Book Review
Title: Life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff
Author: Jean Findlay
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0374119270
They say hereditary talents sometimes skip a generation. In this case it skipped three or four generations. The subject of the biography is one of the most talented writers (albeit lesser known) of the twentieth century, CK Scott Moncrieff. He was the undisputed premier literary translator of the period, especially noted for his translations of Proust and Stendhal. The talented author of this biography is his great-great-niece, Jean Findlay.
Findlay tells a well-balanced thorough story of Scott Moncrieff’s short life (1889–1930). She reveals the pain and struggle behind Scott Moncrieff’s astounding achievements. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Scott Moncrieff’s Proust is a masterpiece in itself” (297). Scott Moncrieff’s lifetime overlapped with that of Proust, knew the times and understood the subtleties and depth of Proust better than subsequent translators and critics who would try their hand many years later. In fact, Proust himself reviewed and approved of Scott Moncrieff’s translation, giving it the ultimate recommendation, and definitive authority on the work. Findlay brilliantly fleshes out the subtleties of Scott Moncrieff’s translations. She brings us into the times and the mind of her ancestor in a fascinating case study of rare genius.
From his earliest years, Scott Moncrieff was a natural when it came to languages. For example, to get into Winchester (the best high school in England), he had four days of eight exams (half-day for each exam). He mastered the exams, and especially excelled in the Greek and Latin exams. This was not to graduate from high school, but to get in, at age 13. He had translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses with adult understanding (which he had memorized earlier in his life) (35). He ultimately graduated from university with degrees in Law and Literature with first-class honors.
With his intimate understanding of Proust and his milieu, Scott Moncrieff was able to translate the seven volumes of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in eight years. For comparison, in 2002, it took a new team of seven translators seven years of dedicated time to do the same task that Scott Moncrieff had done alone in eight. Further, during that same eight-year period, Scott Moncrieff also translated Stendhal, Pirandello, and kept up his other journalistic work. In one six-year period, he translated fifteen volumes, compiled a genealogy, and wrote thousands of articles and letters. To let those achievements sink in for a moment, one sees a once-in-a-century stratospheric mind that had no peers.
Findlay also brings Scott Moncrieff’s everyday habits to life with compelling detail. Being a member of the family, she had access to thousands of pages of diaries and letters whose contents are made public for the first time in this biography. Scott Moncrieff never had a home as an adult. He moved around between various locations in Great Britain, France, and Italy. He was a solitary worker, but a very sociable friend during his brief breaks from work. He ate his meals out. He breakfasted, lunched, and supped with friends, colleagues, family members, and many famous figures of the times. These stories alone offer a fascinating look at the early twentieth century and the well-known figures of the time.
Scott Moncrieff had a strong sense of family responsibility as well. He supported and paid for the education of nine nephews and nieces after his two brothers’ illness and death. His maturity was no doubt accelerated by his experiences fighting in World War I. Due to Scott Moncrieff’s law degree, he entered the army as an officer. He saw action at the First Battle of Ypres, and others. Findlay provides very detailed events and experiences of Scott Moncrieff in the war. He developed a deep sense of faith (including conversion to Catholicism in 1915) and camaraderie among soldiers, and he kept a strong positive attitude despite the horrors of prolonged trench warfare. He was injured several times–he received a permanent injury in one leg that caused a painful limp for the rest of his life. He was awarded the Military Cross, the 1914–15 Star, the Silver Badge, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal (132).
After the war, Scott Moncrieff became a British spy. He joined Military Intelligence, liaising with MI5. The stated qualities that Scott Moncrieff possessed, which made him an ideal spy, were “sense of honour, courage, acumen, brains, audacity, and presence of mind” (210). He was assigned to the Office of Passports, covertly. There was an innocent community of English writers in Italy, so Scott Moncrieff’s journalism and being a professional translator, mingling with that expat community, constituted a perfect cover. Among other assignments, he monitored and reported on Mussolini’s naval and military activities. He stayed and worked as a British agent in Italy for eight years.
Jean Findlay’s biography gives us a window into a brilliant mind and a fascinating character that circulated in a highly charged period of history. In turn, Scott Moncrieff gives English speakers a window into the brilliance of Proust, Stendhal, Pirandello, and others. After a hundred years, Findlay brings her ancestor back to the fore and reminds us of this forceful and sublime figure. She does it with an aesthetic excellence that makes this biography a masterpiece of literature in its own right.