Chasing Lost Time

Sep 30, 2024 9:27 AM

Author:Jean Findlay

Chasing Lost Time

C. 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 – friends with Robert Graves and Noel Coward, enemies with Siegfried Sassoon and in love with Wilfred Owen.

Written by Scott Moncrieff’s great-great-niece, Jean Findlay, with exclusive access to the family archive, Chasing Lost Time is a portrait of a man hurled into war, through an era when the world was changing fast and forever, who brought us the greatest epic of time and memory that has ever been written.

Reviews

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

Passionate, risk-taking, aesthetically conservative: a compendious biography of Proust's great interpreter reveals the paradoxes of his varied career

—— DJ Taylor , Guardian

Jean Findlay... has at last given us a full portrait of this admirable man

—— New York Review of Books

Findlay assembles a fascinating man from a strange collection of fragments with style, fittingly enough, and wit

—— Ian Bell , Herald Scotland

Eager, conscientious, affectionate… Endearingly old-fashioned in its family piety, protective partisanship and unembellished decency… A work that murmurs and sidles in a self-effacing tone… A likeable, informative and poignant book that Findlay is uniquely suited to have written

—— Richard Davenport-Hines , Literary Review

There is a tenderness with which [Findlay] cherishes even the most inconsequential events… Fitting tribute

—— Jonathan Beckman , Daily Telegraph

Entertaining

—— Financial Times

Findlay’s welcome biography reveals him to be a fascinating character… Admirably and engagingly fulfils its brief

—— Peter Parker , Oldie

A revealing portrait of an extraordinary man

—— Independent

Findlay ably amplifies her portrait with family history and evocations of the Edwardian literary scene

—— New Yorker

Respectful and sympathetic

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Compelling

—— Clive Aslet , Country Life

A colourful treatment of a colourful life

—— Lady

Personal and affectionate tribute

—— Sally Morris , Daily Mail

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.

—— The Catholic Herald

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