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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
Un excelente descubrimiento personal de este año. Seguro seguiré leyendo a Proust porque escribe como los ángeles.
The peculiar taste of a petite madeleine, a small spongy cake, soaked in tea, kindles memories from his childhood days in the minds of the narrator in 'Swann's way', the first book of Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' series. "At the very instant when the mouthful of tea mixed with cake-crumbs touched my palate, I quivered, attentive to the extraordinary thing that was happening in me.....all of this which is assuming form and substance, emerged, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea," he writes. I happened to be reading this book, my first taste of Proust after postponing it repeatedly, at a time when I had lost my sense of taste and smell, after testing positive for COVID-19....at a time when tea, coffee or juice tasted the same to me.
Yet, since my sense of hearing was intact, I did get transported to many a day from the past, with the light instrumental music that wafted out of the speakers giving wings to it. The one music piece which I would attach the feelings that this book evoked in me is French composer Eric Satie's melancholic tune 'Gymnopedies', which incidentally I discovered in Youtube long back. (Check Youtube for this piece, accompanied by painted images from 19th century Paris. Another of Satie's pieces 'Gnossienne No. 1' appears in the gripping Spanish series 'The Innocent').
In an uncharacteristically wet May in Kerala, I sat alone and read this in our room, with Cris forced by COVID isolation to the other bedroom, with two parallel windows being a portal between the two rooms. Through those days, marked by tiredness and a little bit of concern, I swam in the jumbled memories of all the places I have lived in and of all the years gone by, during the the hours I spent reading this book. As much as it is a recapturing of old memories, it is also a lament for the times lost.
Proust, or rather the narrator, talks of how we form an image of a specific time in our mind, but process it only much later, realising the true value of that time only much later. I also thought about my own experiences of involuntary memory, similar to the narrator's 'madeleine/tea' one. There was the smell of a specific flower somewhere in the Napier Museum in Thiruvananthapuram, which trigerred memories of an old school picnic in the late 1980s, during my UKG days in Nilambur. And of course, a stream of memorites from there to my most recent favourite of walking the galleries of Louvre, many of the art works from where feature in the book.
As Proust writes, "when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste will remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruin of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory."
What can put off many readers is the tediousness of some parts, and Proust's proclivity to stay on the same scene for pages and pages, draining out the last possible word from that scene. In fact one of the publishers rejected the book after reading the first pages, which stays mostly inside the young narrator's bedroom, as he struggles to sleep without getting a kiss from his mother, who is busy at a house party downstairs. Proust does some deep psychological analyses in these pages, especially the inner workings of the mind of Swann. These can be too tiring at times to plough through, but can be rewarding at other times.
In one of my favourite parts from the book, Proust writes, "it is the same with our past. It is a waste of effort for us to try to summon it, all the exertions of our intelligence are useless. The past is hidden outside the realm of our intelligence and beyond its reach, in some material object (in the sensation that this material object would give us), which we do not suspect. It depends on chance whether we encounter this object before we die, or do not encounter it."
Well, Proust did encounter such an object. I hope that there is more than one such material, which we keep encountering them once in a while. The true reward of the book, if you manage to cross the rather tedious parts, is the memories that it triggers in you. I am already half-way past the second book in this series.
PS- While writing this a couple of days back, I was watching 'Fragments of Life', a documentary on Mythili Sivaraman, the legendary women's rights and trade union activist and CPI(M) leader, who passed away last week. Incidentally, it was about memory too, or rather the loss of it. With the help of her husband, her daughter and her own writings, she tries to recapture episodes which have been erased from her mind, from her days in the US and Cuba and the days spent in Keezhvenmani, documenting the mass killings of dalit workers by upper caste landlords in that hamlet.
(I read the translation by Lydia Davis, another brilliant writer! )
Yet, since my sense of hearing was intact, I did get transported to many a day from the past, with the light instrumental music that wafted out of the speakers giving wings to it. The one music piece which I would attach the feelings that this book evoked in me is French composer Eric Satie's melancholic tune 'Gymnopedies', which incidentally I discovered in Youtube long back. (Check Youtube for this piece, accompanied by painted images from 19th century Paris. Another of Satie's pieces 'Gnossienne No. 1' appears in the gripping Spanish series 'The Innocent').
In an uncharacteristically wet May in Kerala, I sat alone and read this in our room, with Cris forced by COVID isolation to the other bedroom, with two parallel windows being a portal between the two rooms. Through those days, marked by tiredness and a little bit of concern, I swam in the jumbled memories of all the places I have lived in and of all the years gone by, during the the hours I spent reading this book. As much as it is a recapturing of old memories, it is also a lament for the times lost.
Proust, or rather the narrator, talks of how we form an image of a specific time in our mind, but process it only much later, realising the true value of that time only much later. I also thought about my own experiences of involuntary memory, similar to the narrator's 'madeleine/tea' one. There was the smell of a specific flower somewhere in the Napier Museum in Thiruvananthapuram, which trigerred memories of an old school picnic in the late 1980s, during my UKG days in Nilambur. And of course, a stream of memorites from there to my most recent favourite of walking the galleries of Louvre, many of the art works from where feature in the book.
As Proust writes, "when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste will remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruin of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory."
What can put off many readers is the tediousness of some parts, and Proust's proclivity to stay on the same scene for pages and pages, draining out the last possible word from that scene. In fact one of the publishers rejected the book after reading the first pages, which stays mostly inside the young narrator's bedroom, as he struggles to sleep without getting a kiss from his mother, who is busy at a house party downstairs. Proust does some deep psychological analyses in these pages, especially the inner workings of the mind of Swann. These can be too tiring at times to plough through, but can be rewarding at other times.
In one of my favourite parts from the book, Proust writes, "it is the same with our past. It is a waste of effort for us to try to summon it, all the exertions of our intelligence are useless. The past is hidden outside the realm of our intelligence and beyond its reach, in some material object (in the sensation that this material object would give us), which we do not suspect. It depends on chance whether we encounter this object before we die, or do not encounter it."
Well, Proust did encounter such an object. I hope that there is more than one such material, which we keep encountering them once in a while. The true reward of the book, if you manage to cross the rather tedious parts, is the memories that it triggers in you. I am already half-way past the second book in this series.
PS- While writing this a couple of days back, I was watching 'Fragments of Life', a documentary on Mythili Sivaraman, the legendary women's rights and trade union activist and CPI(M) leader, who passed away last week. Incidentally, it was about memory too, or rather the loss of it. With the help of her husband, her daughter and her own writings, she tries to recapture episodes which have been erased from her mind, from her days in the US and Cuba and the days spent in Keezhvenmani, documenting the mass killings of dalit workers by upper caste landlords in that hamlet.
(I read the translation by Lydia Davis, another brilliant writer! )
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
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
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
What is there to say? This is a book like a hedge maze; when you're in it, you have no choice but to be in it, winding around, doubling back, and even when you're bored or frustrated or going more slowly than you'd hoped, you're already in the thick of it and have to continue.
But what nobody will tell you is how funny Proust is. Not above making a poo joke, but also a writer who delights in Austenesque social comedies of manners and hypocrisies-- Mme Verdurin is the perfect example.
I recommend making notes on the plot or jotting down things that stand out to you as you go - you'll realise on page 400 that you can't remember page 150 at all, and will be glad to have something to look over and draw from, to see where you've been coming from and its connections to where you've ended up.
But what nobody will tell you is how funny Proust is. Not above making a poo joke, but also a writer who delights in Austenesque social comedies of manners and hypocrisies-- Mme Verdurin is the perfect example.
I recommend making notes on the plot or jotting down things that stand out to you as you go - you'll realise on page 400 that you can't remember page 150 at all, and will be glad to have something to look over and draw from, to see where you've been coming from and its connections to where you've ended up.
Based on the Moncrieff, Kilmartin translation. This book is an absolute masterpiece. It is so unlike other books and is not a fast read, nor should it be. I read it slowly and reread as I went along. Some of the sentences are very long and do need rereading and thinking about. This sounds as if reading it is a chore, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
These days there are so many books published, so many books to get to. For me it was getting to the stage of rushing through a big pile of books to make my goodReads quota for the year and to read all the books everyone was talking about. Also themes in books seem to be at the whim of fashion, and just lately so many books seem to need to have ticked the ‘must have’ topic boxes. I am not saying those themes are not important but it feels as if, by ticking those boxes it means the book is therefore great..and too many just are not great in my opinion…(which is just my opinion and it doesn’t mean it is correct…but it is how it is for me)
I began to realise that I wasn’t taking a lot of these books in and just needed to slow down. I reread one of my last books three times (The Employees by Olga Ravn) and over the Covid lockdowns went back to many old favourites to reread and found that a really good book needs…more than anything, time. If a story is digestible in one sitting/reading it is a snack, not a full course meal.
Swanns Way is a full course meal, and it is only the first part of a much longer work of art. If a book stands the test of time to become a classic it must have something more to it and this one certainly has.
The book comprises of Combray (part 1) and Swanns Way (pat 2). I think I preferred Combray because it was so utterly beautiful and almost hypnotic in places. Swanns Way is supposed to be a story of all consuming love, but I found it to be more about obsession. As I said before, some of the ideas and sentences take rereading and thinking about but just when you feel almost overwhelmed, the next section is witty, easy to read and fun. The whole book is a roller coaster in this respect. Proust can paint with words and write characters with a very fine nib.
I read the Moncrieff, Kilmartin and Enright translation but also had the translation by Lydia Davis. I preferred the former really but the Davis translation was easier to read in the bath. What a shame that reading Proust seems to carry some burden of reading snobbery…it is not like that at all. At one stage I read one of the funnier lines in a coffee shop and choked with irrepressible giggles..it is wonderful.
I read this along with the Hardcore Literature book club on iTunes, YouTube and Patreon. An excellent way to read and talk about books!
I have not finished this book, I will reread it again immediately and probably again and again over the years, I loved it very much. I will also go on to read the full novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’ which is many thousands of pages.
These days there are so many books published, so many books to get to. For me it was getting to the stage of rushing through a big pile of books to make my goodReads quota for the year and to read all the books everyone was talking about. Also themes in books seem to be at the whim of fashion, and just lately so many books seem to need to have ticked the ‘must have’ topic boxes. I am not saying those themes are not important but it feels as if, by ticking those boxes it means the book is therefore great..and too many just are not great in my opinion…(which is just my opinion and it doesn’t mean it is correct…but it is how it is for me)
I began to realise that I wasn’t taking a lot of these books in and just needed to slow down. I reread one of my last books three times (The Employees by Olga Ravn) and over the Covid lockdowns went back to many old favourites to reread and found that a really good book needs…more than anything, time. If a story is digestible in one sitting/reading it is a snack, not a full course meal.
Swanns Way is a full course meal, and it is only the first part of a much longer work of art. If a book stands the test of time to become a classic it must have something more to it and this one certainly has.
The book comprises of Combray (part 1) and Swanns Way (pat 2). I think I preferred Combray because it was so utterly beautiful and almost hypnotic in places. Swanns Way is supposed to be a story of all consuming love, but I found it to be more about obsession. As I said before, some of the ideas and sentences take rereading and thinking about but just when you feel almost overwhelmed, the next section is witty, easy to read and fun. The whole book is a roller coaster in this respect. Proust can paint with words and write characters with a very fine nib.
I read the Moncrieff, Kilmartin and Enright translation but also had the translation by Lydia Davis. I preferred the former really but the Davis translation was easier to read in the bath. What a shame that reading Proust seems to carry some burden of reading snobbery…it is not like that at all. At one stage I read one of the funnier lines in a coffee shop and choked with irrepressible giggles..it is wonderful.
I read this along with the Hardcore Literature book club on iTunes, YouTube and Patreon. An excellent way to read and talk about books!
I have not finished this book, I will reread it again immediately and probably again and again over the years, I loved it very much. I will also go on to read the full novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’ which is many thousands of pages.
How the hell did I get this far in my reading career without reading Marcel Proust? Good question. And because of this question, I have (foolishly perhaps) embarked on a multi-year plan to work my way through "La Recherche..."
This may turn out to be a long strange trip indeed.
Look, I love Faulkner and I can see how without Proust there is no Absalom. And I love Beckett and Joyce and I can see how without "La Recherche..." there's no Murphy or Ulysses. The way Proust treats time, the way he visits and revisits scenes from different angles, or even the same angle but with new baggage, presages so many writers I admire.
But I have to confess that this was not at all what I was expecting. The prose moves unbelievably slowly. The characters, the scenes, the events, everything - are all merely vehicles for that prose. Or better yet, for the way Proust wants to tell the story.
And while I can admire the technique - and even be willing to concede that in the French it's probably even more impressive - I really had to push through the chapters. There was never that moment that I was hoping for, where I lost myself in the book. I was always very conscious of reading the book. And while that may be part of Proust's intention, it's not what I was expecting, and not easy going.
That said, I will keep reading. Who knows, maybe he'll get better. Maybe I will. Or maybe we'll meet somewhere in the middle...
This may turn out to be a long strange trip indeed.
Look, I love Faulkner and I can see how without Proust there is no Absalom. And I love Beckett and Joyce and I can see how without "La Recherche..." there's no Murphy or Ulysses. The way Proust treats time, the way he visits and revisits scenes from different angles, or even the same angle but with new baggage, presages so many writers I admire.
But I have to confess that this was not at all what I was expecting. The prose moves unbelievably slowly. The characters, the scenes, the events, everything - are all merely vehicles for that prose. Or better yet, for the way Proust wants to tell the story.
And while I can admire the technique - and even be willing to concede that in the French it's probably even more impressive - I really had to push through the chapters. There was never that moment that I was hoping for, where I lost myself in the book. I was always very conscious of reading the book. And while that may be part of Proust's intention, it's not what I was expecting, and not easy going.
That said, I will keep reading. Who knows, maybe he'll get better. Maybe I will. Or maybe we'll meet somewhere in the middle...
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes