From Powells.com
In her introduction to her magisterial new translation of Proust's Swann's Way, Lydia Davis states her goal: "I have attempted to stay as close to Proust's own style as possible, in its every aspect, without straying into an English that's too foreign or awkward." Without reading the original French, it's impossible to say how close she comes to Proust's style. But any reader of Davis's Swann's Way will be struck by how fresh, how funny, how lyrical, how affecting, and, yes, how readable her version is. I'm sure the original is just as good. Martin, Powells.com:
Synopses & Reviews
Marcel Proust's
In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest single work of the twentieth century. Since the original prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the original French. Now Viking makes Proust's masterpiece accessible to a whole new generation, beginning with Lydia Davis's new translation of the first volume,
Swann's Way.
Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood-a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the famous taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel Swann's Love, an incomparable study of sexual jealousy, which becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the book that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age-satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition-Swann's Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past re-created through memory.
Review
"What soars in this new version is the simplicity of language, and fidelity to the cambers of Proust's prose....Davis's translation is...magnificent, precise." Frank Wynne, Irish Times
Review
"Reading Swann’s Way was a rapturous experience." David Denby
Review
Indispensable... the crucial modernist work, overtopping the books of even such giants as Joyce and Mann. (Peter Brooks,
The New York Times Book Review)
A sensitive and direct translation... Lydia Davis does us a great service in bringing us back to Proust. (Claire Messud, Newsday)
Review
"Proust is reliably lucid and almost invariably kind....The almost hypnotic effect of Proust is to...demonstrate that an apparently self-absorbed individual may yet draw his strength and his insight from a passionate engagement with the interior and exterior lives of others, as well as his own. On him not much was lost." Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)
Synopsis
- Viking will publish volume II of In Search of Lost Time, In the Shadow of the Young Girls in Flower, in 2004
Synopsis
Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way.
@RaidersOfTheLostTime I can’t wait for Mom to tuck me in. Perhaps I’m too old for this, but then I see light in the hall as she approaches and think, Nah!
My father wants me to stop behaving like such a little momma’s boy in front of the guests, but what does he know?
Aunt is such a big part of life. She’s also a big pain in the derrière. But ohhh, those snack-cakes make me so HOT.
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
Synopsis
Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Prousts masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Daviss internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swanns Way.
Synopsis
The first volume of the greatest novels of the twentieth century in Lydia Davis's masterful translation Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Prousts masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Daviss internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swanns Way.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
About the Author
Lydia Davis was awarded the 2003 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government for her fiction and her translations of such modern writers as Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris. She is the author of one novel, The End of the Story, and several volumes of stories, including Varieties of Disturbance, a National Book Award Finalist, and Can't and Won't, a New York Times bestseller. In 2009 her stories were brought together in one volume, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, which was called "a grand cumulative achievement" and "one of the great, strange American literary contributions" by James Wood in The New Yorker and "one of the great books in recent literature" by Dan Chiasson in The New York Review of Books. A MacArthur Fellow, Davis lives near Albany, New York. Lydia Davis was awarded the 2003 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government for her fiction and her translations of such modern writers as Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris. She is the author of one novel, The End of the Story, and several volumes of stories, including Varieties of Disturbance, a National Book Award Finalist, and Can't and Won't, a New York Times bestseller. In 2009 her stories were brought together in one volume, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, which was called "a grand cumulative achievement" and "one of the great, strange American literary contributions" by James Wood in The New Yorker and "one of the great books in recent literature" by Dan Chiasson in The New York Review of Books. A MacArthur Fellow, Davis lives near Albany, New York. Lydia Davis was awarded the 2003 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government for her fiction and her translations of such modern writers as Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris. She is the author of one novel, The End of the Story, and several volumes of stories, including Varieties of Disturbance, a National Book Award Finalist, and Can't and Won't, a New York Times bestseller. In 2009 her stories were brought together in one volume, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, which was called "a grand cumulative achievement" and "one of the great, strange American literary contributions" by James Wood in The New Yorker and "one of the great books in recent literature" by Dan Chiasson in The New York Review of Books. A MacArthur Fellow, Davis lives near Albany, New York.
Table of Contents
Swann's Way Introduction
A Note on the Translation
Suggestions for Further Reading
Part I: Combray
1
2
Part II: Swann in Love
Part III:Place-Names: The Name
Notes
Synopsis