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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
Wow, they don’t write books like this anymore! The melancholic reveries of memory are teased out over hundreds of pages into a beautiful tapestry. Though the story is long you become lost in its rhythms and cadences. At heart it is the story of a man remembering his childhood and a near neighbour Swann. But it so wonderfully evokes the society of the time. Poor Swann falls gradually madly in love with Odette. There are whole chapters on his jealousy and whether a gesture had been misread. Later we return to the narrator and his own love of Gilberte, the young daughter of Swann and Odette (who Swann married despite knowing she had slept with other men and women- only a few times...).
I've read about the powerful message of memories in this book, but... that seems the smaller picture to me. Yes, many times throughout the novel, the most trifle objects become the key to lost memories, but ultimately this seems a testament to love rather than rememberance. Love of family. Love of friends. Love of partners. Love of status. And most of all, love of self.
E' difficile scrivere di questo libro, perché è evanescente e pieno come solo le parole sanno essere.
Se lo penso, lo immagino come un volume cavo, in cui le pagine non sono scritte orizzontalmente, ma sprofondano sempre più giù, oltre la superficie: la capacità di Proust di osservare la realtà esteriore e interiore è straordinaria, tanto quanto lo è quella di renderla sulla carta con le sue magnetiche descrizioni, al tempo stesso dotate della trasparenza del sogno e della concretezza di una verità a lungo inseguita. Ogni volta che credevo che di qualcosa o di qualcuno avesse scandagliato tutto il dicibile, ecco che Proust mi sorprendeva aggiungendo qualcos'altro di assolutamente vero e non trascurabile, che io sbadata avevo dimenticato.
La scrittura è avvolgente, coinvolge l'intera sfera sensoriale e concentra su di sé tutta l'attenzione del lettore: il libro è esigente e non permette distrazioni, pena la sospensione dell'armonia e della magia del fluire delle parole, che finirebbero per non dire - da tutto - più niente.
La conclusione ci lascia sulla soglia di un mondo che sfiorisce, per aprirsi a qualcosa di altro; sulla soglia di una nuova storia, che al tempo stessa è anche la stessa, che ci attende nei successivi volumi dell'opera, che spero di avere presto occasione di leggere.
Se lo penso, lo immagino come un volume cavo, in cui le pagine non sono scritte orizzontalmente, ma sprofondano sempre più giù, oltre la superficie: la capacità di Proust di osservare la realtà esteriore e interiore è straordinaria, tanto quanto lo è quella di renderla sulla carta con le sue magnetiche descrizioni, al tempo stesso dotate della trasparenza del sogno e della concretezza di una verità a lungo inseguita. Ogni volta che credevo che di qualcosa o di qualcuno avesse scandagliato tutto il dicibile, ecco che Proust mi sorprendeva aggiungendo qualcos'altro di assolutamente vero e non trascurabile, che io sbadata avevo dimenticato.
La scrittura è avvolgente, coinvolge l'intera sfera sensoriale e concentra su di sé tutta l'attenzione del lettore: il libro è esigente e non permette distrazioni, pena la sospensione dell'armonia e della magia del fluire delle parole, che finirebbero per non dire - da tutto - più niente.
La conclusione ci lascia sulla soglia di un mondo che sfiorisce, per aprirsi a qualcosa di altro; sulla soglia di una nuova storia, che al tempo stessa è anche la stessa, che ci attende nei successivi volumi dell'opera, che spero di avere presto occasione di leggere.
Full review at The Pluviophile Reader: http://wp.me/p3VFNP-2E
2/5 stars.
(ARC) ebook, 512 pages.
Read from November 14, 2013 to February 04, 2014.
Well, I finally finished it. It took me, what felt like ages to do so, but I finished it. Yale University Press has published this edition in celebration of it's hundredth year in publication. This book is the first of seven volumes of Proust's masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, which took Proust thirteen years to write. The volumes are meant to be read as one I believe but at over five hundred pages a book, I going to have to pass on that...
In regards to this specific edition, while I understand that this was an ARC, how this book appeared in my ereader was less than flattering and added to the difficulty of this read. For one, the formatting of the pages was off, no matter what size I set them to. I ended up having a full page and then when I would go to the next the content would only fill half of it. Additionally because of this the footnotes were never in the right place and I found myself back tracking to look something.
Proust opens this book with some early memories of childhood and gets into the specifics of his relationship with his mother (let's all admit it here, Proust was a momma's boy) and how he yearned and obsessed for more affection than he was given. From there, Proust then talks about the social realm his family keeps, to his hypochondriac Aunt (who was rather entertaining), he then goes into extreme details on the areas Proust and his family used to get home, the gardens, the flowers within them, oh, and few people they encounter along the way. At this point you're about half way through the book when Proust start talking in detail about poor Mr. Swann. Mr. Swann is an unfortunate fellow who ends up falling in love with a woman named Odette. Odette is a woman of leisure that ends up having multiple relationships with men for their money. How this woman manages to keep a social circle and isn't ever disgraced in this book I will never know. In the beginning, Mr. Swann doesn't think much of Odette, he thinks that she is rather plain in the beginning actually, but after a romantic encounter with her involving some cattleya flowers and a car ride Mr. Swann has a change of heart. Mr. Swann's relationship with Odette is by far the most intricate and interesting part of the story in my opinion. Proust takes you through the emotional turmoil and circle of jealously, love and fear and why Mr.Swann who, cannot for the life of him leave Odette despite her cruelty and obvious fidelity. I found myself wondering why Mr. Swann never did ask Odette to marry him. That would have been one way to secure something for him, and really solidify finances for Odette but it never came around.
Now that, is the plot in it's most bare form. What makes this book difficult is that the plot itself is not really the focal point. It's the philosophical statements that Proust makes in relation to the plot where the masterpiece appears. His writing is truly beautiful and poignant but because of this it is also innately boring. In order to appreciate this book the reader needs to fully invest time into it, focusing on individual passages, reading every footnote and analyzing what appears to be a strange drawn out diary of a Frenchman. This novel is in itself a testament to its own time frame, which was one of leisure and art. Proust was a bold man to write out everything as he did.
In our world, that is so fast paced, to settle and take time to fully appreciate and relate to a novel like this is immensely hard. But not impossible. This novel is the kind of piece I wish I had the pleasure of reading in University when I was surrounded by other peers and could engage in discussion. I can already foresee some students loathing the novel and not seeing the point, viewing it as just another piece of outdated literature.
Tell me, does this quote not speak to you on some level?
2/5 stars.
(ARC) ebook, 512 pages.
Read from November 14, 2013 to February 04, 2014.
Well, I finally finished it. It took me, what felt like ages to do so, but I finished it. Yale University Press has published this edition in celebration of it's hundredth year in publication. This book is the first of seven volumes of Proust's masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, which took Proust thirteen years to write. The volumes are meant to be read as one I believe but at over five hundred pages a book, I going to have to pass on that...
In regards to this specific edition, while I understand that this was an ARC, how this book appeared in my ereader was less than flattering and added to the difficulty of this read. For one, the formatting of the pages was off, no matter what size I set them to. I ended up having a full page and then when I would go to the next the content would only fill half of it. Additionally because of this the footnotes were never in the right place and I found myself back tracking to look something.
Proust opens this book with some early memories of childhood and gets into the specifics of his relationship with his mother (let's all admit it here, Proust was a momma's boy) and how he yearned and obsessed for more affection than he was given. From there, Proust then talks about the social realm his family keeps, to his hypochondriac Aunt (who was rather entertaining), he then goes into extreme details on the areas Proust and his family used to get home, the gardens, the flowers within them, oh, and few people they encounter along the way. At this point you're about half way through the book when Proust start talking in detail about poor Mr. Swann. Mr. Swann is an unfortunate fellow who ends up falling in love with a woman named Odette. Odette is a woman of leisure that ends up having multiple relationships with men for their money. How this woman manages to keep a social circle and isn't ever disgraced in this book I will never know. In the beginning, Mr. Swann doesn't think much of Odette, he thinks that she is rather plain in the beginning actually, but after a romantic encounter with her involving some cattleya flowers and a car ride Mr. Swann has a change of heart. Mr. Swann's relationship with Odette is by far the most intricate and interesting part of the story in my opinion. Proust takes you through the emotional turmoil and circle of jealously, love and fear and why Mr.Swann who, cannot for the life of him leave Odette despite her cruelty and obvious fidelity. I found myself wondering why Mr. Swann never did ask Odette to marry him. That would have been one way to secure something for him, and really solidify finances for Odette but it never came around.
"In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.”
Now that, is the plot in it's most bare form. What makes this book difficult is that the plot itself is not really the focal point. It's the philosophical statements that Proust makes in relation to the plot where the masterpiece appears. His writing is truly beautiful and poignant but because of this it is also innately boring. In order to appreciate this book the reader needs to fully invest time into it, focusing on individual passages, reading every footnote and analyzing what appears to be a strange drawn out diary of a Frenchman. This novel is in itself a testament to its own time frame, which was one of leisure and art. Proust was a bold man to write out everything as he did.
"Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people."
In our world, that is so fast paced, to settle and take time to fully appreciate and relate to a novel like this is immensely hard. But not impossible. This novel is the kind of piece I wish I had the pleasure of reading in University when I was surrounded by other peers and could engage in discussion. I can already foresee some students loathing the novel and not seeing the point, viewing it as just another piece of outdated literature.
Tell me, does this quote not speak to you on some level?
"The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years”
What University student or person in general has not questioned their own position in life? If they should pursue their said education or if the timing of it was right? Or getting nostalgic when looking at a particular building or street that reminds them of a past memory? As Proust puts it so nicely, the places that we visit and choose to go don't belong in just our own space and reality. It's a creation of the realities and physical things and places of every thing surrounding us which is what forms our impressions and memories. What may be an image of regret for one person may not be for another and these memories, as the physical items that are associated with them, are brief moments in the terms of time and space.
Deep huh? This is just one of the many examples and reflections that exist in Swann's Way. This piece is still immensely relevant if you are able to take the time to divulge in it. Now, the reason I've give this book two out of five stars is that despite the beauty of the writing and the reflections that it makes, it is for the most part, not an enjoyable read. I decided to stick with this rating because I am a reader in the 21st century and I do expect some amount of pleasure when I'm reading a book. I do no live a life of leisure in which I can notice an appreciate every detail of the surrounding in my life (despite that potentially being a negative thing). I want characters that I can invest in and a moderately relate-able plot. I enjoyed Proust as a boy, his strange Aunt and the troubles of Mr. Swann as those were specific areas in the book that get involved in. So when Proust spends so much of the novel, for example, going off about the specifics of a certain flower, my focus, is going to waiver. I think even them most scholarly reader will have to admit that.
With all that aside, I feel that anyone who is interested in amazing literature/philosophy or is looking for some perspective, insight and wisdom should take some time out of their busy life to read at least one of the books from this set. I know that I'm glad that I did.
Wow, Wow, Wow!
I am so glad I started reading Proust because he is amazing.
I found the overwhelming detail and near stream of consciousness writing fascinating. He captured all of the mind's back and forths, emotions, indecision and starting over ever other minute.
You certainly can't rush this book. You have to let each sentence bloom in your mind like eating a piece of chocolate. Each thought is an experience in itself. It requires mindfulness, a sense of being alive in the moment and thinking through what he is saying now, instead of reading the sentences as building towards an end.
However, just when you think there is no plot, Proust punches. The impact of the climax (more of an announcement, really) is all the more pronounced because he has been weaving so much detail so lovingly. You think, How could that character do that? The whole meaning of the book changes, or all the layers take on another tint.
It reminds me of the descriptions of the characters' thoughts in Anna Karenina, especially Levin, who is always having and getting over interior crises. Proust is just more modern, with a looser sense of plot and time. I want to read James Joyce now since he is comparable.
Thanks to [a:Alain de Botton|13199|Alain de Botton|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189753902p2/13199.jpg]'s [b:How Proust Can Change Your Life|23420|How Proust Can Change Your Life Not a Novel|Alain de Botton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167403525s/23420.jpg|1198968] for giving me the encouragement to try him.
Only five more volumes to go (Modern Library version).
I am so glad I started reading Proust because he is amazing.
I found the overwhelming detail and near stream of consciousness writing fascinating. He captured all of the mind's back and forths, emotions, indecision and starting over ever other minute.
You certainly can't rush this book. You have to let each sentence bloom in your mind like eating a piece of chocolate. Each thought is an experience in itself. It requires mindfulness, a sense of being alive in the moment and thinking through what he is saying now, instead of reading the sentences as building towards an end.
However, just when you think there is no plot, Proust punches. The impact of the climax (more of an announcement, really) is all the more pronounced because he has been weaving so much detail so lovingly. You think, How could that character do that? The whole meaning of the book changes, or all the layers take on another tint.
It reminds me of the descriptions of the characters' thoughts in Anna Karenina, especially Levin, who is always having and getting over interior crises. Proust is just more modern, with a looser sense of plot and time. I want to read James Joyce now since he is comparable.
Thanks to [a:Alain de Botton|13199|Alain de Botton|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189753902p2/13199.jpg]'s [b:How Proust Can Change Your Life|23420|How Proust Can Change Your Life Not a Novel|Alain de Botton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167403525s/23420.jpg|1198968] for giving me the encouragement to try him.
Only five more volumes to go (Modern Library version).
Argh. It wasn't happening for me. A third of the way through "Swann in Love" I just completely lost interest. :(
So I was on the Brooklyn-bound L train going to Morgan Ave., reading this edition of Swann's Way, when a girl comes up to me, squinting at the cover, then raspberrys* in the direction of the book and gives it a thumbs down. Somehow it is clear she is decrying the translation, and I kind of politely smile. Then she comes back a second time to explain that there's a better translation. I forget how much she explains, but later, she also gets off at Morgan and we talk more in depth about it. She referred me to the Lydia Davis translation (a name I discovered later as she couldn't remember it at the time), describing how her prose more accurately rendered Proust's rambling, run-on thoughts, or at least captured his poetic goal better.
I can say that she was right, but whether that makes Swann's Way any less boring (except for the moments of glistening poetry) remains to be seen. I have since stopped reading this edition in preference of the newer translation.
* This is the most acceptable conjugation of "raspberry" I could find ;)
I can say that she was right, but whether that makes Swann's Way any less boring (except for the moments of glistening poetry) remains to be seen. I have since stopped reading this edition in preference of the newer translation.
* This is the most acceptable conjugation of "raspberry" I could find ;)
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
***Spoilers follow***
This novel has three main parts. The first follows the life of the narrator (Marcel, I think his name is later revealed) as he grows up in high society in France in the 1800s or early 1900s. We learn about his family, his intellectual interests, his ambition to become a writer, and some of his relationships with peers. The second part is about Charles Swann, which is mostly about him obsessing about Odette, a love interest. The third part returns to the narrator's life once Charles Swann is finally with Odette and has a child with her who is around the narrator's age. This part is about some of the narrator's musings and experiences with Charles's and Odette's daughter and of his life in general.
About 50% of this book is very weak obsessive thought and action - Charles Swann is obsessed with Odette, it’s an unrequited love situation for most of the obsessive period. That all became quite tedious. Somehow he ends up with her in the end but how that happens isn’t exactly explained. And then the narrator also gets obsessed with Swann’s daughter, when they are both kids. Interesting I guess how this often happens. But it became a bit tiresome when it went on for such an incredibly long time in Swann’s case. It was, however, interesting to see this Swann that we come to know so deeply compared with the narrator's impressions of him in the third part of the book. We see how someone can look one way from an internal perspective and another way from an external perspective. Which, for me, made up for all the weak obsessive musing part. All of that was interesting when thought about in the third part of the book, where the narrator considers Swann as a respectable normal high-society person. One wouldn't know that he had such an emotionally turbulent few years. This comparison of perspectives was interesting.
I also appreciated that the book is a study in “cultural capital”, meaning all of the manners, ways of speaking, and subtle behavioural and personal clues that are part of class distinction. Not many novels go into so much precise detail on cultural capital.
The book discusses homosexuality and I was unsure exactly what Proust's opinion of homosexuality was since most of the characters who think about it in the book are worrying about it and do not have a favourable impression of it. But apparently Proust was gay, so that is apparently why there are many ways that the book juxtaposes homosexuality with the surrounding heteronormative social structures.
This novel has three main parts. The first follows the life of the narrator (Marcel, I think his name is later revealed) as he grows up in high society in France in the 1800s or early 1900s. We learn about his family, his intellectual interests, his ambition to become a writer, and some of his relationships with peers. The second part is about Charles Swann, which is mostly about him obsessing about Odette, a love interest. The third part returns to the narrator's life once Charles Swann is finally with Odette and has a child with her who is around the narrator's age. This part is about some of the narrator's musings and experiences with Charles's and Odette's daughter and of his life in general.
About 50% of this book is very weak obsessive thought and action - Charles Swann is obsessed with Odette, it’s an unrequited love situation for most of the obsessive period. That all became quite tedious. Somehow he ends up with her in the end but how that happens isn’t exactly explained. And then the narrator also gets obsessed with Swann’s daughter, when they are both kids. Interesting I guess how this often happens. But it became a bit tiresome when it went on for such an incredibly long time in Swann’s case. It was, however, interesting to see this Swann that we come to know so deeply compared with the narrator's impressions of him in the third part of the book. We see how someone can look one way from an internal perspective and another way from an external perspective. Which, for me, made up for all the weak obsessive musing part. All of that was interesting when thought about in the third part of the book, where the narrator considers Swann as a respectable normal high-society person. One wouldn't know that he had such an emotionally turbulent few years. This comparison of perspectives was interesting.
I also appreciated that the book is a study in “cultural capital”, meaning all of the manners, ways of speaking, and subtle behavioural and personal clues that are part of class distinction. Not many novels go into so much precise detail on cultural capital.
The book discusses homosexuality and I was unsure exactly what Proust's opinion of homosexuality was since most of the characters who think about it in the book are worrying about it and do not have a favourable impression of it. But apparently Proust was gay, so that is apparently why there are many ways that the book juxtaposes homosexuality with the surrounding heteronormative social structures.