Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator

by Jean Findlay

Overview

The thrilling first-ever biography of Proust translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, penned by his great-great-niece

"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 . . ." With these words, Marcel Proust's narrator is plunged back into the past. Since 1922, English-language readers have been able to take this leap with him thanks to translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, who wrestled with Proust's seven-volume masterpiece--published as Remembrance of Things Past--until his death in 1930.
While Scott Moncrieff's work has shaped our understanding of one of the finest novels of the twentieth century, he has remained hidden behind the genius of the man whose reputation he helped build. Now, in this biography--the first ever of the celebrated translator--Scott Moncrieff's great-great-niece, Jean Findlay, reveals a fascinating, tangled life.
Catholic and homosexual; a partygoer who was lonely deep down; secretly a spy in Mussolini's Italy and publicly a debonair man of letters; a war hero described as "offensively brave," whose letters from the front are remarkably cheerful--Scott Moncrieff was a man of his moment, thriving on paradoxes and extremes. In Chasing Lost Time, Findlay gives us a vibrant, moving portrait of the brilliant Scott Moncrieff, and of the era--changing fast and forever--in which he shone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250906762
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	01/17/2023
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Jean Findlay was born in Edinburgh and studied law and French at Edinburgh University, then theater in Krakow with Tadeusz Kantor. She ran a theater company, writing and producing plays in Berlin, Bonn, Dublin, Rotterdam, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. She has written for The Scotsman, The Independent, The Guardian, and Time Out, and she lives in Edinburgh with her husband and three children. She is the great-great-niece of C. K. Scott Moncrieff.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction 1

1 Bloodline 7

2 Childhood 19

3 Winchester 34

4 First Love Affairs 44

5 To Edinburgh 57

6 Lightness in War 74

7 God in the Trenches 92

8 Critic at War 111

9 Wounded Out 127

10 In Love with Wilfred Owen 140

11 Sniping in the Literary World 164

12 Translating Proust 184

13 Writer and Spy in Fascist Italy 209

14 Discovering Pirandello 231

15 A Death and Eviction 258

16 Rome 274

Epilogue 295

Family Postscript 299

Sources 300

List of Published Works C. K. Scott Moncrieff 303

Published Sources 304

Notes 308

Index 333

Editorial Reviews

"A first-rate, playful, moving biography." --The Times (London)

"Jean Findlay . . . has given us at last a full portrait of this admirable man who, for most of us, has until now been only a shadowy figure." --Walter Kaiser, The New York Review of Books

From the Publisher

01/12/2015
Moncrieff (1889–1930), the celebrated Scottish translator who gave Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past its famous (and controversial) English title, led an exciting, even improbable life, as this informative biography from Findlay (his great-great-niece) reveals. Born into a distinguished but not particularly wealthy family, Moncrieff began writing poetry and fiction while in school and had no fixed career plans when he entered the Great War as a British Army officer. The sensitive Moncrieff somehow survived three grim years of active service before being invalided out with a grievous wound in his left leg. His admiration for the verse of fellow war poet Wilfred Owen (with whom he was in love) led Moncrieff to conclude that, by comparison, his poetry was too inferior to continue. He turned to translating, which led him to produce the first English translation of A la recherche du temps perdu, published in 1922. Viewing Moncrieff in the context of his turbulent times, Findlay writes with great insight into her subject’s inner life, especially his homosexuality. (On Moncrieff’s work spying for the War Office while translating Pirandello in Fascist Italy, Findlay writes, “Charles had already got accustomed to living parallel lives; secrecy came naturally to him.”) Readers should find Moncrieff as intriguing as the books he translated. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2014-11-29
C.K. Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930) was a poet, war hero, spy and, above all, one of the world's greatest translators. Journalist Findlay reveals his natural, effortless writing talent in this story of her great-great uncle.Moncrieff held a low opinion of his poetry, but his ability to recognize great talent brought him into the brotherhood of the great World War I poets, including Robert Graves, Osbert Sitwell, Siegfried Sassoon and, especially, Wilfred Owen. Moncrieff encouraged Owen in his writing, but it was his unrequited love of Owen that was most important. He vowed to give up poetry because his talent couldn't compare. So many of England's young intellectuals wrote of the horrors of war and never returned. Not so, Moncrieff; his work gloried in the chivalry and honor of soldiering and chronicled not blood and death, but flowers, integrity, friendship and the countryside. Beauty was his escape. Crippled by friendly fire and suffering from both shell shock and trench fever, he began writing reviews, criticism and translations. In 1919, he began to translate Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. It took nine years and seven volumes and was hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. So successful were his Latin, French and Italian translations that he was lauded as one poet catching the emotion of another. In the early 1920s, Moncrieff proposed that the passport office act as a cover for spies, and it was he who reported Mussolini's attempts at expansion. A spy's double life came easily as he'd been hiding his homosexuality for years. The most fascinating thing about Moncrieff is that he knew very little French grammar, and his Italian translations began even before he spoke the language. Findlay employs a vast family archive to bring this little-known writer to the fame he justly deserves, making readers want to turn back to Proust.

Kirkus Reviews