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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
david_rhee's review against another edition
4.0
It took me a couple years, but I finally finished the 7-volume In Search of Lost Time. I'm not big on milestones, but it's difficult to ignore the satisfaction felt at closing the last back cover on Proust's enormous masterpiece. The last volume, Time Regained, immediately impresses as a distinct book apart from the others. The focus of the early part of it is the effect of the World War upon the aristocratic circle of Proust, and the spotlight fixes upon M. de Charlus due to his pro-Germanism. To some characters, the war is nothing but a topic of conversation. To others, it reaches for their very lives and snatches them away. Proust reflects in his own familiar fashion upon the enthusiasm generated by wartime and the hatred it spawns.
The focus shifts rather abruptly to the topic of aging. As a reader, it is difficult to determine how much time has passed throughout the 7 volumes, but by the 7th it is surprising just how old everyone has gotten. The meandering thoughts of the narrator dwell upon the phenomenon of aging itself and the overtaking of the younger generation over the older along with its manifold effects. Naturally, the lives of many characters from previous volumes are revisited and the reader is thereby updated on the going's-on of a few forgotten souls.
The third major topic which occupies the narrative thought of Proust is the subjective life of a novelist. This is the most enjoyable section for its insight into Proust's own reflections concerning the writing of the very book the reader is enjoying. It is a sort of "preface" but one which is curiously located at the end of the book.
As for the whole work itself, would I ever revisit it? Due to its sheer length, I probably will not. Perhaps it is best to leave it at that...to look back upon it through the aqueous layer of time and memory and to enjoy its curious refraction through my imperfect recollection. Much like the other lost things of a past life, its beauty is thereby magnified or the form of that beauty will undergo the most unexpected of transitions.
The focus shifts rather abruptly to the topic of aging. As a reader, it is difficult to determine how much time has passed throughout the 7 volumes, but by the 7th it is surprising just how old everyone has gotten. The meandering thoughts of the narrator dwell upon the phenomenon of aging itself and the overtaking of the younger generation over the older along with its manifold effects. Naturally, the lives of many characters from previous volumes are revisited and the reader is thereby updated on the going's-on of a few forgotten souls.
The third major topic which occupies the narrative thought of Proust is the subjective life of a novelist. This is the most enjoyable section for its insight into Proust's own reflections concerning the writing of the very book the reader is enjoying. It is a sort of "preface" but one which is curiously located at the end of the book.
As for the whole work itself, would I ever revisit it? Due to its sheer length, I probably will not. Perhaps it is best to leave it at that...to look back upon it through the aqueous layer of time and memory and to enjoy its curious refraction through my imperfect recollection. Much like the other lost things of a past life, its beauty is thereby magnified or the form of that beauty will undergo the most unexpected of transitions.
braxwall's review against another edition
4.0
Den sjunde och sista boken i sviten knyter ihop säcken på ett rimligt sätt. Första världskriget har brutit ut. Berättaren befinner sig på vårdhem och kommenterar den bok han nu börjat skriva. Tiden korrumperar minnet och melankolin tränger sig på. Det blir uppenbart att berättaren lever långt från de personer som beskrivs och de ord som en gång har uttalats och som nu till stora delar också är glömda. Berättaren konstaterar att hög ålder är den livsform vi under längst tid av våra liv föreställer oss i abstrakta termer men nu när den konkretiseras har berättaren tappat tidskoncepten och som läsare undrar man om berättaren verkligen minns rätt. I denna sista bok ger berättaren upp och befriar läsaren fullt ut att ha sin egen tolkning av det vi läser och hur det förhåller sig till det som egentligen har hänt. Gott så!
likecymbeline's review against another edition
The first part of the last book has the most action to it. Paris in the Great War! BDSM gay brothels! But it transitions back into the type of reflection and society portraits we got accustomed to in all the other volumes. I liked the narrator's new awareness of involuntary memory, as again it struck me as what I'd been expecting from Proust. The Masque bored me again, even though I thought I might be a little interested in where the characters "ended up," if one can at this point presume anything even really ends.
It feels good to finish (I've got the Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free" playing in my head right now). I've tried to reflect on why I decided to stay with this. I started because I had suspected I'd probably enjoy the book, but I really didn't. Nothing about the experience seemed positive. No one expected me to finish or particularly cared. But once I'd started I had to know, I couldn't stay in ignorance, I couldn't be defeated by it, and I had to have this achievement even if it is a completely meaningless one.
It feels good to finish (I've got the Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free" playing in my head right now). I've tried to reflect on why I decided to stay with this. I started because I had suspected I'd probably enjoy the book, but I really didn't. Nothing about the experience seemed positive. No one expected me to finish or particularly cared. But once I'd started I had to know, I couldn't stay in ignorance, I couldn't be defeated by it, and I had to have this achievement even if it is a completely meaningless one.
9blums's review against another edition
5.0
wrap it up gossip girl
on a more serious note i almost gave four stars to this, but the fact is that if i read it as an entertainment read rather than for a class, i would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. i had to refrain myself from highlighting too many quotes, found myself compelled by proust’s bizarre narration, and against my own judgment wanted to know all about the guermantes and whoever else in society the narrator was associating with.
proust, you’ve built a cathedral. funny how you tried to be modest and pretended you thought you’d be forgotten by generations to come. you KNEW this was too good to be erased from history right
on a more serious note i almost gave four stars to this, but the fact is that if i read it as an entertainment read rather than for a class, i would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. i had to refrain myself from highlighting too many quotes, found myself compelled by proust’s bizarre narration, and against my own judgment wanted to know all about the guermantes and whoever else in society the narrator was associating with.
proust, you’ve built a cathedral. funny how you tried to be modest and pretended you thought you’d be forgotten by generations to come. you KNEW this was too good to be erased from history right
duffypratt's review against another edition
4.0
I checked back on my review of Albertine Disparu, and its been almost 8 years since I finished that one. Overall, if you take this series as a single novel, as I think you should, it is easily the book that has taken me the most time to finish. I figure that its been somewhere around 39 years. The extraordinary thing about that is that I haven't lost my impressions of many of the characters that are central to understanding this book, from Gilberte, to Saint-Loup, or Baron Charlus, or Mme Verdurin, etc... I think that says something about the power of Proust's characterizations. The more incredible thing, to me, is that having finally finished this monster, I am seriously tempted to start re-reading it. I have already re-read the first two books, in French. And I retook French in college, after having almost failed in it in Jr. High, mostly because I wanted to be able to read Proust in the original. Now that would be a project.
As a standalone novel, this book is probably pretty awful. There is one really startling thing in the book, involving Charlus, who does the most in these books to shock people. And this time is no exception, but I won't spoil it -- its so deliciously creepy. Other than that, this book reflects on everything that comes before, as Marcel finally realizes how he can proceed with the great work of his life, which is, of course, to write this book. On top of that, there are some reflections on war, on the destruction of towns and villages, and quite a bit on aging and death.
I'm still left with the uneasy feeling that Marcel is something of a monster. His monstrousness comes from a couple of sources: he absolutely elevates intelligence over feeling; he takes an almost solipsistic view of the world; his obsession with lost time, with his own past, makes him view the present moment as nothing more than a means to get at the past -- or perhaps more precisely, to step outside of time entirely. And he seems to genuinely feel that his insights are universal -- that everything he says that he feels will be immediately apparent to any of his readers of intelligence, so that we will be reading ourselves in his book.
That last point is the one that troubles me the most, largely because for much of the early books, that was exactly how I felt about much of his books. I was completely with him. And so now I wonder, did he lose me because I started to recognize him as a monster? Or did he lose me because I didn't want to recognize those same monstrous aspects in myself? And that's not a question that I can answer. But this last book makes me think that its more likely the former. I found his thoughts about aging to be repellent, and not sentiments that I tend to share at all.
But that's just quibbling. This is a truly great book, all 4000 plus pages of it. And I would have liked to read it in a different edition. I bought the books I have from a great little bookshop in Huntington on Long Island, called Oscars, way back in 1978. This books have impossibly small print that take up entire pages, and this volume comes in at about 270 pages, when a reasonable printing would put it at probably over 800 pages. I've also heard that Moncrief's translation makes Proust even more wordy and opaque than he already was, which is rather easy to believe. So it might be interesting to find another translation. Or I could just try the impossible, and start it in French again. "Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure." and away we go...
As a standalone novel, this book is probably pretty awful. There is one really startling thing in the book, involving Charlus, who does the most in these books to shock people. And this time is no exception, but I won't spoil it -- its so deliciously creepy. Other than that, this book reflects on everything that comes before, as Marcel finally realizes how he can proceed with the great work of his life, which is, of course, to write this book. On top of that, there are some reflections on war, on the destruction of towns and villages, and quite a bit on aging and death.
I'm still left with the uneasy feeling that Marcel is something of a monster. His monstrousness comes from a couple of sources: he absolutely elevates intelligence over feeling; he takes an almost solipsistic view of the world; his obsession with lost time, with his own past, makes him view the present moment as nothing more than a means to get at the past -- or perhaps more precisely, to step outside of time entirely. And he seems to genuinely feel that his insights are universal -- that everything he says that he feels will be immediately apparent to any of his readers of intelligence, so that we will be reading ourselves in his book.
That last point is the one that troubles me the most, largely because for much of the early books, that was exactly how I felt about much of his books. I was completely with him. And so now I wonder, did he lose me because I started to recognize him as a monster? Or did he lose me because I didn't want to recognize those same monstrous aspects in myself? And that's not a question that I can answer. But this last book makes me think that its more likely the former. I found his thoughts about aging to be repellent, and not sentiments that I tend to share at all.
But that's just quibbling. This is a truly great book, all 4000 plus pages of it. And I would have liked to read it in a different edition. I bought the books I have from a great little bookshop in Huntington on Long Island, called Oscars, way back in 1978. This books have impossibly small print that take up entire pages, and this volume comes in at about 270 pages, when a reasonable printing would put it at probably over 800 pages. I've also heard that Moncrief's translation makes Proust even more wordy and opaque than he already was, which is rather easy to believe. So it might be interesting to find another translation. Or I could just try the impossible, and start it in French again. "Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure." and away we go...
floriannepb's review against another edition
4.0
Malgré la conclusion intéressante, j'ai préféré Sodome et Gomorrhe et À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs de toute la Recherche.
jacquesdevilliers's review
4.0
In books of this scope, there are parts which have never had time to be more than sketched in and which will probably never be finished because of the very extent of the architect’s plan. Think how many great cathedrals have been left unfinished!
Proust was my great COVID read. I started A la recherche in October of 2020, at 4AM, sitting in the emergency room during a brief respite from kidney stones. A few days later I contracted COVID and read the remaining volumes battling the chronic fatigue that marked a particularly intractable form of the virus (writing this two days before the end of 2021, I still feel its effects). I recall finishing Le Temps retrouvé in March of this year, on what had been one of my better days.
There are obviously obstacles to reading Proust while ailing so. He’s hardly light reading. But to read Proust while sick is to also taste a little of the conditions of the novel’s making. For much of his life Proust was not a healthy man, and he died before finalising the final three volumes. This fear of incompletion in the face of illness becomes a theme in Le Temps retrouvé, just about the last theme Proust’s enormous novel tackles. It is moving to read, and beautifully written. But it also points to a fundamental weakness in the back half of A la recherche: there is much that is simply too rough.
Take Proust’s grand finale. A culmination of so many people, places, and memories, much of this last 150 pages are deeply moving. But it’s difficult to remain in this state when repetitions and inconsistencies abound. Significant passages repeat nearly verbatim. Characters like Rachel and M. de Guermantes appear to our protagonist and are recognised across the passage of years since they were last seen, only to reappear again a few pages later, seemingly for the first time, by a protagonist who can barely recognise them. Reading this kind of stuff makes me wish editors had more confidence in their own abilities, or at least weren’t cowed into feeling they have to publish everything verbatim. This work is obviously incomplete and not up to the standard of Proust’s finished writing. So do Proust the justice of editing it.
But ultimately the real magic of Le Temps retrouvé lies not on the narrative plane, but in the intellectual breakthrough Proust and his protagonist make. The middle and end parts read less like a novel and more like a philosophical rallying cry: to take up the task of creation in the face of inevitable death; to even use death and the obliteration of memory as your inspiration. It is poignant and galvanising and anyone at all serious about making any kind of art should probably read it.
Granted, doing so requires you to wade way deep and thoroughly submerge yourself in this oceanic novel. When I try now to recollect the months of reading Proust, I recall the experience as alternately exhausting and exhilarating. Granted I had chronic fatigue, but even a healthy person might feel like they’re drowning. And yet, starting in 2022 I know for certain that I will be re-reading Proust, traversing one volume a year, engaged in a seven-year orbit for as long as I may live. The novel is its own madeleine. There is so much unforgettable writing to forget and be sweetly reminded of all over again.
Proust was my great COVID read. I started A la recherche in October of 2020, at 4AM, sitting in the emergency room during a brief respite from kidney stones. A few days later I contracted COVID and read the remaining volumes battling the chronic fatigue that marked a particularly intractable form of the virus (writing this two days before the end of 2021, I still feel its effects). I recall finishing Le Temps retrouvé in March of this year, on what had been one of my better days.
There are obviously obstacles to reading Proust while ailing so. He’s hardly light reading. But to read Proust while sick is to also taste a little of the conditions of the novel’s making. For much of his life Proust was not a healthy man, and he died before finalising the final three volumes. This fear of incompletion in the face of illness becomes a theme in Le Temps retrouvé, just about the last theme Proust’s enormous novel tackles. It is moving to read, and beautifully written. But it also points to a fundamental weakness in the back half of A la recherche: there is much that is simply too rough.
Take Proust’s grand finale. A culmination of so many people, places, and memories, much of this last 150 pages are deeply moving. But it’s difficult to remain in this state when repetitions and inconsistencies abound. Significant passages repeat nearly verbatim. Characters like Rachel and M. de Guermantes appear to our protagonist and are recognised across the passage of years since they were last seen, only to reappear again a few pages later, seemingly for the first time, by a protagonist who can barely recognise them. Reading this kind of stuff makes me wish editors had more confidence in their own abilities, or at least weren’t cowed into feeling they have to publish everything verbatim. This work is obviously incomplete and not up to the standard of Proust’s finished writing. So do Proust the justice of editing it.
But ultimately the real magic of Le Temps retrouvé lies not on the narrative plane, but in the intellectual breakthrough Proust and his protagonist make. The middle and end parts read less like a novel and more like a philosophical rallying cry: to take up the task of creation in the face of inevitable death; to even use death and the obliteration of memory as your inspiration. It is poignant and galvanising and anyone at all serious about making any kind of art should probably read it.
Granted, doing so requires you to wade way deep and thoroughly submerge yourself in this oceanic novel. When I try now to recollect the months of reading Proust, I recall the experience as alternately exhausting and exhilarating. Granted I had chronic fatigue, but even a healthy person might feel like they’re drowning. And yet, starting in 2022 I know for certain that I will be re-reading Proust, traversing one volume a year, engaged in a seven-year orbit for as long as I may live. The novel is its own madeleine. There is so much unforgettable writing to forget and be sweetly reminded of all over again.
emroc15's review against another edition
4.0
Ma conquête de cette œuvre s’arrête ici. Que dire. Wow!