One approaches "The Proust Screenplay," by Harold Pinter …, determined not to complain that Proust's language has vanished. How could it not, given the foolhardy and fascinating idea of making a movie script of the immense "À la Recherche du Temps Perdu."… Still, one must marvel at how the playwright, a master of the laconic/elliptical/polymorphous-abrupt style of modern stagecraft, has cut this lushest of novels down from two million words to a string of four hundred and fifty-five shots….

Pinter's script makes no attempt to flesh out the dialogue with descriptive writing;… it places no significant reliance on the author's words in voice-over; and … it little resembles a conventional short story or novella. Indeed, I know of no other book that so uncompromisingly shows us what a film script looks like. Nor have I read another book, not even one of Beckett's, with such consciousness of the work...