." While that seems to be a great exaggeration, it has turned out that Kilmartin's own "corrected" version of Moncrief was far from perfect itself, as shown by the examples in the next section of this essay. To get the Moncrieff translation back to what it looked like before Kilmartin adulterated it, William C. Carter, "the dean of American Proust studies" (Allan Pasco, Professor, University of Kansas), has begun issuing his own "corrected" version of Moncrieff, omitting many of Kilmartin's changes while replacing Moncrieff's words only where absolutely necessary to reach Proust's original meaning. So far, Carter has issued his versions of Moncrieff for the first two books of La Recherche, and plans to issue another volume each year until all seven books of Proust's masterpiece have been done. While Professor Carter's version is much better than Kilmartin's, I still feel that he has incorporated unnecessary changes to the Moncrieff original.

The Evidence

Here are some examples of what I call "Kilmartin's Folly" –- showing what Kilmartin has done to eviscerate some of my most beloved paragraphs in Moncrieff's translation of Swann's Way, the first book of Remembrance. I'm sure that most of these passages were also favorites of many other Proust readers, before they were partially ruined by Kilmartin in his "In Search of Lost Time". The following examples identify each change made by Kilmartin. As you will see, those adopted by Kilmartin are almost entirely unneeded and denigrate the art of Proust's and Moncrieff's originals.

Exhibit A

When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth's surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks. Suppose that, towards morning, after a night of insomnia, sleep descends upon him while he is reading, in quite a different position from that in which he normally goes to sleep, he has only to lift his arm to arrest the sun and turn it back in its course, and, at the moment of waking, he will have no idea of the time, but will conclude that he has just gone to bed. Or suppose that he gets drowsy in some even more abnormal position; sitting in an armchair, say, after dinner: then the world will fall topsy-turvy from its orbit, the magic chair will carry him at full speed through time and space, and when he opens his eyes again he will imagine that he went to sleep months earlier and in some far distant country.

Kilmartin

Kilmartin's Changes

heavenly bodies

consults them

dozes off

abnormal and divergent

for instance

go hurtling

another place

Comment

Note how Kilmartin's changes degrade the art in Moncrieff without substantially "perfecting" anything. The only phrase that both Kilmartin and Carter changed is "heavenly host", and that is the only one that might not have conformed to Proust's literal meaning.

Exhibit B

But for me it was enough if, in my own bed, my sleep was so heavy as completely to relax my consciousness; for then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep, and when I awoke at midnight, not knowing where I was, I could not be sure at first who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal's consciousness; I was more destitute of human qualities than the cave-dweller; but then the memory, not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived, and might now very possibly be, would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself: in a flash I would traverse and surmount centuries of civilisation, and out of a half-visualised succession of oil-lamps, followed by shirts with turned-down collars, would put together by degrees the component parts of my ego.

Kilmartin

But for me it was enough if, in my own bed, my sleep was so heavy as completely to relax my consciousness; for then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep, and when I awoke in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, I could not even be sure at first who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal's consciousness; I was more destitute than the cave-dweller; but then the memory--not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived and might now very possibly be--would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself: in a flash I would traverse centuries of civilisation, and out of a blurred glimpse of oillamps, then of shirts with turned-down collars, would gradually piece together the original components of my ego.

Kilmartin's changes

"at midnight" - > "in the middle of the night"

"be sure" - > "even be sure"

"destitute of human qualities" - > "destitute"

"traverse and surmount" - > "traverse"

"half-visualized succession" - > "blurred glimpse"

"followed by" - > "then of"

"put together by degrees" - > "gradually piece together"

"the component parts" - > "the original components"

Comment

It's truly sickening to see how Kilmartin ruined the beauty of some of the most beautiful language in Swann's Way -- WITHOUT IMPROVING THE MEANING OF ANYTHING!

Exhibit C

And the joy with which I first bound myself apprentice, when Françoise returned to tell me that my letter would be delivered; Swann, too, had known well that false joy which a friend can give us, or some relative of the woman we love, when on his arrival at the house or theatre where she is to be found, for some ball or party or 'first-night' at which he is to meet her, he sees us wandering outside, desperately awaiting some opportunity of communicating with her. He recognises us, greets us familiarly, and asks what we are doing there. And when we invent a story of having some urgent message to give to his relative or friend, he assures us that nothing could be more simple, takes us in at the door, and promises to send her down to us in five minutes. How much we love him--as at that moment I loved Françoise—the good-natured intermediary who by a single word has made supportable, human, almost propitious the inconceivable, infernal scene of gaiety in the thick of which we had been imagining swarms of enemies, perverse and seductive, beguiling away from us, even making laugh at us, the woman whom we love. If we are to judge of them by him, this relative who has accosted us and who is himself an initiate in those cruel mysteries, then the other guests cannot be so very demoniacal. Those inaccessible and torturing hours into which she had gone to taste of unknown pleasures--behold, a breach in the wall, and we are through it. Behold, one of the moments whose series will go to make up their sum, a moment as genuine as the rest, if not actually more important to ourself because our mistress is more intensely a part of it; we picture it to ourselves, we possess it, we intervene upon it, almost we have created it: namely, the moment in which he goes to tell her that we are waiting there below. And very probably the other moments of the party will not be essentially different, will contain nothing else so exquisite or so well able to make us suffer, since this kind friend has assured us that "Of course, she will be delighted to come down! It will be far more amusing for her to talk to you than to be bored up there." Alas! Swann had learned by experience that the good intentions of a third party are powerless to control a woman who is annoyed to find herself pursued even into a ball-room by a man whom she does not love. Too often, the kind friend comes down again alone.

Kilmartin

And the joy with which I first bound myself apprentice, when Francoise returned to tell me that my letter would be delivered, Swann, too, had known well-that false joy which a friend or relative of the woman we love can give us, when, on his arrival at the house or theatre where she is to be found, for some ball or party or "first night" at which he is to meet her, he sees us wandering outside, desperately awaiting some opportunity of communicating with her. He recognises us, greets us familiarly, and asks what we are doing there. And when we invent a story of having some urgent message to give to his relative or friend, he assures us that nothing could be simpler, takes us in at the door, and promises to send her down to us in five minutes. How we love him-as at that moment I loved Francoise=the good-natured intermediary who by a single word has made supportable, human, almost propitious the inconceivable, infernal scene of gaiety in the thick of which we had been imagining swarms of enemies, perverse and seductive, beguiling away from us, even making laugh at us, the woman we love! If we are to judge of them by him-this relative who has accosted us and who is himself an initiate in those cruel mysteries-then the other guests cannot be so very demoniacal. Those inaccessible and excruciating hours during which she was about to taste of unknown pleasures-suddenly, through an unexpected breach, we have broken into them; suddenly we can picture to ourselves, we possess, we intervene upon, we have almost created, one of the moments the succession of which would have composed those hours, a moment as real as all the rest, if not actually more important to us because our mistress is more intensely a part of it: namely, the moment in which he goes to tell her that we are waiting below. And doubtless the other moments of the party would not have been so very different from this one, would be no more exquisite, no more calculated to make us suffer, since this kind friend has assured us that "Of course, she will be delighted to come down! It will be far more amusing for her to talk to you than to be bored up there." Alas! Swann had learned by experience that the good intentions of a third party are powerless to influence a woman who is annoyed to find herself pursued even into a ballroom by a man she does not love. Too often, the kind friend comes down again alone.

Kilmartin's changes

"a friend can give us, or some relative of the woman we love" - > "a friend or relative or the woman we love can give us"

"more simple" - > "simpler"

"woman whom we love" - > "woman we love"

"torturing hours" - > "excruciating hours"

"had gone to taste" - > "was about to taste"

"behold, a breach in the wall and we are through it" -> "suddenly, through an unexpected breach, we have broken into them"

"moments whose series will go to make up their sum" - > "moments the succession of which would have composed those hours"

"as genuine as the rest" - > "as real as all the rest"

"to ourself" - > "to us"

"picture it to ourselves - > "can picture it to ourselves

"we possess it, we intervene upon it - > "we possess, we intervene upon"

"almost we have created" - > "we have almost created"

"waiting there below" - > "waiting below"

"very probably - > "doubtless"

"will not be essentially different" - > "would not have been so very different from this one"

"will contain nothing else so exquisite" - > "would be no more exquisite"

"so well able to make us suffer" - > "no more calculated to make us suffer"

"powerless to control" - > "powerless to influence"

Comment

It's just disgusting! Nothing whatever in Kilmartin's changes "corrects" Moncrieff's language in the slightest degree, and it's appalling how it destroys the beauty of Moncrief's work. All Kilmartin does is substitute his own choice of words for Moncrief's -- words that mean exactly the same thing as Moncrief's -- and his choices are totally without any art or beauty.

Exhibit D

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

Kilmartin

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because, of those memories so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

Kilmartin's changes

"the memory returns" -> "the memory revealed itself"

"church-time" -> "mass"

"good day" -> "good morning"

"of real or of lime-flower tea" -> "of tea or tisane"

"interval" -> "meantime"

"forms of things" -> "shapes of things"

Comment

The depravity continues -- this time destroying the beauty of one of the most famous and treasured passages every written.

Exhibit E

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

Kilmartin

And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

Kilmartin's changes

"once" -> "as soon as"

"crumb" -> "piece"

"flowers" -> "blossom"

"the scenery of a theatre" -> "a stage set"

"panel" -> "segment"

"was sent before luncheon" -> "used to be sent before lunch"

"just as" -> "as in the game wherein"

"bend" -> "twist"

"permanent" -> "solid"

"of its surroundings" -> "its surroundings"

"their proper shapes and growing solid" - > "taking shape and solidity"

Comment

The most famous passage in all of Rememberance, and Kilmartin has no problem ruining it! It makes you wonder why Random House abetted this travesty by publishing Kilmartin's stuff. Was it just for the money? Of course, it had to be. What is really horrible is the way everyone in the world has adopted this in place of Moncrief's original, the worst crime being calling Remembrance "In Search of Lost Time". (See below)

Exhibit F

To admit you to the 'little nucleus,' the 'little group,' the 'little clan' at the Verdurins', one condition sufficed, but that one was indispensable; you must give tacit adherence to a Creed one of whose articles was that the young pianist, whom Mme. Verdurin had taken under her patronage that year, and of whom she said "Really, it oughtn't to be allowed, to play Wagner as well as that!" left both Planté and Rubinstein 'sitting'; while Dr. Cottard was a more brilliant diagnostician than Potain.

Kilmartin

To admit you to the "little nucleus," the "little group," the "little clan" at the Verdurins', one condition sufficed, but that one was indispensable: you must give tacit adherence to a Creed one of whose articles was that the young pianist whom Mme. Verdurin had taken under her patronage that year and of whom she said "Really, it oughtn't to be allowed, to play Wagner as well as that!" licked both Planté and Rubinstein hollow, and that Dr. Cottard was a more brilliant diagnostician than Potain.

Kilmartin's changes

"left...sitting" -> "licked...hollow"

"while -> -> "and that"

Exhibit G

That sense of the complexity of the Bois de Boulogne which made it an artificial place and, in the zoological or mythological sense of the word, a Garden, I captured again, this year, as I crossed it on my way to Trianon, on one of those mornings, early in November, when in Paris, if we stay indoors, being so near and yet prevented from witnessing the transformation scene of autumn, which is drawing so rapidly to a close without our assistance, we feel a regret for the fallen leaves that becomes a fever, and may even keep us awake at night. Into my closed room they had been drifting already for a month, summoned there by my desire to see them, slipping between my thoughts and the object, whatever it might be, upon which I was trying to concentrate them, whirling in front of me like those brown spots that sometimes, whatever we may be looking at, will seem to be dancing or swimming before our eyes. And on that morning, not hearing the splash of the rain as on the previous days, seeing the smile of fine weather at the corners of my drawn curtains, as from the corners of closed lips may escape the secret of their happiness, I had felt that I could actually see those yellow leaves, with the light shining through them, in their supreme beauty; and being no more able to restrain myself from going to look at the trees than, in my childhood's days, when the wind howled in the chimney, I had been able to resist the longing to visit the sea, I had risen and left the house to go to Trianon, passing through the Bois de Boulogne.

Kilmartin

That complexity of the Bois de Boulogne which makes it an artificial place and, in the zoological or mythological sense of the word, a Garden, came to me again this year as I crossed it on my way to Trianon, on one of those mornings early in November when, in Paris, if we stay indoors, being so near and yet excluded from the transformation scene of autumn, which is drawing so rapidly to a close without our witnessing it, we feel a veritable fever of yearning for the fallen leaves that can go so far as to keep us awake at night. Into my closed room they had been drifting already for a month, summoned there by my desire to see them, slipping between my thoughts and the object, whatever it might be, upon which I was trying to concentrate them, whirling in front of me like those brown spots that sometimes, whatever we may be looking at, will seem to be dancing or swimming before our eyes. And on that morning, no longer hearing the splash of the rain as on the preceding days, seeing the smile of fine weather at the corners of my drawn curtains, as at the corners of closed lips betraying the secret of their happiness, I had felt that I might be able to look at those yellow leaves with the light shining through them, in their supreme beauty; and being no more able to restrain myself from going to see the trees than, in my childhood days, when the wind howled in the chimney, I had been able to resist the longing to visit the sea, I had risen and left the house to go to Trianon via the Bois de Boulogne.

Kilmartin's changes

"sense of the complexity -> "complexity"

"made" -> "makes"

"I captured" -> "came to me"

"prevented from witnessing -> "excluded from"

"without our assistance" -> "without our witnessing it"

"a regret for the fallen leaves that becomes a fever" -> "a veritable fever of yearning for the fallen leaves"

"may even" -> "can go so far as to"

"not hearing" -> "no longer hearing"

"from the corners" -> "at the corners"

"may escape" -> "betraying"

"I could actually see" -> "might be able to look at"

"look at the trees" -> "see the trees"

"passing through" -> "via"

Comment

More of the same. Horrible!

Exhibit H

"Oh, horrible!" I exclaimed to myself: "Does anyone really imagine that these motor-cars are as smart as the old carriage-and-pair? I dare say. I am too old now--but I was not intended for a world in which women shackle themselves in garments that are not even made of cloth. To what purpose shall I walk among these trees if there is nothing left now of the assembly that used to meet beneath the delicate tracery of reddening leaves, if vulgarity and fatuity have supplanted the exquisite thing that once their branches framed? Oh, horrible! My consolation is to think of the women whom I have known, in the past, now that there is no standard left of elegance.

Kilmartin

"How horrible!" I exclaimed to myself. Can anyone find these motor-cars as elegant as the old carriage-and-pair? I dare say I am too old now-but I was not intended for a world in which women shackle themselves in garments that are not even made of cloth. To what purpose shall I walk among these trees if there is nothing left now of the assembly that used to gather beneath this delicate tracery of reddening leaves, if vulgarity and folly have supplanted the exquisite thing that their branches once framed. How horrible! My consolation is to think of the women whom I knew in the past, now that there is no elegance left.

Kilmartin's changes

"Does anyone really imagine that" -> "Can anyone find"

"smart" -> "elegant"

"meet" -> "gather"

"fatuity" -> "folly"

"that once their branches framed" -> "that their branches once framed"

"Oh horrible" -> "How horrible!"

"I have known" -> "I knew"

"no standard left of elegance" -> "no elegance left"

Exhibit I

The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

Kilmartin

The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

Kilmartin's changes

"places that we have known" -> "places we have known"

"belong now only to the little world" -> "do not belong only to the world"

"None of them was ever more than" -> "They were only"

"particular form" -> "particular image"

The Proof

Did you notice that none –- not a single one -- of Kilmartin's changes improved the artistic worth of Moncrieff's wording? And did you also notice that every one of Kilmartin's changes actually degraded the artistic worth of those sentences? It's true. If you have any doubt, go back and review the changes Kilmartin made. Also, nowhere will you find any change that even altered the meaning of the original Moncrieff, much less improved upon it in any way! So much for Kilmartin's goal of improving the accuracy of Moncrieff's wording!

You don't need to be able to read French – English is just fine for this -- to know that Kilmartin's changes not only failed to improve either the accuracy or the merit of Moncrieff's English, they also worsened the artistic merit of Moncrieff's original translation. It's almost as if Kilmartin deliberately set out with that as his goal -– to worsen Moncrieff's language wherever he could. He couldn't have done a better job of it, whether or not he had that specific aim in mind. It reminds me of what has been done in recent years to the King James Bible, with various publishers "dumbing down" King James to make the Bible sound like current slang, in an attempt to appeal to the "lowest common denominator" of the reading public. That's no way to treat Proust or Moncrieff –- or the Bible either, for that matter!

I keep going back to a few phrases that I find most depressing in Kilmartin's Folly, wondering how and why he could have butchered Moncrieff like he did. One of the worst is the phrase "which once their branches framed" in Exhibit H. Kilmartin changed this to "which their branches once framed." With that simple stroke, the poetic rhythm of the thing was lost, while certainly there was no "perfecting" of the meaning. Then again, with "no standard left of elegance" which Kilmartin changed to "no elegance left", the poetry was lost with no change in meaning. The same is true for the all of the changes I've noted above.

Although I can't read French, I think I can find, just in the English used by Moncrieff and Kilmartin, evidence that Kilmartin himself misinterpreted Proust's language. In Exhibit H, for instance, Kilmartin changed "That sense of the complexity" to "That complexity". The remainder of the paragraph indicates that "sense" was important to Proust. Thus, shortly after this comes "I captured" (Kilmartin: "came to me"). You don't "capture" a complexity, you capture the sense of a complexity. A complexity doesn't "come to me", the sense of it is what "comes". This makes me think that Moncrieff's "sense of the complexity" was right, and Kilmartin's "complexity" wrong –- even though I don't have the benefit of comparing either to Proust's French. Mistakes like this don't happen if you just leave Moncrieff alone! As Kilmartin himself says, Moncrieff is "revered," and there's a reason for that. No one would revere Kilmartin's version if he or she compared it to Moncrieff's original translation.

The Perspective

I confess that I cannot read or write French. I cannot even speak it, except for a few random phrases that attached themselves to me via my full-blooded French grandmother, Marie Fuselier of New Iberia Parish and New Orleans, Louisiana.

But I think that very deficiency –- my inability to read French –- is exactly the reason why I fell so in love with Moncrieff's translation of Remembrance. There was more than enough beauty, humor, shock and awe in Moncrieff's English to compensate for missing Proust's original French. But I didn't appreciate at first just how amazing Moncrieff's translation was. Meeting up with Kilmartin's Folly is what brought home to me how truly astonishing Moncrieff's work was.

I must also admit that it was difficult for me to read Proust in the beginning. It took me several years to get past Overture, the first chapter of Swann's Way, which itself is the first book of Remembrance. Each time I would finish Overture, I would be so mentally exhausted that I would put the book down immediately. When I would, after some time, return to it I would start all over again from the beginning. After doing this several times, I finally progressed past Overture to finishing Swann's Way, then reading Within a Budding Grove and The Guermantes Way. I've gotten that far, and do not intend to die until I have read the rest. When I do die, it will be with the knowledge that I have read and finished the greatest book ever written in this sorry world.

Lest you think that my failure to finish Remembrance is an indication that I don't really love and appreciate Proust, I want to stress that the exact opposite is true –- my failure to get past the first three books is due in large part to my love of what I have read so far. In fact, I have read certain passages, which are surely among the greatest and most sublime sentences in the English language (and, I assume, in French also), over and over again. When I pick up Remembrance, I can't help turning back to my favorite passages instead of moving on. My wife now refuses to let me read them to her, she seems to have gotten so sick of hearing them. And I believe that those beautiful and awe-inspiring sentences –- in the version of Remembrance I am reading –- are the work not just of Proust but of his translator Moncrieff as well.

For those who haven't read Proust, I should say that many sentences in Remembrance are quite long and involved. (Ironically, the most glaring exception is the very first sentence: "For a long time I used to go to bed early.") While this makes reading difficult, it actually brings with it a pleasing sense of accomplishment when you have mastered one of Proust's longer sentences. While reading, you have to keep the subject of the sentence in mind for a long time, until you can connect it up with the end of the sentence. Contributing to the enjoyment are the surprising connections Proust often makes in the middle. To take one example among thousands, look at this relatively short sentence from The Guermantes Way: "I said to myself that the woman [Madame de Guermantes] whom I could see far off, walking, opening her sunshade, crossing the street, was, in the opinion of those best qualified to judge, the greatest living exponent of the art of performing those movements and of making out of them something exquisitely lovely." Do you see how "the art of performing those movements" is surprising and beautiful, not just in its wording, but in the idea expressed? Proust has hundreds, if not thousands, of these up his sleeve.

For me, poetry is the core essence of Remembrance. Much of Proust's masterwork is just as lyrical as poetry. There is a keen delight for me in reading and re-reading some of it. And the poetry in Proust (and Moncrieff) is of a very special kind. The beauty of the language is awesome. The brilliance and juxtaposition of ideas is so thrilling. I want to borrow something of a favorite poem of mine, "The Spell of the Yukon" to try to describe this:

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;

It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

The beauty of Proust's sentences and paragraphs does fill me with wonder. And I find peace in the coils within coils of ideas that reverberate throughout Remembrance of Things Past. And this beauty and peace is, to me, more important than the "plot" of the thing. "It isn't the gold that I'm wanting, so much as just finding the gold." It's something sort of like that.

Another thing you mustn't overlook is the rhythm of Proust's words as translated by Moncrieff. Take away that rhythm and you lessen the poetic value and the thrill of reading Proust and Moncrieff. Thus, when Kilmartin changes "the exquisite thing which once their branches framed" to "which their branches once framed" he takes a lot of the beauty out of the whole sentence, even the whole paragraph where that phrase appears; it certainly isn't very "exquisite" any longer!

Near the end of Swann's Way, Proust reminds us that "Because of the solidarity that binds together the different parts of a general impression, parts that our memory keeps in a balanced whole . . . we are not permitted to subtract or to decline any fraction." In the same way, his paragraphs are complete within themselves, and taking away even one word or phrase is not allowed. The language which is almost alive with the thrill and rhythm of its poetry then becomes a little dead. That is not allowed! Who gave Kilmartin the right to do this?

So, I almost don't really care what Proust's "theory" of time was, or which duchess or prince married which courtesan, or which party gave Proust the idea of recalling the past through the art and "remembrance" of his memories. Or how much time his Aunt Leonie spent at her window in "Combray!" He could be describing a party in Hell for all I care. It's his descriptions and art, the poetry and rhythm of Prost's words - and Moncrieff's - that I'm interested in, and those things are there in electrifying detail on almost every page. When Kilmartin lessens that electricity, it causes a little pain.

It's well known how much trouble Proust encountered in trying to get Swann's Way published. He wanted Nouvelle Revue Francaise as the publisher, but the NRF met his overtures with snubs, largely due to the initial adverse opinion of the great Andre Gide who, I believe, had some share, stake, or interest in that entity. Gide reportedly remarked then that no one would be interested in a book the first 60 pages of which were all about falling asleep at night! After Swann was published, Gide realized his error and wrote Proust this truly agonizing and amazing declaration:

"For the last few days I haven't been able to lay your book down. I am deep in the waters of delight. I wallow. I only wish that my passion for it didn't cause me so much pain. . . . The NRF's refusal of it is the worst blunder they ever made, and (for I, to my eternal shame, was largely responsible for their decision) sorrow and remorse will torture me until the end of my life. . . . It is not enough to say that I have come to love it. What I feel for it and for you is a sort of burning affection, a feeling of admiration, an adoration of no usual kind." Proust: Portrait of a Genius by Andre Maurois, Gerard Hopkins, translator, page 262 (Harper, 1950)

You can be sure that Gide's "affection, admiration, and adoration" were for Proust's beautiful and mesmerizing sentences, and not for the plot of his novel!

Proust was famous in school for what his classmates called "proustianisms" – his long, involved, complicated, and wondrous way with words and ideas. He was famous – in his little world - for such stuff long before Swann's Way appeared in the wider world. Those things carried over into La Recherche, made it the greatest book ever written, and without them, I doubt that anyone would much care what Proust had to say about anything, especially the things and people and places and ideas that appear throughout his book. His work is timeless because of its art, not its plot! This is the reason I'm so upset about Kilmartin's Folly. For those who care more about the plot of Remembrance, what Kilmartin did to Moncrieff's language probably doesn't matter a great deal. But for me, and for the art in every sentence of Remembrance, it does matter so very much. All this only makes Moncrieff's translation, and the way he captured the art of the "proustianisms" in La Recherche even more wonderful and thrilling.

Moncrieff was himself a poet -– maybe not a great, but certainly an ardent, one. According to his biography by Jean Findlay, he was by his own admission, a "second-rate" one. He proved – both that he was a poet, and that he was a second-rate one! - by including some of his verse in the prologue or forward portion of his translation. But for some reason, Moncrieff proved himself a first rate poet when it came to translating La Recherche into English. Unfortunately, Kilmartin does not appear to be a poet, ardent or otherwise. That much is demonstrated by the way he replaced "heavenly host" with "heavenly bodies" in Exhibit A above, or Moncrieff's "half-visualized succession of oillamps" with "blurred glimpse of oillamps" in Exhibit B. Ugh! What arrogance does the man have who can fiddle with Moncrieff's magical language in such a trifling and boring way! And does so without any rational purpose whatsoever, that I can see. It certainly wasn't, as he claimed, to "perfect" Moncrieff's translation, or make it more accurate, because it doesn't.

After reading and cherishing the two-volume Random House edition of Moncrief's translation for many years, I was surprised and shocked when I first heard that Moncrieff had been supplanted by a new version of himself, as edited by Kilmartin. The worst of it was hearing that Kilmartin had actually replaced Moncrieff's title, "Remembrance of Things Past" -– a cherished phrase taken from one of Shakespeare's sonnets –- with the utterly pedestrian "In Search of Lost Time." I still haven't gotten over the disappointment of that news.

Sometimes I wonder what was really behind the Kilmartin travesty. What, did Random House (who owns the copyright to Moncrieff's translation) want a "new" translation to sell at a new book price, in place of the old, well-worn Moncrieff? It had to be something like that, because Kilmartin's stated reason for his work -- to "perfect" Moncrieff, was thoroughly botched when Kilmartin did the opposite of that. Kilmartin's introduction to "In Search of Lost Time" (published by Random House) begins as follows:

"C. K. Scott Moncrieff's version of A la recherche du temps perdu has in the past fifty years earned a reputation as one of the great English translations, almost as a masterpiece in its own right. Why then should it need revision? Why tamper with a work that has been enjoyed and admired, not to say revered, by several generations of readers throughout the English-speaking world? The answer is that the original French edition from which Scott Moncrieff worked was notoriously imperfect."

As the "exhibits" quoted previously show quite clearly, Kilmartin's tinkering with Moncrieff's "enjoyed and admired, not to say revered" translation did not perfect it or improve its "accuracy", but on the contrary, denigrated and demeaned the art in it, wherever Kilmartin made any changes. Go ahead, re-read the exhibits above and see if you can conjure up the least bit of nerve to deny it.

The Title

As I just mentioned, Kilmartin's new title -– "In Search of Lost Time" -- is particularly offensive to me. What right did he (or, probably more correctly, Random House) have to modify in the least way Moncrief's sacred title? Not only does Kilmartin's new title fail to "perfect" Moncrieff's, it is disgustingly pedestrian, especially when you consider the beautiful and time-honored Shakespearean "Remembrance of Things Past" that Moncrieff used. In case you've forgotten, the sonnet (#30) in which that phrase appears goes this way:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
            I summon up remembrance of things past,
            I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
            And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
            Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
            For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
            And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
            And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
            Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
            And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
            The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
            Which I new pay as if not paid before.
            But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
            All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

Commentaries on Shakespeare's sonnet note that the phrase "remembrance of things past" also occurs in the Bible, in the Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 11, verse 12.

Shakespeare's Sonnet #30 is among the best of the 150 he published, and among the best poems in the English language. What was so wrong with that as a title for the translation of Proust's masterwork? And why did Kilmartin need to change it in favor of "In Search of Lost Time"? The two phrases say about the same thing, but the first has an honored place in the history of English poetry, and just sounds better and more artistic. "Things Past" is the same thing, isn't it, as "Lost Time". And a "search" for things past is the same thing as "remembrance" of them, isn't it?

No, Kilmartin and/or Random House had no right to distort Moncrieff's time-honored and revered title of "Remembrance of Things Past" into the boring and "workmanlike" (but unartistic) "In Search of Lost Time."

There is another possible reason why "Remembrance of Things Past" might deserve to remain -– now and forever -- the title of Proust's work in its English translation. That reason is that Proust himself might have used "Remembrance of Things Past" for his title.

The Year of Reading Proust by Phyllis Rose was published in 1997. Since I read just about anything that mentions Proust it its title, I had to read this book. A page in the front part of the book mentions that Phyllis Rose also wrote a biography of Virginia Woolf. (This has some significance for me because of Woolf's famous statement that she couldn't write for a year after reading Remembrance because she was so depressed at being unable to write like Proust. Maybe Ms. Rose knew more about Proust than you might think!) You will find this colloquy on page 95 of the paperback edition of Ms. Rose's book:

"Proust came up, because I was reading him, bogged down at the moment in Sodom and Gomorrah, still trying to get through the Verdurin's party at Balbec.

"'How would you translate recherche in A la recherche du temps perdu?' I asked Jack. . . . Instead of answering, he asked what the new translation of Proust did with the title, and when I said, 'In Search of Lost Time,' he shook his head.

"'It just doesn't have any poetry, does it? It's accurate, but it sounds so clunky. I mean, Remembrance of Things Past, how beautiful that is. Do you know where it comes from?'

"'I know the Shakespeare sonnet, if that's what you mean: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past."'

"'But do you know that when Voltaire translated Shakespeare's sonnets, he translated that phrase into French as "a la recherche du temps perdu"? That's where Proust got it. So when Moncrieff wanted to translate Proust's title, he went back to the Shakespeare sonnet Voltaire had been translating and came up with Remembrance of Things Past. The two phrases aren't literal translations, of course, but they have the same spirit, the same wistfulness, the same beauty.'"

Not being a Proustian scholar, unable to read French, and unaware of the fact that "In Search of Lost Time" was discussed by the literati as "better" than "Remembrance of Things Past" long before Kilmartin got involved (perhaps as far back as 1922, in fact), for a long time I thought the foregoing was true, or if not exactly true at least a plausible explanation that lent support for "Remembrance" as the correct title of Proust's work. Recently, though, I've learned that Mrs. Rose's reconstruction, or her friend's, is quite possibly wholly or partially false.

Moncrieff, born, educated, and residing in Scotland, finished his translation of Swann's Way while Proust still lived. Sydney Schiff, an Englishmen and a friend of Proust, saw an advertisement in an English paper of the upcoming publication of Moncrieff's translation of that first book of La Recherche and misunderstood Moncrieff's reasons for titling as he did the translations of both the entire work as well as its first book, and wrote Proust with his (erroneous) opinions. Schiff didn't realize that Remembrance had been adapted from the Shakespearian sonnet or that Swann's Way correctly interpreted Proust's title as referring to the walks he took with his family near Swann's estate in "Combray". Based on the errors claimed by Schiff in his letter to Proust, Proust wrote Moncrieff complaining about both titles but primarily about "Swann's Way". Moncrieff wrote Swann back inviting further discussion, but Proust died shortly thereafter (in November 1922), and apparently there is no further evidence of Proust's views regarding Moncrieff's choice of titles.

According to Wikipedia's article about Moncrieff, and/or the article by Professor Carter in the Public Domain Review mentioned below (which are the sources where I found out about all this), Proust's letter to Moncrieff, dated October 10, 1922, is archived in the National Library, Edinburgh; I can't find a copy of it in the two volumes of Proust letters I have. That makes little difference to me, though, because the letter (as described in the articles just mentioned) indicates that (a) Proust himself probably didn't name his entire work after a translation of "remembrance of things past" into French by Voltaire or anyone else, and (b) Proust was at least unsure about "remembrance" as a title for the entire work because his French title provided the idea of "time lost" which Proust wanted to correspond with the title of La Recherche's final book, Time Regained.

(The importance of this last point is lessened when you realize that the final volume of the translation changed its title, "Time Regained" according to Kilmartin, to "The Past Recaptured," reinstating the connection, which Proust desired, between that last book's title and the title of the whole work. Is seems to me that Schiff, who translated the last volume after Moncrieff's death, named it as he did just so Proust's desire to connect its English title with Moncrieff's English title of the whole work could be fulfilled. And it did exactly that! Of course, at the time the Swann's Way translation was issued and Proust's letter to Moncrieff was sent, any thought of a title for the final book probably existed only, if at all, in Moncrieff's own mind.)

Arguments about the issue of the title, Remembrance, seem to have begun back then, in 1922 or shortly thereafter, and continued until Kilmartin (or Random House) named his revised translation "In Search of Lost Time." But this doesn't end the debate for me. I still believe that "Remembrance of Things Past" is a better title for Moncrieff's translation of Proust's masterpiece than "In Search of Lost Time." Here are eight reasons why.

First, I can't completely dismiss Phyllis Rose's "Voltaire" scenario based on what I've read about Proust's letter to Moncrieff. Proust -- not able to read English well, in failing health, and surprised by the news of Moncrieff's translation –- may not have realized when he wrote the letter that "Remembrance of Things Past" corresponded with "A la recherche du temps perdu" in the way Rose describes. Proust may have read Shakespeare's sonnet in a French translation, used the "remembrance" phrase in it as his French title, without knowing exactly what the phrase was in English. Until I've seen Proust's letter to Moncrieff, I'm unwilling to finally let this "explanation" go.

Two things that would go a long way toward validating Ms. Rose's scenario would be to find (1) that Voltaire did in fact translate Shakespeare's sonnets, and (2) that he translated "remembrance of things past" in sonnet #30 into "a la recherche du temps perdu." Now, that would be something to give one pause! That would be something that could topple the Kilmartin/Random House edifice in one thundering blast. I wouldn't know how to find out either of those things, though. But a French scholar probably would. And one of those –- preferably one who has followed Kilmartin into the desert without finding gold -- should.

Second, the French title "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" can be interpreted several ways and (according to Carter's article) has at least two connotations that Proust wanted and that fit the entire work and the title of the final volume. Since I don't speak or read French, I can't say exactly what those connotations were, but I base this just on Carter's article about the debate. I doubt that the English language has a word or words that would convey both of those connotations at once and thus could fully and exactly express the meaning of Proust's title. In short, sometimes you can't accurately translate French into English, and this is one of those times. That's where some leeway must be allowed a translator, who should also (in the case of La Recherche) be a poet, with the skill to come up with, not the most accurate, but the best, translation of the French words into English. That might require words that are not completely "accurate."

Third, "Remembrance of Things Past" is, as I've already mentioned, really quite close in its meaning to "In Search of Lost Time." The phrase "lost time" is nearly the same thing as "time past." And "remembrance" is close to a "search" if what you're searching for is a memory, especially when you are "remembering" something suddenly after having forgotten it and the memory that is recalled is produced involuntarily, like Proust's memory of the taste of the famous madeleine (see Exhibit D above) triggered his recall of other memories of "Combray" as described in that famous sentence at the end of "Overture". Since no exact and accurate translation of Proust's title is possible, you would think that the use of a famous line from a Shakespearean sonnet that is so close to the same thing as "In Search of Lost Time" might do.

Fourth, Moncrieff devoted the last 10 years of his life to his translation of Proust's work, quitting his job to do so and working assiduously during all that time to create what is recognized as the greatest translation of a foreign work into English –- and not just any foreign work, but one of the longest and most complicated pieces of literature ever written. You would think that all this gave Moncrieff some claim to the right to choose his own title for the translation which he produced. Taking away the title he chose and replacing it with what was, in English, an inferior, pedestrian, and boring one that had close to the same meaning as Moncrieff's was a slight to Moncrieff. One must ask the question: Would Moncrieff, if he had any say in the matter, have approved the change? I seriously doubt it, especially because Moncrieff didn't change it even after receiving Proust's letter and for some eight years afterward until his death in 1930.

Fifth, others have observed that the world-wide recognition of Proust's work is due, not only to the beauty of Proust's language, but also, in substantial part, to the comparable beauty of Moncrieff's translation.

An article in the Public Domain Review entitled "Lost in Translation," written by William C. Carter, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (not far from where I live in Mississippi!), and author of Marcel Proust, A Life (2000), states:

"Proust’s debt to Scott Moncrieff is enormous, as is that of all readers who first discovered this vast novel in English translation. In a 1939 letter to his daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgerald gave his opinion: 'Scott Moncrieff’s Proust is a masterpiece in itself.' Harold Bloom observes that Scott Moncrieff made it possible for In Search of Lost Time to become 'widely recognized as the major novel of the twentieth century.'" (cf. Proust-ink.com)

According to Findley's biography of Moncrieff, mentioned earlier, Joseph Conrad declared Moncrieff’s translation to be better than the French original. Conrad learned French as a child and as a seaman aboard French sailing vessels in his younger days. And, of course, as a novelist and essayist he became one of the great masters of the English language. Due to his fluency in both French and English, his opinion is worth a great deal.

Thus, Proust's memory owes a debt to Moncrieff for his translation, and that further supports Moncrieff's right to choose what he, not Kilmartin or anyone else, found to be the best and most appropriate title for Remembrance of Things Past.

Sixth, let's not forget all the readers of Moncrieff's translation (including me), to whom "Remembrance of Things Past" has, for almost 100 years, been revered and treasured as the best book written in the 20th century. (For me, it is the best book ever written, period.) Should I and so many others continue to be horrified by Kilmartin's title change? Every time I see "In Search of Lost Time" in books, articles, and elsewhere, I cringe. I'll bet the rest of Proust lovers feel the same way. In fact, I'm guessing that Kilmartin himself feels a twinge of guilt or at least regret for having changed Proust's English title to something as plain and undignified as he did.

Seventh, After Proust's death in 1922, Moncrieff continued with his labors and translated most of the rest of Proust's work prior to his own death in 1930. During that time, Schiff got to be close friends with Moncrieff and realized the errors he had made when he wrote Proust about Moncrieff's translation of Swann's Way. Schiff, in fact, took over Moncrieff's work and did the translation of the last book of Remembrance -- The Past Recaptured (or, as Kilmartin also changed, Time Regained) -- dedicating his translation of that book to Moncrieff! I know of no evidence that during the remaining lives of Moncrieff and/or Schiff either of them ever thought of changing Moncrieff's chosen title to "In Search of Lost Time" or anything else. They stayed with the title Moncrieff had brilliantly connected to Proust's work, Remembrance of Things Past. That is the way it should remain until the end of time.

Eighth, I never was one to appreciate change, any change. I want the world to stay just as it is, at least for as long as I'm around to see it. What particularly galls me is to encounter change just for the sake of change. And that is what Kilmartin's Folly amounts to, it is a world-class example of change only for the sake of change and nothing more. It doesn't accomplish its stated purpose (tinkering with Moncrieff surely can't accomplish anything important); it leaves the core meaning of Moncrieff's words untouched.

In the last sentence of Swann's Way (one of my favorite passages from Remembrance as set forth in Exhibit I above) Proust says (in Moncrieff's translation): "remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years." Okay, but please, please don't let that include Moncrieff, for God's sake! (And note the word "remembrance" there!)

I suspect most Proust readers are like me with respect to unneeded change. After all, who could enjoy Proust's strange and captivating world of 18th Century Paris other than such folks? So I say, rid the world of unnecessary changes, and let Kilmartin's Folly be the first to go.

Conclusion

I wonder if any of those who have blindly accepted Kilmartin's "corrected" Moncrieff translation have actually double-checked to see whether Kilmartin achieved his stated goal of improving its accuracy. Did any of them have a favorite passage, or any wording in Moncrieff which they treasured and held sacred, as I did? Did any have a reason, as I did, to double check such favorite passage(s) in Kilmartin's "translation"? I so doubt it. If they had, they would have been surprised, then alarmed, then disgusted as they began looking into things, and finally rejected Kilmartin's "corrections" wholesale and gone back to Moncrieff's original and so beautiful translation.

Since learning of "Kilmartin's Folly", I've been on a mission. That mission is to buy each and every copy of a Moncrieff translation that I can find in any of the used bookstores I frequent, where I live now, and in my old town, New Orleans. So far, I've collected about six copies of the big two-volume Random House set (not counting the ones I've given to friends over the years), and about 20 Modern Library volumes of the individual books of Remembrance. And I'll keep going, because I know that with every book I buy, that's one more Moncrieff safe and sound. It may not be too long before they're all gone – not just from the libraries and bookstores where Random House's brand new In Search of Lost Time has already completely replaced Remembrance of Things Past, but also from the shelves of second-hand bookstores -– and where would that leave this sorry old world, without the greatest book in the greatest translation ever written?