Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I began Vol. 1 on the Eurostar into Paris.
Vol. 2 got soaked through and warped on a long walk in Cambridge.
Vol. 3 kept me company on a living room floor in London.
Vol. 4 was hailed on near Brighton.
Vol. 5 and 6 were read at home in my loft-bedroom.
I completed Vol. 7 in Paris again, in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, in front of Proust's very tomb.
After a false start with Vol. 1 back in 2019, I finished Vol. 1 in 2020. It drained me but I was in awe of Proust. I took a long break before returning to Vol. 2 in 2021. By the time I was ready for Vol. 3, now in March 2022, I had been reading the novel for 2 years. Since March I have read a volume every month (technically two volumes in May as they are combined into one) to finish now, in June. My journey with Proust rushed to a sudden end after a long and slow beginning.
I was keen to see if it changed my life or something of the sort. I don't think it has, but maybe it's too early to tell. Am I glad I did it though? Or rather, was it worth it? I think it's hard to know how to answer that; I think there's so much pressure put onto making the most of your time, or not wasting time, these days. There's constant movement and stimulation from almost every direction. It's very rare to see someone just standing and staring into space. I think reading Proust is a little like putting the world into slow-motion, and even after putting the book down, the world is a little slower. That's the thing with reading, it helps us to understand, but it also helps us to think and to live. So in some way I could say Proust has helped me to live and understand better. It was really a test of endurance than difficulty; Proust is not 'hard' to read, he's just long, oh so long. The novel finishes at over 4000 pages long. For me the best volumes are the first and the third. The last three were never edited by Proust and they are full of inconsistencies, but having said that, the prose itself hardly suffers without the edits he probably imagined.
It's surreal to say I'm done, though I'm not and never will be. I guess thanks for the long ride, Proust. I wish I tallied up how long I physically spent reading these books, timed myself per reading session, to add it all up. The guy I work with has something like 4000 hours on this one particular computer game, which I worked out for him as being equivalent to spending five months straight without stopping. Five months of his life on a computer game. But we spend our time where we enjoy it, and he enjoys it. To him, no doubt, spending God knows how many hours reading this book about a boy dipping a biscuit into his tea and remembering the whole of his human experience and ruminating on life, art, time, memory, love, sexuality, being, etc., probably seems like an utter waste of time and effort. C'est la vie.
Volume 1 review.
Volume 2 review.
Volume 3 review.
Volume 4 review.
Volume 5 review.
Volume 6 review.
Volume 5 and 6 combined review.
Volume 7 review.
Vol. 2 got soaked through and warped on a long walk in Cambridge.
Vol. 3 kept me company on a living room floor in London.
Vol. 4 was hailed on near Brighton.
Vol. 5 and 6 were read at home in my loft-bedroom.
I completed Vol. 7 in Paris again, in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, in front of Proust's very tomb.
After a false start with Vol. 1 back in 2019, I finished Vol. 1 in 2020. It drained me but I was in awe of Proust. I took a long break before returning to Vol. 2 in 2021. By the time I was ready for Vol. 3, now in March 2022, I had been reading the novel for 2 years. Since March I have read a volume every month (technically two volumes in May as they are combined into one) to finish now, in June. My journey with Proust rushed to a sudden end after a long and slow beginning.
I was keen to see if it changed my life or something of the sort. I don't think it has, but maybe it's too early to tell. Am I glad I did it though? Or rather, was it worth it? I think it's hard to know how to answer that; I think there's so much pressure put onto making the most of your time, or not wasting time, these days. There's constant movement and stimulation from almost every direction. It's very rare to see someone just standing and staring into space. I think reading Proust is a little like putting the world into slow-motion, and even after putting the book down, the world is a little slower. That's the thing with reading, it helps us to understand, but it also helps us to think and to live. So in some way I could say Proust has helped me to live and understand better. It was really a test of endurance than difficulty; Proust is not 'hard' to read, he's just long, oh so long. The novel finishes at over 4000 pages long. For me the best volumes are the first and the third. The last three were never edited by Proust and they are full of inconsistencies, but having said that, the prose itself hardly suffers without the edits he probably imagined.
It's surreal to say I'm done, though I'm not and never will be. I guess thanks for the long ride, Proust. I wish I tallied up how long I physically spent reading these books, timed myself per reading session, to add it all up. The guy I work with has something like 4000 hours on this one particular computer game, which I worked out for him as being equivalent to spending five months straight without stopping. Five months of his life on a computer game. But we spend our time where we enjoy it, and he enjoys it. To him, no doubt, spending God knows how many hours reading this book about a boy dipping a biscuit into his tea and remembering the whole of his human experience and ruminating on life, art, time, memory, love, sexuality, being, etc., probably seems like an utter waste of time and effort. C'est la vie.
Volume 1 review.
Volume 2 review.
Volume 3 review.
Volume 4 review.
Volume 5 review.
Volume 6 review.
Volume 5 and 6 combined review.
Volume 7 review.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A disorienting, dissociative book - like nothing I've ever read. The 4200 pages are full of endless descriptions of random sights, memories, and senses, the plot, barely existent, moves forward at an arbitrary pace, and the detailed ramblings about deep, unconscious parts of the brain inevitably cause you to drift off and reflect what Proust is writing about onto your own life.
This is not a book you are supposed to pick up and read "properly", remembering who all the characters are and what exactly is happening in the plot. I think this is why so many people struggle to read this - approaching this like any other book is like trying to make sense of a dream after waking up. Most of the time you won't have any idea what's going on, you will drift in and out of the plot and blend Proust's experiences with your own - but in a book about buried, half remembered memories, about deja-vu and dissociation, isn't that exactly the point?
EDIT (some months later): I have decided to downgrade this from 5*s to 4. Two reasons: first of all, since finishing the book, I've barely thought about it, something which I generally want my 5*s to make me do. I've also thought more about the length of the book - is it an artistic choice, or just bad editing? Do the additional 3000 pages that follow the first 1000 really add much to what we get? If not, why are they there?
This is not a book you are supposed to pick up and read "properly", remembering who all the characters are and what exactly is happening in the plot. I think this is why so many people struggle to read this - approaching this like any other book is like trying to make sense of a dream after waking up. Most of the time you won't have any idea what's going on, you will drift in and out of the plot and blend Proust's experiences with your own - but in a book about buried, half remembered memories, about deja-vu and dissociation, isn't that exactly the point?
EDIT (some months later): I have decided to downgrade this from 5*s to 4. Two reasons: first of all, since finishing the book, I've barely thought about it, something which I generally want my 5*s to make me do. I've also thought more about the length of the book - is it an artistic choice, or just bad editing? Do the additional 3000 pages that follow the first 1000 really add much to what we get? If not, why are they there?
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Read in Portuguese, complete for the first time between April and June of 2015.
All volumes reviewed in my blog, in Portuguese, while reading:
Vol I - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/04/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-i.html
Vol II - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/04/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-ii.html
Vol III - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-iii.html
Vol IV - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-iv.html
Vol V - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-v.html
Vol VI - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-vi.html
Vol VII - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/06/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-vii-fim.html
All volumes reviewed in my blog, in Portuguese, while reading:
Vol I - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/04/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-i.html
Vol II - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/04/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-ii.html
Vol III - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-iii.html
Vol IV - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-iv.html
Vol V - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-v.html
Vol VI - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/05/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-vi.html
Vol VII - https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2015/06/em-busca-do-tempo-perdido-volume-vii-fim.html
challenging
dark
fast-paced
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
e
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
e
Read this in Dutch, and partly in French. The first parts contain wonderful scenes (the waking up, the madeleine-experience etc). The sentences are very slow, spiralling, but you get used to that. It all seems a bit trivial, non-spectacular, but after a while Proust keeps on spooking in your head.
The later parts are rather difficult, but the seventh and final book is definitely the best one. You can find the key to all the other books in there. Just one hint: it's all about memory and how that relates to reality!
The later parts are rather difficult, but the seventh and final book is definitely the best one. You can find the key to all the other books in there. Just one hint: it's all about memory and how that relates to reality!