You surely don't think Kilmartin and Enright were just tinkering with the Moncrieff without reference to the French? The whole point of the revisions was to bring it closer to Proust Moncrieff took the easy way out sometimes and misunderstood the original other times, and the revisers cleaned up that stuff while leaving his brilliant English prose intact as far as possible. Which is why I recommend the new Penguin translations - not perfect, by any means, but a more immediate delivery of Proust. Kilmartin revised Moncrieff, and Tadie/Enright added yet another layer - making it three layers removed from Proust. I suspect the main reason for a new one was commercial (the old one was going out of copyright). I'm sure the new ones are good too, but I don't think anyone would claim there was a burning need to replace the old one. I'm reading the Scott-Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation (aloud, to my wife, with occasional reference to the original) and enjoying it thoroughly. (except for the labyrinth, where they leave their own secret marks - but this just adds to the complexity, delightfully so, don't you think?) I think of him as the architect and the translators as his tradesmen - laying the stones, carefully and beautifully, but always in the pattern dictated by master plan.

I don't really think it matters - if you are to fall in love with Proust, it will happen no matter who guides you. Of course, I love Moncrieff, and always will.

For most English readers the first reading was Moncrieff, and thus we cherish it. Little interest? Funny, because this is one thing that many readers of Proust are absolutely passionate about - and I think it is because, like our loves, our first reading becomes something very special, something that no further reading will ever approach, and so we hold it dear.

Best translation of swann's way