Synopses & Reviews
Sodom and Gomorrah—now in a superb translation by John Sturrock—takes up the theme of homosexual love, male and female, and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Proust’s novel is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles in earlier volumes now reappear in a different light and take center stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus.
- First time in Penguin Classics
- A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French flaps and luxurious design
- The first completely new translation of Proust's novel since the 1920s
Review
"John Sturrock is pitch-perfect in
Sodom and Gomorrah, equally at home with its intimacies and its bitter comedy...poetic." —
The Irish Times
Synopsis
In 1989, the Bibliotheque de Pleiade published the final volume of the definitive original text of A la recherche du temps perdu. The Modern Library, In Search of Lost Time is the only complete translation into English based on the new French edition of Proust's masterpiece. Here D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation to create the peerless rendition of Proust for our day.
Synopsis
The Modern Library's "Sodom and Gomorrah" is the only complete translation into English based on the new French edition of Proust's masterpiece.
Synopsis
Like its predecessors, this wonderful new translation is certain to be hailed as a literary event, bringing us a more rich, comic, and lucid Proust than American readers have previously been able to enjoy.
In this fourth volume, Prousts novel takes up for the first time the theme of homosexual love and examines how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Sodom and Gomorrah is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that will inevitably supplant it.
Synopsis
"Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of "In Search of Lost Time. While watching the pollination of the Duchess de Guer-mantes's orchid, the narrator secretly observes a sexual encounter between two men. "Flower and plant have no conscious will," Samuel Beckett wrote of Proust's representation of sexuality. "They are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust's men and women . . . shameless. There is no question of right and wrong."
For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of "A la recherche du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade in 1989).
About the Author
Marcel Proust (18711922) is considered the greatest French writer of the twentieth century.
John Sturrock is a writer and critic who has previously translated Victor Hugo, Stendhal, and a volume of Prousts essays for Penguin Classics. He is consultant editor of the London Review of Books.