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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
***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.
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Swann!! I see you I understand you I cry with you. Heartbreaking and literally triggering to read during a breakup and experience the way Proust describes heartache and longing and rabid jealousy and mental illness and all consuming obsessions and an illogical hunger for truth fom the perspective of someone who can’t see the torture they are putting themselves through. Or maybe he can totally see it but just doesn’t know how to stop. Book 1 is separated by these deep dives of a person or place where you become engulfed in the tiny details of a moment or an idea, I’ve never read anything like it, I have no idea how Proust can write so much about one thing and not only not run out of stuff to say but not run out of novelties. Setting the scene of a world in which no one knows anything real about each other but everyone talks about each other incessantly is the foundation for the intrapersonal dramas that develop. The total vapidness of noble society creates a perfect background for the flawed relationships between everyone and especially between Swann and the bane of his existence, Odette. How great are those two names together as a couple???! Our made up perceptions of each other, the insecurities of being alive and alone, the repetition of suffering, the abandoned child turned anxious adult, longing for a past that only exists as a memory, being plagued with nostalgia. I am fascinated by the unchanging nature of neurosis across centuries when reading old books. How similar we all are. I love Odette as a symbol, the ghost of romance, a stand in for loving the idea of someone more than you actually love them, how we fall in love with the way someone makes us feel, the speed in which love makes us absolutely bat shit crazy. I hope things work out for him….perhaps with Princess de Laumes???! And omg Gilberte??!? The drama. Onto book 2….
“To my mind, a new book was not just an object among many similar ones, bus as unique as a person, with no reason for existing except in itself”
“The unforgiving need to pursue such a relentless, changeless, fruitless activity was so odious to him that one day when he found a swelling in his abdomen, he felt a pang of genuine joy at the thought that it might be a fatal tumor, that from then on he would not have to bother about a thing, since illness could take him over and put him through the motions of life until the not too distant day when it would have finished with him. In fact, the recurring wish for death that often unconsciously visited him at that period was not so much a desire for release from the cruelty of his suffering as an attempt to escape from the unremitting monotony of effort”
“It may be that the only ultimate truth of existence lies in the nothingness to come and that it is our inner life that is unreal; but in that case, we feel, these ideas and musical utterances which only exist through that inner life must also be devoid of reality. We may perish, but we hold as hostages these captives from a divine world which will have to take their chance with us.”
“The frequent thought that the day would come when he would fall out of love with Odette had filled him with panic and he had resolved to be ever on the alert, so that as soon as he felt the initial symptoms of a weakening of his love he would be able to cling to it and prevent it from fading. However now that his love for her had in fact begun to weaken, he noticed a corresponding and simultaneous weakening of his resolve to remain in love with her. For it is impossible to respond to the feelings and desires of the person one was before.”
“My whole insatiable curiosity about life was directed solely at finding out about things which I believed were more real than I was myself, things whose value for me lay in that they gave a glimpse if not of how some great genius had thought, then of the power or grace to be found in Nature when it is left to its own devices and is not tampered with by men.”
“Places we used to know are not situated solely in the world of space; that is merely where the mind puts them, for the sake of convenience. They were never anything more than a slender slice of reality, surrounded by the mass of contiguous impressions which composed our total life at a particular time. The memory of a certain impression is nothing other than one’s regret for a certain moment; and houses, thoroughfares and paths through the wood are, alas, as fleeting as the years.”
“To my mind, a new book was not just an object among many similar ones, bus as unique as a person, with no reason for existing except in itself”
“The unforgiving need to pursue such a relentless, changeless, fruitless activity was so odious to him that one day when he found a swelling in his abdomen, he felt a pang of genuine joy at the thought that it might be a fatal tumor, that from then on he would not have to bother about a thing, since illness could take him over and put him through the motions of life until the not too distant day when it would have finished with him. In fact, the recurring wish for death that often unconsciously visited him at that period was not so much a desire for release from the cruelty of his suffering as an attempt to escape from the unremitting monotony of effort”
“It may be that the only ultimate truth of existence lies in the nothingness to come and that it is our inner life that is unreal; but in that case, we feel, these ideas and musical utterances which only exist through that inner life must also be devoid of reality. We may perish, but we hold as hostages these captives from a divine world which will have to take their chance with us.”
“The frequent thought that the day would come when he would fall out of love with Odette had filled him with panic and he had resolved to be ever on the alert, so that as soon as he felt the initial symptoms of a weakening of his love he would be able to cling to it and prevent it from fading. However now that his love for her had in fact begun to weaken, he noticed a corresponding and simultaneous weakening of his resolve to remain in love with her. For it is impossible to respond to the feelings and desires of the person one was before.”
“My whole insatiable curiosity about life was directed solely at finding out about things which I believed were more real than I was myself, things whose value for me lay in that they gave a glimpse if not of how some great genius had thought, then of the power or grace to be found in Nature when it is left to its own devices and is not tampered with by men.”
“Places we used to know are not situated solely in the world of space; that is merely where the mind puts them, for the sake of convenience. They were never anything more than a slender slice of reality, surrounded by the mass of contiguous impressions which composed our total life at a particular time. The memory of a certain impression is nothing other than one’s regret for a certain moment; and houses, thoroughfares and paths through the wood are, alas, as fleeting as the years.”
challenging
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
It's hard for me to adequately review this book, maybe the most difficult book I've ever read. His language is beautiful and poetic, even after English translation. But his sentences are like coiling serpents. Attempting to unravel just one sentence, in a 400-plus page novel (and only the first part of a seven-part tome) requires far too much effort for my limited brain capacity. Proust is totally unconcerned with pacing or time as he delves into the childhood consciousness of his narrator (Proust himself) and will examine something as seemingly insignificant as a raised eyebrow over multiple pages of text, covering every conceivable thought or feeling associated with that seemingly minor gesture. By the time he's reached the end of his "analysis," the reader (at least, this reader) forgets what originally prompted the analysis!
I think, like Shakespeare, Proust was a genius. Which makes it impossible to fathom (for me, without assistance, anyway) the density of his prose.
I think, like Shakespeare, Proust was a genius. Which makes it impossible to fathom (for me, without assistance, anyway) the density of his prose.
Marcel Proust, fue uno de esos escritores, a los cuales le doy su espacio para la lectura, fueron muchas las veces que hojea varios de sus libros, pero sin la intención de sentarme a leerlo y dedicar horas de lecturas. Hace poco le llego su momento y me dispuse a leerlo, pero antes, mucho antes, tenia cierto conocimiento al autor y texto al cual me iba a enfrentar, un texto, que como bien dice el escritor, no es un libro para leer en un tren, o en cambio, en un autobús, queriendo decir, de que te iba a exigir mucho su lectura, y creo que no erro en lo que dijo.
Muchos lectores ven en este texto lo agotador de su lectura, es un libro que, quizás algunos no lo vean, pero no te da respiro, pues por su forma de composición un conjunto de poesías en prosas alargadas, la cual ira como caballo desbocado por todas sus paginas, muy densa, que exige un algo grado de concentración, una riqueza en el lenguaje, describe bien las sensaciones. Símbolo del clasismo moderno y la narrativa analítica, la novela de Marcel Proust, una de las cumbres clásicas de la narrativa mundial.
Para muchos historiadores y críticos, «En busca del tiempo perdido» no solo es una obra cumbre de las letras francesas del siglo XX, sino también una de las más grandes creaciones literarias de todas las épocas, en la que la trasposición en el relato de la vida de Marcel Proust (1871-1922), así como de personajes y ambientes sociales de su tiempo, dio forma a un nuevo y fecundo camino en el campo de la novela.
«Por el camino de Swann» es el primer volumen de la serie que completan, por este orden, A la sombra de las muchachas en flor, El mundo de Guermantes, Sodoma y Gomorra, La prisionera, La fugitiva y El tiempo recobrado.
Muchos lectores ven en este texto lo agotador de su lectura, es un libro que, quizás algunos no lo vean, pero no te da respiro, pues por su forma de composición un conjunto de poesías en prosas alargadas, la cual ira como caballo desbocado por todas sus paginas, muy densa, que exige un algo grado de concentración, una riqueza en el lenguaje, describe bien las sensaciones. Símbolo del clasismo moderno y la narrativa analítica, la novela de Marcel Proust, una de las cumbres clásicas de la narrativa mundial.
Para muchos historiadores y críticos, «En busca del tiempo perdido» no solo es una obra cumbre de las letras francesas del siglo XX, sino también una de las más grandes creaciones literarias de todas las épocas, en la que la trasposición en el relato de la vida de Marcel Proust (1871-1922), así como de personajes y ambientes sociales de su tiempo, dio forma a un nuevo y fecundo camino en el campo de la novela.
«Por el camino de Swann» es el primer volumen de la serie que completan, por este orden, A la sombra de las muchachas en flor, El mundo de Guermantes, Sodoma y Gomorra, La prisionera, La fugitiva y El tiempo recobrado.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fuck you Marcel Proust. If I wanted to spend months of my life listening to run-on sentences about unrequited love, I’d go back to middle school.
Honestly, the sentences didn’t bother me. They were well-structured when he was able to keep my attention to the end of one of them. My problem with this book was that it was so boring. A whole chapter about an obsession with one’s mom’s kiss is creepy to begin with. When that chapter lasts for nearly half of a six-hundred-page book, we’ve got a problem.
Chapter two seemed like it was about to get the story moving, comparatively, but then it flaccidly delivers us another two hundred pages of “oh me, oh my, I’m a cuckold in denial!”
Finally we get to chapter 3, where we discover that-surprise, surprise-oedipus’s love life is still a failure, and the cuckold married the cuckolder. The end.
Lost time indeed.
Honestly, the sentences didn’t bother me. They were well-structured when he was able to keep my attention to the end of one of them. My problem with this book was that it was so boring. A whole chapter about an obsession with one’s mom’s kiss is creepy to begin with. When that chapter lasts for nearly half of a six-hundred-page book, we’ve got a problem.
Chapter two seemed like it was about to get the story moving, comparatively, but then it flaccidly delivers us another two hundred pages of “oh me, oh my, I’m a cuckold in denial!”
Finally we get to chapter 3, where we discover that-surprise, surprise-oedipus’s love life is still a failure, and the cuckold married the cuckolder. The end.
Lost time indeed.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes