A First Reading of Proust: Strong arguments for either the Moncrieff or Lydia Davis translations of Swann's Way?

By cosmicChair98

I’m thinking about jumping into *Remembrance of Things Past* / *In Search of Lost Time*, but I’m not sure how to pace it—maybe one volume a year, or maybe closer together. It’s also just so massive that I want to actually enjoy it and get something out of it, not slog through it. I’ve seen people argue for both the Moncrieff/Kilmartin translations and the newer Penguin ones. From what I gather, the Moncrieff/Kilmartin style is more old-timey and lush—maybe a bit florid, overwrought, and more “interpreting” than translating straight. The Penguin versions seem to be clearer and more literal, but possibly less fun or less exciting. I’ve tried some of the Enright revisions of Moncrieff and I didn’t click with it at all; it felt stilted and kind of clipped, like a chore to read. Meanwhile, both Moncrieff/Kilmartin and Lydia Davis’s *Swann’s Way* versions seem to move along okay for me. So I’d really like to hear why you’d pick one over the other. Are there specific parts where one translation feels way better? Any obvious misses—tone, mood, that whole “beauty” thing? And yeah, I’m less worried about getting the “most accurate” Proust-soul version and more about which reads best as English literature. If you’ve got any personal Proust stories from your reading experience, I want those too.