Firstly I'd like to say that I've really enjoyed reading the contributions above; I stumbled across this thread after a google search for some much-anticipated Proustian discussion, and have since decided to sign up to the online-literature community, so thank you.
I'm nearing the end of Le côté de Guermantes, the first volume I'll have read entirely in french (albeit with some cross-referencing between the original french and the penguin translation by Mark Treharne), and I have to say that the latest penguin translations retain Marcel's voice, style, pace, elegance, and above all, simplicity* so well that I didn't feel any dissonance between the experiences of reading Recherche in both English and French. Maybe this is a testament to the proximity of our languages, such as similarities in our use of idiom? Or perhaps just an effect of consistently cross-referencing between the two editions (I'd be interested in other opinions on translating Proust).
For me, Proust's value lies in his ability to isolate universal moments that resonate with the reader; in Swann's way this most famously relates to the tumultuous feelings of anxiety and vulnerability that we all experience in childhood, but it extends beyond that. As someone who has watched younger family members grow up, I was moved by the following simile (copied from the Treharne translation):
I have chosen to leave out context in the interest of avoiding 'spoilers', since I'm not certain about the etiquette around plot-spoiling, being new to the community.
Perhaps this won't carry much resonance with others, but therein lies the beauty of Proust. You feel a personal connection to his poetic prose because of how it interacts with your own experiences, so I guess I can say he achieves a kind of 'tailored' or 'personalised' universality. For me, I remembered times when I would look after my younger relatives and find them innocently scampering around at bed time, or telling me about their dreams in a half-sleeping daze. Similarly, I felt a pang of guilt when reading Marcel's rumination on the nature of self-reproach, remembering and regretting an incident from my adolescence when I was cruel to my sister.And after the geraniums, by intensifying their brilliant colour, have put up a vain struggle against the gathering twilight, a mist comes to envelop the island as it falls into slumber; you walk in the moist darkness along the water's edge, where the only thing likely to startle you is the silent passage of a swan, like the briefly wide-open eyes and smile of a child in bed at night whom you thought was asleep. And because you feel alone and the world can seem far away, you long all the more to have a lover walking beside you.
On another level, I find Proust hilarious. There is a scene in which a younger Bloch (Swann's way) sobs at the thought of Marcel's grandmother taking ill in bed, so eager is he to convey his sensibility he neglects the fact that she was merely suffering from a momentary bout of cold, if that, thus betraying his pretentious nature; it still makes me laugh. Not to mention the antics of Aunt Léonie and the contradictions inherent to Françoise.
The more I read through the Recherche, I find myself talking to my friends about his characters as if I had just left their salon, they are some of the most multi-dimensional and life-like I've ever experienced, in spite of the chasm of epoch and social milieu that separates us.
These are my initial thoughts but I look forward to discussing more with you all.
* 'Simplicity' might sound odd, given his penchant for what a lot of people see as Proustian convolution, but I mean it to outline a contrast with some earlier translations that forsake Proust's style for unnecessary floweriness on the translator's part.
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