Description
Book SynopsisC. K. Scott Moncrieff's celebrated translation of Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu was first published in 1922 and was a work which would exhaust and consume the translator, leading to his early death at the age of just forty. Joseph Conrad told him, I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation': some literary figures even felt it was an improvement on the original.
From the outside an enigma, Scott Moncrieff left a trail of writings that describe a man expert at living a paradoxical life: fervent Catholic convert and homosexual, gregarious party-goer and deeply lonely, interwar spy in Mussolini's Italy and public man of letters a man for whom honour was the most abiding principle. He was a decorated war hero, and his letters home are an unusually light take on day-to-day life on the front. Described as offensively brave', he was severely injured in 1917 and, convalescing in London, became a lynchpin of literary society frien
Trade Review
A first-rate, playful, moving biography -- Roger Lewis * The Times *
Elegant and even-handed biography * Wall Street Journal *
In a hugely readable and well researched biography, Findlay paints a triple portrait of her ancestor – as a devoted family man, homosexual Catholic and cultivated spy – who turns out to be a far more engaging and fascinating subject than one would ever have imagined -- David Robinson * Scotsman *
The final revelation of Findlay’s book is that Moncrieff was far from the perfect Proustian of our imagination. Moncrieff is a lot more fun to be around than his careful sentences might suggest -- Adam Gopnik * The New Yorker *
A fascinating read * The Economist *
