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michaelwong's review against another edition
5.0
"I imagined that the Seine, flowing through the oops formed by the bridges and the reflexion of their arches in the water, must resemble the Bosporus." p. 77
"...the remarkable disproportion between the distance he covered and the few seconds he took to execute this sortie..." p. 78
"If I really had the soul of an artist, what pleasure would I not derive...in those little flowers growing along the roadbed and raising their heads almost to the step of the railway carriage, so near I could count their petals, but I shall take good heed not to describe their color, for who can hope to convey to another a pleasure he has not himself felt?" p. 110
"...the letters that made up that name, so familiar yet so mysterious...declared their independence and seemed to outline before my weary eyes a name that was strange to me." p. 111
"began thinking again of that lassitude, that weariness with which I had tried the evening “before to note the railway line which separated the shadow from the light upon the trees in one of the most beautiful countrysides in France. Certainly such intellectual conclusions as I had drawn from these thoughts did not affect my sensibility so cruelly to-day, but they remained the same” p. 117
"...one of my feet stepped on a flagstone lower than the one next it. In that instant all my discouragement disappeared and I was possessed by the same felicity which at different moments of my life had given me...” p. 118-119
The flagstones are my favorite passage of all volumes.
"...I understood too clearly that the sensation of the uneven flagstones, the stiffness of the napkin and the savour of the adeleine had awakened in me something that had no relation to what I used to endeavour to recall to mind..." p. 121
"...the remarkable disproportion between the distance he covered and the few seconds he took to execute this sortie..." p. 78
"If I really had the soul of an artist, what pleasure would I not derive...in those little flowers growing along the roadbed and raising their heads almost to the step of the railway carriage, so near I could count their petals, but I shall take good heed not to describe their color, for who can hope to convey to another a pleasure he has not himself felt?" p. 110
"...the letters that made up that name, so familiar yet so mysterious...declared their independence and seemed to outline before my weary eyes a name that was strange to me." p. 111
"began thinking again of that lassitude, that weariness with which I had tried the evening “before to note the railway line which separated the shadow from the light upon the trees in one of the most beautiful countrysides in France. Certainly such intellectual conclusions as I had drawn from these thoughts did not affect my sensibility so cruelly to-day, but they remained the same” p. 117
"...one of my feet stepped on a flagstone lower than the one next it. In that instant all my discouragement disappeared and I was possessed by the same felicity which at different moments of my life had given me...” p. 118-119
The flagstones are my favorite passage of all volumes.
"...I understood too clearly that the sensation of the uneven flagstones, the stiffness of the napkin and the savour of the adeleine had awakened in me something that had no relation to what I used to endeavour to recall to mind..." p. 121
steven_nobody's review against another edition
5.0
I'm glad I've finished this immense, magnificent, confusing work of art.... totally unique in all of literature, probably.
meehoi's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Wtf
amelia555's review against another edition
5.0
Funny how so many reviews of this one start with "I finished it!" In Search of Lost Time is a years-long reading experience for me, too, as I decided not to read the books one after another (and now I'd find it to be difficult as I drowned in Proust's writing, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes in agony). Yes, finishing it is satisying, but not just because you ended something you started long time ago, but because the ending is satisfying itself.
The narrator finally understood time, realized his own aging and mortality, it's an important moment not just in his story, it resonates with us, too (I can't say it happened to me yet, though, I'm still being silly). The vices the characters had became their undoing. The generations changed and those who were crème de la crème stopped being it without even noticing. It all made sense in the end.
The saga itself was sometimes exhilarating (that first volume!), sometimes almost physically painful (the whole time the narrator was talking about his love life). The thought of someday rereading it is scary to me now, but I'm certain I'll come back to certain parts. Thought-provoking, educational, charming, eyebrow-raising, funny, tedious, sad, monumental.
The narrator finally understood time, realized his own aging and mortality, it's an important moment not just in his story, it resonates with us, too (I can't say it happened to me yet, though, I'm still being silly). The vices the characters had became their undoing. The generations changed and those who were crème de la crème stopped being it without even noticing. It all made sense in the end.
The saga itself was sometimes exhilarating (that first volume!), sometimes almost physically painful (the whole time the narrator was talking about his love life). The thought of someday rereading it is scary to me now, but I'm certain I'll come back to certain parts. Thought-provoking, educational, charming, eyebrow-raising, funny, tedious, sad, monumental.
nick_jenkins's review against another edition
5.0
I believe that it is in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home that the father says something like, if you don't read the Recherche before you're thirty, you probably won't. Well, now i don't have to worry.
Seriously, though, Time Regained was my favorite volume of the novel, and it is rather shocking to see how immensely talented Proust is at achieving a range of effects that we surely have not yet seen: his description, for instance, of a zeppelin attack on Paris is astonishing, reminiscent of Wells in War of the Worlds.
This volume also is denser, I feel, in Proust's greatest strength, his combined mode of social observation / philosophical meditation that is neither about people or characters nor about ideas or truths, but about habits and norms. The closing passages about aging, for instance, are not really about how the specific characters of the novel have aged, nor about the metaphysical specter of the aging process, but about the conventional perceptions that people make use of to see aging as a set of recognizable deviations from a norm of youth, and about the equally conventional strategies by which people try to evade or confuse that code of perception.
Those passages are, incidentally, perhaps the best answer to Alison Bechdel's father: there may be something to what he says, but why that is (or isn't) is less about age than it is about our fears about the norms of aging, the habits that we fear we cannot break once we have settled into life. The novel itself, as the story of its own composition, reflects a late triumph over habit--Marcel breaks off from his procrastinatory life to commit himself to real writing. The cost is great, but it is also, I feel, an inspiration.
Seriously, though, Time Regained was my favorite volume of the novel, and it is rather shocking to see how immensely talented Proust is at achieving a range of effects that we surely have not yet seen: his description, for instance, of a zeppelin attack on Paris is astonishing, reminiscent of Wells in War of the Worlds.
This volume also is denser, I feel, in Proust's greatest strength, his combined mode of social observation / philosophical meditation that is neither about people or characters nor about ideas or truths, but about habits and norms. The closing passages about aging, for instance, are not really about how the specific characters of the novel have aged, nor about the metaphysical specter of the aging process, but about the conventional perceptions that people make use of to see aging as a set of recognizable deviations from a norm of youth, and about the equally conventional strategies by which people try to evade or confuse that code of perception.
Those passages are, incidentally, perhaps the best answer to Alison Bechdel's father: there may be something to what he says, but why that is (or isn't) is less about age than it is about our fears about the norms of aging, the habits that we fear we cannot break once we have settled into life. The novel itself, as the story of its own composition, reflects a late triumph over habit--Marcel breaks off from his procrastinatory life to commit himself to real writing. The cost is great, but it is also, I feel, an inspiration.
amaravia's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
I have been tandem reading the 7 volumes of Proust using an ebook and these Naxos recordings. Unfortunately the translator for the first six volumes never got to the 7th and so my ebook and this audio now differ and I can’t read and listen simultaneously. Much as I will miss the audio I’m going to stick with the ebook.
reading_at_the_zoo's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
cs4_0reads's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75