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fjg's review against another edition
4.0
Vad finns det att säga som inte redan har sagts om dessa 3000+ sidor av Proust?
1909 tog han en tugga av en madeleinekaka, och 13 år senare dog han efter att den fjärde volymen hade getts ut. Dessa år mellan ägnades åt ett livsverk där Proust sov om dagarna och skrev om nätterna vad som skulle bli världens längsta roman enligt Guiness.
Vad har jag upplevt under dessa tre månader av att läsa Proust varje dag? Mina upplevelser har sträckt sig över hela registret med allt från sorg, sentimentalitet och glädje till att vara uttråkad. På något sätt lyckas Proust fånga livet i realtid och ändå få mig att fortsätta läsa.
Höjdpunkterna? Utan spoilers: slutet på "Swann och kärleken", kärleken till Gilberte, Balbecresa #1, den centrala händelsen med mormor i del 3, slutet på samma del, slutet på del 4, svartsjukan i del 5, skildrandet av kriget, uppenbarelsen i mitten av del 7, och självklart även den avslutande delen av verket.
Bottennappen: 150 sidor + 200 sidor av tebjudning och middag i del 3 (dessa delar är viktiga, men sååå tråkiga att läsa), Charlus och Morel i del 4, de 50 låååånga sidorna i del 6 som behandlar döden och känns längre än alla långa sidor i del 3, och även de långa utläggningarna i första tredjedelen av del 7 som förstör mitt i krigsskildringarna.
Tack Proust - kommer att sakna dig, men är samtidigt glad över att slippa dig!
1909 tog han en tugga av en madeleinekaka, och 13 år senare dog han efter att den fjärde volymen hade getts ut. Dessa år mellan ägnades åt ett livsverk där Proust sov om dagarna och skrev om nätterna vad som skulle bli världens längsta roman enligt Guiness.
Vad har jag upplevt under dessa tre månader av att läsa Proust varje dag? Mina upplevelser har sträckt sig över hela registret med allt från sorg, sentimentalitet och glädje till att vara uttråkad. På något sätt lyckas Proust fånga livet i realtid och ändå få mig att fortsätta läsa.
Höjdpunkterna? Utan spoilers: slutet på "Swann och kärleken", kärleken till Gilberte, Balbecresa #1, den centrala händelsen med mormor i del 3, slutet på samma del, slutet på del 4, svartsjukan i del 5, skildrandet av kriget, uppenbarelsen i mitten av del 7, och självklart även den avslutande delen av verket.
Bottennappen: 150 sidor + 200 sidor av tebjudning och middag i del 3 (dessa delar är viktiga, men sååå tråkiga att läsa), Charlus och Morel i del 4, de 50 låååånga sidorna i del 6 som behandlar döden och känns längre än alla långa sidor i del 3, och även de långa utläggningarna i första tredjedelen av del 7 som förstör mitt i krigsskildringarna.
Tack Proust - kommer att sakna dig, men är samtidigt glad över att slippa dig!
jayshay's review against another edition
5.0
Who know if this is the correct edition, but you get the idea. I've read and loved the other six. This is the last and in a quite Proust-like fashion I've been putting this one off. Ah, delayed gratification, the ecstasy of the unopened book... Take this as a warning, Proust may very well warp your mind.
captainfez's review against another edition
4.0
Well, I did it. I survived In Search of Lost Time. Admittedly, this is probably easier to do in a year where chunks were spent in mandatory lockdown than in a year when you can do ... I dunno, anything. But here we are.
This review of the final volume of the Modern Library edition will probably serve as a review of the piece as a whole, as it's difficult to view them as anything except interlinked, because the individual books don't stand on their own merits – it's only as part of this elephantine endeavour that they can be appreciated.
Time Regained is a not-finished-thanks-to-snuffing-it attempt to bring everything full circle. Over the course of the work, we see most of the characters reappear, unless they're dead. It splits between different times – assuming you're not averse to creative continuity – and the thrust of the thing seems to be "getting old sucks" if one is unkind, or "time changes us all" if you're not.
A fair whack of this volume is taken up with an index to the entire work, filled with exhaustive detail. I suspect the best way to use the series is to treat it as a form of bibliomancy: think of a question, whack down a finger on the index and read the associated bit as a universe-driven, aesthete-crafted answer to your question. It would be no less enjoyable than reading the work from beginning to end, and you might luck out and land on one of those moments of crystalline beauty.
(You should probably prepare for a large amount of trying to figure how overlong dinner parties relate to your poser, however.)
The work ultimately links with its beginnings: just as a madeleine began this journey of memorial excavation, so too here do some paving stones force the Narrator towards his Sisyphean writing project. The ability of simple things to trigger profound memories, to access memories thought lost, on a visceral level; to allow the revisitation of prior states, and to accept how they've contributed to the person, years later.
I do understand that the enormous scope of the work is necessary for Proust's aim, which is to show that to understand a person you must understand the minutiae of their lives, the accumulations of good and bad baggage that weighs them through the years. I do also feel that the philosophical value of the work – abetted by the fact that its creation was such a Herculean work, particularly for a man who probably spent more time than most in swoons, hand on forehead – is perhaps overstated as the work has slid into the world of myth, of something to be conquered.
The problem with the novel as a whole is that it is remarkably monomaniacal. It is a work of obsession, not of editing. Revision upon revision clouds the thing, and the peccadilloes of the writer are not reined in, leading to a sprawl that it is almost impossible to have a complete handle on. Ulysses seems a lot more manageable, by contrast.
What makes the trip worthwhile, though, is Proust's skill as a miniaturist. As the crafter of portraiture, as the conveyer of tiny detail, he is beyond compare. This is why his benign memories hold such appeal, such sizzle: because each tiny detail has been judiciously worked and polished. It's why the social occasions are grindingly lengthy, why the descriptions of roads are fulsome. He cannot help but give you the whole impression.
I guess that's the conundrum with In Search of Lost Time: that its creator is at once a brilliant miniaturist and a fuckawful novelist. Without an editor to reel him in, Proust throws everything, including the kitchen sink in – but not without describing how there were marks in the enamel, just near the plughole, from where a clumsy scullery maid dropped a pan of petit pois because she was startled by the milkman one morning. It's relentless and difficult to keep hold of, but this (curiously) leads to what I perhaps feel is the defining sensation of the work: the feeling of floating across a sea of text, lambent and undulating, letting things slide by until a life raft of Important Narrative Event floats by.
There is a feeling that the lit grad in me delights in: the knowledge that I am one of those pricks that read Proust's work. I didn't chuck it a couple of volumes in – hello, sunk cost fallacy! – and I made it all the way through. It's a snobby thing, for sure, but part of me thinks "heh, that's one of the 26 in The Western Canon that I can tick off – I bet Harold Bloom would be impressed."
The thing is, I now wonder whether the idea of the work could stand in for the reading of it. It's been so distilled by now, and the madeline is so famous – like Charles Foster Kane and Rosebud (or C.M. Burns and Bobo, depending on your age) – that people kind of apprehend what Proust is getting at, without the need to read the whole thing. Don't get me wrong: I am glad I read it, because Proust's turn of phrase is winning, and there are some delightful passages. But I do feel curiously unphased about it. There's other books I've read that have had an electrifying effect, that I can't imagine leaving unread. But this is not one of those works. It's something I can admire, but after reading it, I cannot say that I am living a much richer life for having done so.
Like ol' Marcel, it's a conundrum. Hence the four stars: though I thought the final volume (much like its predecessor) was flawed, the temerity to actually create the thing is laudable, even if its instigator expired before its completion.
This review of the final volume of the Modern Library edition will probably serve as a review of the piece as a whole, as it's difficult to view them as anything except interlinked, because the individual books don't stand on their own merits – it's only as part of this elephantine endeavour that they can be appreciated.
Time Regained is a not-finished-thanks-to-snuffing-it attempt to bring everything full circle. Over the course of the work, we see most of the characters reappear, unless they're dead. It splits between different times – assuming you're not averse to creative continuity – and the thrust of the thing seems to be "getting old sucks" if one is unkind, or "time changes us all" if you're not.
A fair whack of this volume is taken up with an index to the entire work, filled with exhaustive detail. I suspect the best way to use the series is to treat it as a form of bibliomancy: think of a question, whack down a finger on the index and read the associated bit as a universe-driven, aesthete-crafted answer to your question. It would be no less enjoyable than reading the work from beginning to end, and you might luck out and land on one of those moments of crystalline beauty.
(You should probably prepare for a large amount of trying to figure how overlong dinner parties relate to your poser, however.)
The work ultimately links with its beginnings: just as a madeleine began this journey of memorial excavation, so too here do some paving stones force the Narrator towards his Sisyphean writing project. The ability of simple things to trigger profound memories, to access memories thought lost, on a visceral level; to allow the revisitation of prior states, and to accept how they've contributed to the person, years later.
I do understand that the enormous scope of the work is necessary for Proust's aim, which is to show that to understand a person you must understand the minutiae of their lives, the accumulations of good and bad baggage that weighs them through the years. I do also feel that the philosophical value of the work – abetted by the fact that its creation was such a Herculean work, particularly for a man who probably spent more time than most in swoons, hand on forehead – is perhaps overstated as the work has slid into the world of myth, of something to be conquered.
The problem with the novel as a whole is that it is remarkably monomaniacal. It is a work of obsession, not of editing. Revision upon revision clouds the thing, and the peccadilloes of the writer are not reined in, leading to a sprawl that it is almost impossible to have a complete handle on. Ulysses seems a lot more manageable, by contrast.
What makes the trip worthwhile, though, is Proust's skill as a miniaturist. As the crafter of portraiture, as the conveyer of tiny detail, he is beyond compare. This is why his benign memories hold such appeal, such sizzle: because each tiny detail has been judiciously worked and polished. It's why the social occasions are grindingly lengthy, why the descriptions of roads are fulsome. He cannot help but give you the whole impression.
I guess that's the conundrum with In Search of Lost Time: that its creator is at once a brilliant miniaturist and a fuckawful novelist. Without an editor to reel him in, Proust throws everything, including the kitchen sink in – but not without describing how there were marks in the enamel, just near the plughole, from where a clumsy scullery maid dropped a pan of petit pois because she was startled by the milkman one morning. It's relentless and difficult to keep hold of, but this (curiously) leads to what I perhaps feel is the defining sensation of the work: the feeling of floating across a sea of text, lambent and undulating, letting things slide by until a life raft of Important Narrative Event floats by.
There is a feeling that the lit grad in me delights in: the knowledge that I am one of those pricks that read Proust's work. I didn't chuck it a couple of volumes in – hello, sunk cost fallacy! – and I made it all the way through. It's a snobby thing, for sure, but part of me thinks "heh, that's one of the 26 in The Western Canon that I can tick off – I bet Harold Bloom would be impressed."
The thing is, I now wonder whether the idea of the work could stand in for the reading of it. It's been so distilled by now, and the madeline is so famous – like Charles Foster Kane and Rosebud (or C.M. Burns and Bobo, depending on your age) – that people kind of apprehend what Proust is getting at, without the need to read the whole thing. Don't get me wrong: I am glad I read it, because Proust's turn of phrase is winning, and there are some delightful passages. But I do feel curiously unphased about it. There's other books I've read that have had an electrifying effect, that I can't imagine leaving unread. But this is not one of those works. It's something I can admire, but after reading it, I cannot say that I am living a much richer life for having done so.
Like ol' Marcel, it's a conundrum. Hence the four stars: though I thought the final volume (much like its predecessor) was flawed, the temerity to actually create the thing is laudable, even if its instigator expired before its completion.
gh7's review against another edition
4.0
Proust is lauded for his pioneering insights into the relationship of the human mind with time. This is when he's his most inspired and dazzling. But I've spoken about that in my reviews of the other parts. What I liked a lot less was -
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.
teddy0009's review against another edition
5.0
Metafora morţii ca o prăbuşire de pe picioroange mi se pare cel mai inteligent lucru întâlnit într-o carte. Este pentru mine ca fraza lui Vinteuil pentru Swann.
garbo2garbo's review against another edition
4.0
Understandingly the most contemplative segment of In Search of Lost Time, Proust finally starts to realise that his own anxieties and hangups have perhaps resulted in him projecting his own needs onto his friends and lovers. He realises that perhaps he never really knew them, because he fixed them into this perceived idea he had of them. The scene at the masked ball was particularly interesting and philosophical about the movement of time, expectations, and understanding what is most important in life. A great way to finish this series.
ladydewinter's review against another edition
5.0
Writing a review for this feels somewhat silly, so I will simply say this: it took a long time to read this, but it was worth every second I invested in it. It’s a masterpiece, and also genuinely fun to read and such a pleasure.
jellyfish_7's review against another edition
4.0
"Tokiais atvejais labiau gailimės tų, kurių nepažįstame, kuriuos tik vaizduojamės, nei tų, kurie yra šalia mūsų vulgarioje kasdienybėje, nebent patys esame jais, vienas kūnas ir kraujas."