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michaelwalek's review against another edition
5.0
Like I'm going to say something original about Proust. Great job Marcel!
stejacks's review against another edition
5.0
For nearly a decade now, I have been telling myself that I should read Swann's Way (the first of In Search of Lost Time). Two years ago, I started listening to these books as audiobooks.
Today, I finished. It's a mournful experience, knowing that I will never again hear stories of the cast of characters, as real as those I meet day to day... at least until I listen to them all again.
I loved the characters. I hated some of them. I wanted to know what would happen to them, and yet wanted mostly to know what glorious words would come next. I laughed. I cried. It felt like I lived an entire life along with the people.
If you have not read Swann's Way, consider it. It's likely nothing like you imagine, but if you give yourself over to the flow of prose, it will sweep you away.
Today, I finished. It's a mournful experience, knowing that I will never again hear stories of the cast of characters, as real as those I meet day to day... at least until I listen to them all again.
I loved the characters. I hated some of them. I wanted to know what would happen to them, and yet wanted mostly to know what glorious words would come next. I laughed. I cried. It felt like I lived an entire life along with the people.
If you have not read Swann's Way, consider it. It's likely nothing like you imagine, but if you give yourself over to the flow of prose, it will sweep you away.
sarthaksaxena's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
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.
dngoldman's review against another edition
5.0
The last volume (or chapter) of Proust’s novel is a brilliant conclusion to In Search of Lost Time (ISOLT). Time Regained does more than conclude the story, but also synthesizes the preceding 6 volumes into a unified whole. In line with the overall theme of the novel, Time Regained recasts the reader’s understanding of the earlier chapters. The reader understands that the that have not been consuming 7 stand alone, but related, novels. Instead they have read one work with long chapters. The novel is so full of ideas, and so rich, that I simple stopped taking notes at some point. There was just too much! Note, that Ellison, David. A Reader's Guide to Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' Cambridge University Press was extremely useful in reading the entire series and helpful in writing these notes.
Reading this final volume made reading make reading the entire novel a more rich and rewarding experience. As I was reading, I constantly reflected on the themes of memory, time, the value of art, the uses of emotion vs logic, the nature of change, in my own life. Much to my wife’s dismay, I frequently raised Proust during conversations about many topics. I should note that “Time Regained” seems a fitting epigraph to 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.
Memory
Memory is the grand theme of ISOLT and Time Regained. Much is made of Proust’s theory of involuntary memory. But Proust goes far beyond providing a novelist’s description of how memory work. Memory becomes an organizing principle for how we organize reality. - Memory is not the facts or circumstances - it is the emotional content that comes with those facts. The memory of the Madeline, the uneven pavement, and small events become emotional touchstones.
But these moments can’t be achieved through logic, reason or normal “remembering” They come, and meaning emerges, in its “pure and disembodied” state, when we have been freed from the contingencies of everyday reality and from the constraints of habit.
who we are. The present day self is a conversation between the selves we were at various stages of our lives. Proust says that we day many times (515) - the Marcel who yearned for his mother to visit him before he slept, who followed Swan, who loved Albertine are all died. Even if those selves and are connection to those events is faded (e.g. Marcel has no present feelings for Albertine) those events remain important because they are “associated” with others. They become the connective tissue from which we view our present reality. Even in the case of Albertine I valued our only because it was associated in my mind without the sun setting over the seat. 229. Thus, we are reborn from the deaths of our prior selves and our current selves are really many past selves, in conversation with each other. For proust, This way unites the path of Swann’s way and the other paths are united.
…[I] was experiencing in the present moment at the same time in a moment far away, so that the past was made to encroach upon the present and make me uncertain about which of the two i was in; the truth was that the being within me who was enjoying this impression was enjoying it because of something shared between a day in the past and the present moment, something extra-temporal … This being had only ever come to me, only ever manifested itself to me on the occasions, outside of action and immediate pleasure, when the miracle of an analogy had made me escape from the present. it alone had the power to make me find the old days again, the lost time, in the face of which the efforts of my [voluntary] memory and my intellect always failed. (179).” These are “fragments of existence withdrawn from time” (268)
Reality of the Mind. Proust is no mystic. But he understands that our lived reality is not in objects, facts themselves, or “in the action” (271), but our mental characterization of them.
Passage of time/change
Proust remarks on the constancy of change based time. The theme unites the personal, cultural, and political events of the novel. Cultural - The grand houses, who seemed untouchable, are now déclassé. The music and literature fawned over decades ago now is silly. Political - those who were against Dreyfus now vouch support as if they always were. Everyone becomes a nationalist during the war, as if they always were. Personal- particularly effective is Marcell’s review of all his past “friends” during the final masquerade call. The reason this section is called “The Masked Ball” is that the ambitious bourgeois and complacent aristocrats we have met along the narrator’s path have become so ancient as to be unrecognizable: it is as if, hiding the faces with which we readers have become familiar, fanciful and grotesque masks. Yet, time is not uniquely a destructive force: it is an agent of transformation, of metamorphosis. A large section of the episode is devoted to minute and often amusing descriptions of the diverse ways in which the characters have taken on new and unusual forms.
The value of literature/Art:
All the arts are much discussed ISOLT, particularly literature. Yet, but he final volume, Proust questions it’s value. If literature is only the notational rendition or reproduction of exterior reality, there is no particular reason to devote one’s energies to it. (297). Thus, if there is no deeper meaning, Proust’s (and the Marcell’s) stated vocation is a waste of time. Descriptions of events themselves have their significance “extracted from them.” (298). Instead Proust realizes that the artist can have a special ability to become aware of the hidden reality by being “remote from our daily preoccupations, Remote from our daily preoccupations from which we separate ourselves buying ever greater golf as the conventional knowledge which we substitute for it grow thicker and more impermeable.” (298). The work of the artist is the struggle to discern beneath the matter beneath experience beneath words something that is different from them is a process exactly the reverse of that which is our every day lives” 298. It is only true art, and literature particularly, that can help us see the lives of others as a way to further help us see the connections and meaning in our own lives. (Readers are “Readers of their own selves, my book being merely a sort of magnifying glass like those which the optician uses. 508). “through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves to know what another person sees of the universe which is not the same as our own end of which without guard the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon.” 229. In the end, art, done a vocation, is the only way to regain lost time.(304)
Reading this final volume made reading make reading the entire novel a more rich and rewarding experience. As I was reading, I constantly reflected on the themes of memory, time, the value of art, the uses of emotion vs logic, the nature of change, in my own life. Much to my wife’s dismay, I frequently raised Proust during conversations about many topics. I should note that “Time Regained” seems a fitting epigraph to 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.
Memory
Memory is the grand theme of ISOLT and Time Regained. Much is made of Proust’s theory of involuntary memory. But Proust goes far beyond providing a novelist’s description of how memory work. Memory becomes an organizing principle for how we organize reality. - Memory is not the facts or circumstances - it is the emotional content that comes with those facts. The memory of the Madeline, the uneven pavement, and small events become emotional touchstones.
But these moments can’t be achieved through logic, reason or normal “remembering” They come, and meaning emerges, in its “pure and disembodied” state, when we have been freed from the contingencies of everyday reality and from the constraints of habit.
who we are. The present day self is a conversation between the selves we were at various stages of our lives. Proust says that we day many times (515) - the Marcel who yearned for his mother to visit him before he slept, who followed Swan, who loved Albertine are all died. Even if those selves and are connection to those events is faded (e.g. Marcel has no present feelings for Albertine) those events remain important because they are “associated” with others. They become the connective tissue from which we view our present reality. Even in the case of Albertine I valued our only because it was associated in my mind without the sun setting over the seat. 229. Thus, we are reborn from the deaths of our prior selves and our current selves are really many past selves, in conversation with each other. For proust, This way unites the path of Swann’s way and the other paths are united.
…[I] was experiencing in the present moment at the same time in a moment far away, so that the past was made to encroach upon the present and make me uncertain about which of the two i was in; the truth was that the being within me who was enjoying this impression was enjoying it because of something shared between a day in the past and the present moment, something extra-temporal … This being had only ever come to me, only ever manifested itself to me on the occasions, outside of action and immediate pleasure, when the miracle of an analogy had made me escape from the present. it alone had the power to make me find the old days again, the lost time, in the face of which the efforts of my [voluntary] memory and my intellect always failed. (179).” These are “fragments of existence withdrawn from time” (268)
Reality of the Mind. Proust is no mystic. But he understands that our lived reality is not in objects, facts themselves, or “in the action” (271), but our mental characterization of them.
Passage of time/change
Proust remarks on the constancy of change based time. The theme unites the personal, cultural, and political events of the novel. Cultural - The grand houses, who seemed untouchable, are now déclassé. The music and literature fawned over decades ago now is silly. Political - those who were against Dreyfus now vouch support as if they always were. Everyone becomes a nationalist during the war, as if they always were. Personal- particularly effective is Marcell’s review of all his past “friends” during the final masquerade call. The reason this section is called “The Masked Ball” is that the ambitious bourgeois and complacent aristocrats we have met along the narrator’s path have become so ancient as to be unrecognizable: it is as if, hiding the faces with which we readers have become familiar, fanciful and grotesque masks. Yet, time is not uniquely a destructive force: it is an agent of transformation, of metamorphosis. A large section of the episode is devoted to minute and often amusing descriptions of the diverse ways in which the characters have taken on new and unusual forms.
The value of literature/Art:
All the arts are much discussed ISOLT, particularly literature. Yet, but he final volume, Proust questions it’s value. If literature is only the notational rendition or reproduction of exterior reality, there is no particular reason to devote one’s energies to it. (297). Thus, if there is no deeper meaning, Proust’s (and the Marcell’s) stated vocation is a waste of time. Descriptions of events themselves have their significance “extracted from them.” (298). Instead Proust realizes that the artist can have a special ability to become aware of the hidden reality by being “remote from our daily preoccupations, Remote from our daily preoccupations from which we separate ourselves buying ever greater golf as the conventional knowledge which we substitute for it grow thicker and more impermeable.” (298). The work of the artist is the struggle to discern beneath the matter beneath experience beneath words something that is different from them is a process exactly the reverse of that which is our every day lives” 298. It is only true art, and literature particularly, that can help us see the lives of others as a way to further help us see the connections and meaning in our own lives. (Readers are “Readers of their own selves, my book being merely a sort of magnifying glass like those which the optician uses. 508). “through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves to know what another person sees of the universe which is not the same as our own end of which without guard the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon.” 229. In the end, art, done a vocation, is the only way to regain lost time.(304)
jasperantonelli's review against another edition
5.0
The perfect end to an imperfectly great novel. The reason it would be impossible to top this imperfect novel is that it completely, on multiple levels, encapsulates the mode of storytelling in the form of a novel. This is a much stranger book than you realize. Proust's world is not as it seems when you first read a summary or a blurb, or even hear somebody talk about it who didn't pay much attention. This novel captured the strange, uncanny nature that novels can evoke through narrative, prose styling, and characters (if you can say that it is not a solipsistic world). The lines blur between narrator and author, the novel you are reading and the work the narrator is writing (doing). Such a brilliantly strange, touching, and realistic (in the sense Proust would have appreciated) work.
kenningjp's review against another edition
5.0
Swan's Way is the probably the most read and Sodom and Gomorrah is a treasure trove for lovers of LGBTQ content by Time Regained is cognitive science and cognitive poetics in action. This volume gets inside of insights and reviews while also filling in some gaps.
bucket's review against another edition
4.0
My thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole are below! First, my thoughts on Time Regained:
Well, Proust definitely knew how to write a satisfying ending. The last 100 pages of the novel are a glorious culmination of the themes and ideas that have filled the previous 2900 pages. I did find things ever so slightly repetitive after a while, but not because Proust was literally repeating himself. This was more because he was coming at his major themes (time, memory, literature, art, change, identity) from an endless variety of closely-associated angles and teasing out every little nuance. For me, someone who is terrible at writing conclusions and summaries, this process was absolutely fascinating. Every step of Proust’s novel seemed to come into account here in the final volume and I was amazed and impressed.
My takeaways:
It’s not the wittiest or best-educated person who is a true artist, it’s the person who “can become a mirror and thereby reflect his life.”
We as individuals are many different people – each person who describes and judges us sees us as a different person and as we change over the course of our lives we become new people all the time.
“But it would be absurd to sacrifice to the symbol the reality which it symbolizes.”
Life seems dreary, even though so many moments are wonderful, because we base our assessment on memories, which are very different from actual life moments in that they no longer contain life itself, which is what is beautiful.
Experiencing a Proustian moment is basically being in two times at once – experiencing in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.
“The book whose characters are forged within us, rather than sketched by us, is the only book we have.”
Happiness is good for the body, sorrow strengthens the mind.
Life continues to weave new connections and ideas around old memories, even when you aren’t thinking about them. Then, revisiting them years later, you can find them much changed.
Some of the effects of time: “forgiveness, forgetting, and indifference”
“I was thinking of my book in more modest terms, and it would be a mistake to say that I was thinking of those who would read it as my readers. For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one of those magnifying glasses.. I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” (A means but not an end – a starting point.)
It is a universal feeling that we occupy an ever larger place in time as we age. “It was this notion of embodied time, of past years not being separated from us, that it was now my intention to make such a prominent feature in my work."
One niggling complaint –about the Penguin translation, not Proust. All throughout I’ve really been impressed with the group of translators who worked on this edition – the endnotes and introductory notes have been excellent, and the translation has read smoothly and fluidly. This final volume is, comparatively, quite subpar. Sentences are confusing – as though Ian Patterson, the translator, didn’t put enough time into ensuring their grammatical flow once translated – and there are actually quite a few missing words and other mistakes that aren’t original to Proust’s manuscript. Additionally, the introduction was very rushed and I got the impression Patterson’s heart wasn’t in the project. I definitely feel disappointed in his effort – especially since he chose to work on the novel’s very important culmination.
A distillation of my thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole:
I’ve always said that I’d rather a book be short on plot and long on thought than fast-paced and full of clever plot devices but lacking realistic characters and something thought-provoking to sink my teeth into. The fact that I truly loved reading this 3000-page novel, from beginning to end, puts my money where my mouth is. After all, the first volume (Swann’s Way) opens with 30-ish pages describing that weird feeling of waking up and not knowing for a split where, who, or when you are.
In Search of Lost Time is impossible to summarize, but here I go: The novel is about Marcel (the narrator, not the author) discovering, after a long life of distractions and failures, that he can reach the goal of writing a novel that he gave up long ago. The novel has two “I’s” - both young Marcel and old Marcel (writing the novel we’re reading) wax and wane throughout. This provides the reader with two different looks at characters and events that combine to give us a more rounded perspective. As Roger Shattuck, literary critic and Proust scholar says, this is just like the way that our two eyes with their slightly different locations on our face work together to give what we see depth.
There are dozens of central characters and plot points and hundreds of pages of philosophical musings and digressions, but the last 100 pages are a glorious culmination. Proust comes at his major themes from an endless variety of closely-associated angles, teasing out every nuance. Ultimately, I feel comfortable distilling In Search of Lost Time down to the following themes, in order of increasing importance, that will continue to haunt my thoughts for a long time:
Art and Literature – Proust is very clear that both literature and art are tools for human growth and reflection. This does not, however, mean that reading a good book or watching an acclaimed play will automatically change the reader/viewer and help her grow. Rather, literature and art are means to an end, starting points. As Marcel (our narrator) describes the readers of his novel: “For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one those magnifying glasses… I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” Merely having and experiencing the tool isn’t enough, the reader must then do his or her own internal work to gain from the experience.
Identity – We are, each of us, an endless number of people. As we change over time, we become new people. Additionally, we are a different person in the eyes of each person who knows us. As Marcel describes himself: “I was not one single man, but the march-past of a composite army manned, depending on the time of day, by passionate, indifferent or jealous men.”
Memory and Time – I’m discussing these two themes together because they are so interwoven. Proust very thoroughly show how our memories aren’t static, but are shaped and filtered by how our identity changes and what happens to us over time. Life weaves new connections and ideas around old memories, changing them. Proust also argues that the more we consciously focus on creating or thinking about a memory, the less real and visual it will be because we wring all the strength out of it. Involuntary memories – what readers of In Search of Lost Time would call “Proustian moments” – are the most potent. The most famous Proustian moment in the novel is when the narrator takes a bit of a madeleine cake he has dipped in tea and very suddenly recalls his childhood in an extremely sensual way. This moments allows the narrator to occupy two time periods at once, the one he is in and the one he recalls – he “experience[s] in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.” The novel closes with a rapid succession of five such moments, which ultimately lead the narrator to write his novel.
It took me six months to work my way through In Search of Lost Time and I would not be exaggerating to say that the experienced has changed me. My perspective has deepened, my self-visualization has been refined. And, to end on a lighter note, I’ve found another reason to read literature to add to my growing mental list:
“To read genuine literature is to accumulate within oneself a fund of possible experiences against which to achieve an occasionally intensified sense of what one is doing, to recognize that one is alive in a particular way.”
Through literature, the young look forward to life, and the old look back at it.
Well, Proust definitely knew how to write a satisfying ending. The last 100 pages of the novel are a glorious culmination of the themes and ideas that have filled the previous 2900 pages. I did find things ever so slightly repetitive after a while, but not because Proust was literally repeating himself. This was more because he was coming at his major themes (time, memory, literature, art, change, identity) from an endless variety of closely-associated angles and teasing out every little nuance. For me, someone who is terrible at writing conclusions and summaries, this process was absolutely fascinating. Every step of Proust’s novel seemed to come into account here in the final volume and I was amazed and impressed.
My takeaways:
It’s not the wittiest or best-educated person who is a true artist, it’s the person who “can become a mirror and thereby reflect his life.”
We as individuals are many different people – each person who describes and judges us sees us as a different person and as we change over the course of our lives we become new people all the time.
“But it would be absurd to sacrifice to the symbol the reality which it symbolizes.”
Life seems dreary, even though so many moments are wonderful, because we base our assessment on memories, which are very different from actual life moments in that they no longer contain life itself, which is what is beautiful.
Experiencing a Proustian moment is basically being in two times at once – experiencing in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.
“The book whose characters are forged within us, rather than sketched by us, is the only book we have.”
Happiness is good for the body, sorrow strengthens the mind.
Life continues to weave new connections and ideas around old memories, even when you aren’t thinking about them. Then, revisiting them years later, you can find them much changed.
Some of the effects of time: “forgiveness, forgetting, and indifference”
“I was thinking of my book in more modest terms, and it would be a mistake to say that I was thinking of those who would read it as my readers. For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one of those magnifying glasses.. I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” (A means but not an end – a starting point.)
It is a universal feeling that we occupy an ever larger place in time as we age. “It was this notion of embodied time, of past years not being separated from us, that it was now my intention to make such a prominent feature in my work."
One niggling complaint –about the Penguin translation, not Proust. All throughout I’ve really been impressed with the group of translators who worked on this edition – the endnotes and introductory notes have been excellent, and the translation has read smoothly and fluidly. This final volume is, comparatively, quite subpar. Sentences are confusing – as though Ian Patterson, the translator, didn’t put enough time into ensuring their grammatical flow once translated – and there are actually quite a few missing words and other mistakes that aren’t original to Proust’s manuscript. Additionally, the introduction was very rushed and I got the impression Patterson’s heart wasn’t in the project. I definitely feel disappointed in his effort – especially since he chose to work on the novel’s very important culmination.
A distillation of my thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole:
I’ve always said that I’d rather a book be short on plot and long on thought than fast-paced and full of clever plot devices but lacking realistic characters and something thought-provoking to sink my teeth into. The fact that I truly loved reading this 3000-page novel, from beginning to end, puts my money where my mouth is. After all, the first volume (Swann’s Way) opens with 30-ish pages describing that weird feeling of waking up and not knowing for a split where, who, or when you are.
In Search of Lost Time is impossible to summarize, but here I go: The novel is about Marcel (the narrator, not the author) discovering, after a long life of distractions and failures, that he can reach the goal of writing a novel that he gave up long ago. The novel has two “I’s” - both young Marcel and old Marcel (writing the novel we’re reading) wax and wane throughout. This provides the reader with two different looks at characters and events that combine to give us a more rounded perspective. As Roger Shattuck, literary critic and Proust scholar says, this is just like the way that our two eyes with their slightly different locations on our face work together to give what we see depth.
There are dozens of central characters and plot points and hundreds of pages of philosophical musings and digressions, but the last 100 pages are a glorious culmination. Proust comes at his major themes from an endless variety of closely-associated angles, teasing out every nuance. Ultimately, I feel comfortable distilling In Search of Lost Time down to the following themes, in order of increasing importance, that will continue to haunt my thoughts for a long time:
Art and Literature – Proust is very clear that both literature and art are tools for human growth and reflection. This does not, however, mean that reading a good book or watching an acclaimed play will automatically change the reader/viewer and help her grow. Rather, literature and art are means to an end, starting points. As Marcel (our narrator) describes the readers of his novel: “For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one those magnifying glasses… I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” Merely having and experiencing the tool isn’t enough, the reader must then do his or her own internal work to gain from the experience.
Identity – We are, each of us, an endless number of people. As we change over time, we become new people. Additionally, we are a different person in the eyes of each person who knows us. As Marcel describes himself: “I was not one single man, but the march-past of a composite army manned, depending on the time of day, by passionate, indifferent or jealous men.”
Memory and Time – I’m discussing these two themes together because they are so interwoven. Proust very thoroughly show how our memories aren’t static, but are shaped and filtered by how our identity changes and what happens to us over time. Life weaves new connections and ideas around old memories, changing them. Proust also argues that the more we consciously focus on creating or thinking about a memory, the less real and visual it will be because we wring all the strength out of it. Involuntary memories – what readers of In Search of Lost Time would call “Proustian moments” – are the most potent. The most famous Proustian moment in the novel is when the narrator takes a bit of a madeleine cake he has dipped in tea and very suddenly recalls his childhood in an extremely sensual way. This moments allows the narrator to occupy two time periods at once, the one he is in and the one he recalls – he “experience[s] in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.” The novel closes with a rapid succession of five such moments, which ultimately lead the narrator to write his novel.
It took me six months to work my way through In Search of Lost Time and I would not be exaggerating to say that the experienced has changed me. My perspective has deepened, my self-visualization has been refined. And, to end on a lighter note, I’ve found another reason to read literature to add to my growing mental list:
“To read genuine literature is to accumulate within oneself a fund of possible experiences against which to achieve an occasionally intensified sense of what one is doing, to recognize that one is alive in a particular way.”
Through literature, the young look forward to life, and the old look back at it.