The final volume of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, released at the end of last month, is a landmark in audio publishing. The seven volumes — over twice the length of War and Peace — are narrated unabridged by the actor Neville Jason: at a staggering 150 hours, it is the longest audiobook in existence.
Between 1991 and 2000 Jason, who was awarded the Diction Prize at RADA by Sir John Gielgud, and appeared on stage with Olivier and Leigh, not only already narrated an abridged Proust for Naxos but actually abridged it himself. He worked with the translations by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, most of which appeared before Proust died in 1922, but Moncrieff never translated the final volume, Time Regained. Undaunted, Jason translated that himself too — which he then abridged. After 10 years, he has now completed the final step, of recording the whole work uncut.
Clearly, Jason is special: how could any ordinary mortal consider tackling those 3,000 pages of labyrinthine sentences weaving their sinuous way along 30 or 40 lines? His special skill — and here his training as a singer shows — is to recognise the music of each sentence, and phrase it through to the end. The result is a magical capturing of Proust’s melodious cadences, the syntactical wavelets linking his many clauses, which is so mesmerising and seductive for the listener.
Proust’s title A la Recherche de Temps Perdu became Moncrieff’s Remembrance of Things Past, taking the phrase from the memories recalled in ‘sweet silent thought’ by Shakespeare in Sonnet 30, in which he bewails ‘my dear time’s waste’. It was the death of Proust’s adored mother in 1905 which finally allowed him to make up for temps perdu and begin his monumental work.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in