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In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1: Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove, Part 1 by Marcel Proust
levitybooks's review
4.0
Video review for Swann's Way
In the video above I show the book and describe my complete thoughts for Swann's Way.
About this edition:
I think the Everyman Classics edition is very nice. It's a revised version of Montcrieff's translation and has a Foreword by Harold Bloom which is wonderfully informative however a bit revealing of the entire series of books — NOTE: this Vol.1. has a foreword and translator's preface for the entire series, the remaining volumes do not have these.
Why I'm pausing my Proust journey:
Here are some of my 'more negative' views about Proust, which are why I'm not continuing to read Proust for now. Swann's Way is a love story in slow-motion, and it's very well articulated and descriptive in ways I have never seen, and doubt I ever will see again. However, I did find parts of Swann's Way tiresome — Proust might spend 5 or 10 pages writing about a Church steeple or a party where people are making the most mundane smalltalk. I'm sure everything makes sense eventually, like, in the fifth book there might be some flashback to the Church steeple and it'll seem like Proust meant all along to make some extended metaphor, but honestly, I just wonder whether it's vastness for the sake of vastness. There's a lot of profound thought on the nature of recognition and memory but it almost feels like it reaches the end of its development and the story is just stuck on the same reflections. This too, might be intentional and later seen to be the core point.
Maybe what I am trying to write is that Proust just isn't that fun, or funny to me (yet). It is too slow and uneventful as a narrative, regardless of how wonderfully descriptive it is. Something feels empty about it to me. And Proust is certainly an excellent case for wondering — did this really need to be this long? I can't imagine why every single page of Swann's Way is necessary to the entirety of In Search of Lost Time. Maybe the effect is to create a vastness of a life lived in reflection, but were it so, it all seems a bit excessive to me.
I also find some of Proust's views outdated or not true to my experience. This doesn't seem a great comparison given it being over a century old, but if Proust as an author is going to write a story where most of it is him narrating to you what he thinks life is about, then it deserves to be judged on the utility of that narration.
*******************[previously written]***
Review coming soon.
Note: I only read Swann's Way of this collection (up to page 416 of 633). I don't intend on reading Within A Budding Grove any time soon. I'm marking this as Read for simplicity's sake, and so I can feel done with it, and keeping it to this edition for my page number references. I doubt book 2 would differ much in quality, but I could be wrong.
In the video above I show the book and describe my complete thoughts for Swann's Way.
About this edition:
I think the Everyman Classics edition is very nice. It's a revised version of Montcrieff's translation and has a Foreword by Harold Bloom which is wonderfully informative however a bit revealing of the entire series of books — NOTE: this Vol.1. has a foreword and translator's preface for the entire series, the remaining volumes do not have these.
Why I'm pausing my Proust journey:
Here are some of my 'more negative' views about Proust, which are why I'm not continuing to read Proust for now. Swann's Way is a love story in slow-motion, and it's very well articulated and descriptive in ways I have never seen, and doubt I ever will see again. However, I did find parts of Swann's Way tiresome — Proust might spend 5 or 10 pages writing about a Church steeple or a party where people are making the most mundane smalltalk. I'm sure everything makes sense eventually, like, in the fifth book there might be some flashback to the Church steeple and it'll seem like Proust meant all along to make some extended metaphor, but honestly, I just wonder whether it's vastness for the sake of vastness. There's a lot of profound thought on the nature of recognition and memory but it almost feels like it reaches the end of its development and the story is just stuck on the same reflections. This too, might be intentional and later seen to be the core point.
Maybe what I am trying to write is that Proust just isn't that fun, or funny to me (yet). It is too slow and uneventful as a narrative, regardless of how wonderfully descriptive it is. Something feels empty about it to me. And Proust is certainly an excellent case for wondering — did this really need to be this long? I can't imagine why every single page of Swann's Way is necessary to the entirety of In Search of Lost Time. Maybe the effect is to create a vastness of a life lived in reflection, but were it so, it all seems a bit excessive to me.
I also find some of Proust's views outdated or not true to my experience. This doesn't seem a great comparison given it being over a century old, but if Proust as an author is going to write a story where most of it is him narrating to you what he thinks life is about, then it deserves to be judged on the utility of that narration.
*******************[previously written]***
Review coming soon.
Note: I only read Swann's Way of this collection (up to page 416 of 633). I don't intend on reading Within A Budding Grove any time soon. I'm marking this as Read for simplicity's sake, and so I can feel done with it, and keeping it to this edition for my page number references. I doubt book 2 would differ much in quality, but I could be wrong.
anna1476's review
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
hayesstw's review
I saw this book in the library and thought I'd seen it on a couple of those lists of books that everyone should read, or the greatest books of the 20th century, or even the
I've been told that [b:In search of lost time|13073169|Hector and the Search for Lost Time|François Lelord|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344310021s/13073169.jpg|27262640] is written in a "stream of consciousness" style, and that might help to explain the long sentences and convoluted syntax. But I've read other "stream-of-consciousness" novels and I don't recall the main clause being divided by half a page of subordinate clauses like an if-then computer program. Yes, one thought leads to another, but the syntax follows the thought, rather than the thought being divided by the syntax -- at least that is what I recall in [b:The Waves|46114|The Waves|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439492320s/46114.jpg|6057263] and [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1428891345s/338798.jpg|2368224]. And this one has more digressions than [b:Tristram Shandy|916292|Tristram Shandy|Ruth Whittaker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1266672792s/916292.jpg|901368].
Another confusing thing is that one is never sure of the age of the narrator. One moment he is sent to bed because he's too young to sit at the dinner table with the adults, and is scheming to get his mother to come upstairs and kiss him goodnight, the next he is holding adult literary discussions with a sophisticated friend who is excluded from the dinner table because he was rude about the narrator's great aunt. Still, I suppose my stream of consciousness jumps about like that except I'm not asking anyone else to read it, and as the author says, we don't know people, we only know out memories of them. But I think the author of [b:Night train to Lisbon|1528410|Night Train to Lisbon|Pascal Mercier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388511706s/1528410.jpg|1387510] says it better, and in fewer words.
I'm sure I'll have to take it back to the library before I've finished it, and even if I do finish it there are still three more volumes to go. Maybe I'll renew it, maybe I won't.
I've been told that [b:In search of lost time|13073169|Hector and the Search for Lost Time|François Lelord|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344310021s/13073169.jpg|27262640] is written in a "stream of consciousness" style, and that might help to explain the long sentences and convoluted syntax. But I've read other "stream-of-consciousness" novels and I don't recall the main clause being divided by half a page of subordinate clauses like an if-then computer program. Yes, one thought leads to another, but the syntax follows the thought, rather than the thought being divided by the syntax -- at least that is what I recall in [b:The Waves|46114|The Waves|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439492320s/46114.jpg|6057263] and [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1428891345s/338798.jpg|2368224]. And this one has more digressions than [b:Tristram Shandy|916292|Tristram Shandy|Ruth Whittaker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1266672792s/916292.jpg|901368].
Another confusing thing is that one is never sure of the age of the narrator. One moment he is sent to bed because he's too young to sit at the dinner table with the adults, and is scheming to get his mother to come upstairs and kiss him goodnight, the next he is holding adult literary discussions with a sophisticated friend who is excluded from the dinner table because he was rude about the narrator's great aunt. Still, I suppose my stream of consciousness jumps about like that except I'm not asking anyone else to read it, and as the author says, we don't know people, we only know out memories of them. But I think the author of [b:Night train to Lisbon|1528410|Night Train to Lisbon|Pascal Mercier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388511706s/1528410.jpg|1387510] says it better, and in fewer words.
I'm sure I'll have to take it back to the library before I've finished it, and even if I do finish it there are still three more volumes to go. Maybe I'll renew it, maybe I won't.
hazeljade's review
4.0
Reminds me of Finnegans Wake
The glow and Pacé reminds me of Finnegans Wake. It’s as if it were written to be a long literature impression of a babbling brook.
The glow and Pacé reminds me of Finnegans Wake. It’s as if it were written to be a long literature impression of a babbling brook.
waynewaynus's review
2.0
I cannot believe this is only book 2 of 7, unaccountably slow and boring, beyond description.
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