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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I really adored the writing style. So many thought and reflection to take from this book. We could almost call Proust a linguist from how well he controls language and punctuation. The first part of the book is a 4/5 the second part is 3/5 and the third part is 5/5. The ending was absolutely brillant.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
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:
No
Ik vroeg me af hoe laat het zou zijn; ik hoorde het fluiten van de treinen dat mij, ver of minder ver weg, als vogelzang in een bos de afstanden aangevend, de uitgestrektheid beschreef van het verlaten landschap waar de reiziger zich rept naar het dichtstbijzijnde station; en het weggetje dat hij volgt zal in zijn geheugen worden gegrift door de prikkeling die hij dankt aan nieuwe plekken, aan onalledaagse handelingen, aan het zojuist gevoerde gesprek, aan de afscheidswoorden onder andermans lamp die hem nog vergezellen in de stilte van de nacht, aan de nabijzijnde weldadige thuisreis (43-4).
challenging
mysterious
reflective
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
Last year I picked Moby Dick as my tough reading project and found it to relate to everything I did. I talked about it constantly and would reread chapters.
By the end of Swann’s way I would sometimes not have caught much on a page but didn’t go back and reread.
That being said, there are some wonderful passages and the book does divorce itself from linear plot and time in brilliant ways.
This was more of a thinker than a feeler for me. I am very glad I’ve read it.
By the end of Swann’s way I would sometimes not have caught much on a page but didn’t go back and reread.
That being said, there are some wonderful passages and the book does divorce itself from linear plot and time in brilliant ways.
This was more of a thinker than a feeler for me. I am very glad I’ve read it.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I'm finding it a little hard to give this book an objective review, because reading it has been an unattainable goal for so long. In response to a friend saying he wouldn’t get around to reading it until he retired, I decided I was going to read it in French (so there!). Ten years later, I’ve read the first 30 pages of Swann’s Way over and over again, but each time I start over I give up after the initial burst of energy wears off. So now I’ve decided to read it in English—and maybe read it in French when I retire. :)
It’s very different than I expected. So far, I’m seeing it as one man’s artistic and sexual awakening, made unique because of:
a) the time period/social class
b) his acute attention to himself and the things he experiences, not just in descriptions, but in observations and commentary
c) the book’s structure
d) the unreliability of the narrator
The Structure
The first section is the reverie on memory that I expected, focusing on his childhood at their country house in Combray. Then the narrative changes completely. It becomes the story of M. Swann—their neighbor at Combray—meeting and courting his wife years before. This is not an entirely objective story, though Proust goes out of his way to tell us that later on he knew Swann personally and was told much of this by him. But this is so specific in its imagining, down to Swann’s innermost thoughts, that Proust is obviously using this to foreshadow, to prepare the reader for his own tumultuous relationship with Albertine (more on that later). Or maybe he really does see everything filtered through his own view to the point where he can’t imagine anyone experiencing it differently. His opinions on Art, which he believes are completely objective and divorced from the styles and taste of his time, make me think so.
Anyway, after this story, which surprised me because of its different tone and style from the first section, we move into the next part, where Proust talks about his illnesses (asthma and allergies, it seems) and how they prevented him from traveling as he would have liked. (His discussion of the strong images evoked by the names of places he’d never seen makes me wonder if he may have been synesthesic.) However, it was on the walks that he took to try to make himself stronger, and make up for his missed opportunities to travel, that he meets his own first obsession—Gilberte, Swann’s daughter. His very one-sided relationship with her, who he pursues despite her parents’ disapproval and who eventually allows him into her inner circle of friends, is the focus of the rest of this section. The break between this section and the next book feels a little false, because the topic continues there.
The Reliability of the Narrator
I can’t help but wonder about the reliability of the narrator, especially knowing that his lover, Albertine, (who we meet in later books) is based on his male butler. So, especially in matters of sexuality, I’m on the lookout for falsehood or omission. Is he entirely truthful about why he was stopped from his lone visits with his uncle, with whom the family eventually cut off all contact? Is it simply because of the company he kept (the loose women) or something else? And why is the memory of the smell of his uncle’s study caught up with his first sexual encounter? And, for that matter, is Gilberte who he says she is? Would he actually be wrestling with a young girl to the point of “shedding his pleasure,” or is Gilberte actually another boy? Is that why her parents disapproved so strongly?
Homosexuals figure strongly in the book. He’s particularly interested in a couple of lesbians in Combray who live together despite society’s censure and are who are blamed for the death of one’s broken-hearted father. He also contemplates the possibility that Swann’s promiscuous wife had affairs with women as well as men. But when it comes to himself, no mention is made. He is sickly, obsessed with art, melancholy, seemingly friendless, and thought of as odd by adults—all of this he tells us, but nothing more. It points to a sort of unreliability that I always associated with postmodern writing, and I’m pleased to see it here, in what I thought would be a very conventional (if overwritten) sort of memoir. I'll update if my opinion changes as I read more. Looking forward to the rest.
It’s very different than I expected. So far, I’m seeing it as one man’s artistic and sexual awakening, made unique because of:
a) the time period/social class
b) his acute attention to himself and the things he experiences, not just in descriptions, but in observations and commentary
c) the book’s structure
d) the unreliability of the narrator
The Structure
The first section is the reverie on memory that I expected, focusing on his childhood at their country house in Combray. Then the narrative changes completely. It becomes the story of M. Swann—their neighbor at Combray—meeting and courting his wife years before. This is not an entirely objective story, though Proust goes out of his way to tell us that later on he knew Swann personally and was told much of this by him. But this is so specific in its imagining, down to Swann’s innermost thoughts, that Proust is obviously using this to foreshadow, to prepare the reader for his own tumultuous relationship with Albertine (more on that later). Or maybe he really does see everything filtered through his own view to the point where he can’t imagine anyone experiencing it differently. His opinions on Art, which he believes are completely objective and divorced from the styles and taste of his time, make me think so.
Anyway, after this story, which surprised me because of its different tone and style from the first section, we move into the next part, where Proust talks about his illnesses (asthma and allergies, it seems) and how they prevented him from traveling as he would have liked. (His discussion of the strong images evoked by the names of places he’d never seen makes me wonder if he may have been synesthesic.) However, it was on the walks that he took to try to make himself stronger, and make up for his missed opportunities to travel, that he meets his own first obsession—Gilberte, Swann’s daughter. His very one-sided relationship with her, who he pursues despite her parents’ disapproval and who eventually allows him into her inner circle of friends, is the focus of the rest of this section. The break between this section and the next book feels a little false, because the topic continues there.
The Reliability of the Narrator
I can’t help but wonder about the reliability of the narrator, especially knowing that his lover, Albertine, (who we meet in later books) is based on his male butler. So, especially in matters of sexuality, I’m on the lookout for falsehood or omission. Is he entirely truthful about why he was stopped from his lone visits with his uncle, with whom the family eventually cut off all contact? Is it simply because of the company he kept (the loose women) or something else? And why is the memory of the smell of his uncle’s study caught up with his first sexual encounter? And, for that matter, is Gilberte who he says she is? Would he actually be wrestling with a young girl to the point of “shedding his pleasure,” or is Gilberte actually another boy? Is that why her parents disapproved so strongly?
Homosexuals figure strongly in the book. He’s particularly interested in a couple of lesbians in Combray who live together despite society’s censure and are who are blamed for the death of one’s broken-hearted father. He also contemplates the possibility that Swann’s promiscuous wife had affairs with women as well as men. But when it comes to himself, no mention is made. He is sickly, obsessed with art, melancholy, seemingly friendless, and thought of as odd by adults—all of this he tells us, but nothing more. It points to a sort of unreliability that I always associated with postmodern writing, and I’m pleased to see it here, in what I thought would be a very conventional (if overwritten) sort of memoir. I'll update if my opinion changes as I read more. Looking forward to the rest.