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kateofmind's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
There is always something that's going to be lost in translation with this work, isn't there? Whole pages are devoted to the minute appreciation of puns which can't even be approximated in English. I made the effort, the first few times, to pull out an English- French dictionary and sort them out but after a while I just rolled my eyes and bulled through.
There's still lots to enjoy in this ultimate navel-gaze in prose, but only because its author and narrator had the great good fortune to be born and raised in a well-to-do family in pre-war France. The countryside, the art, the architecture, the clothing, the music, all are lovingly though exhaustively described (hope you like flowers) and I could have read the Combray sections forever!
Alas, what really lasted forever was Swann in Love, an excruciating million page examination of every second of the narrator's family friend's courtship of the declasse wife who is destined to give birth to the narrator's first crush. How this section escaped the turn of the 21st century' mania for turning literary classics into teen soap operas is beyond me. It's all here: warring cliques, social snobbery, gossip, the stubborn unwillingness of anyone to be sincere or honest about their feelings...
Swann is pretty perpetually a dick to Odette (more in his mind than in reality, of course but we're stuck in his mind almost as firmly as if Swann himself was narrating). She can get nothing right, can Odette, nor is she even his idea of pretty! But this is, for all its tiresomeness, a first rate evocation of the gulf between the emulations of people we create in our heads and the real people themselves. I'm exhausted, but impressed.
My original plan was to read all seven novels in a go, but I need a break before In A Budding Grove. I'm pretty sure that title's a metaphor.
For young women's boobies.
There's still lots to enjoy in this ultimate navel-gaze in prose, but only because its author and narrator had the great good fortune to be born and raised in a well-to-do family in pre-war France. The countryside, the art, the architecture, the clothing, the music, all are lovingly though exhaustively described (hope you like flowers) and I could have read the Combray sections forever!
Alas, what really lasted forever was Swann in Love, an excruciating million page examination of every second of the narrator's family friend's courtship of the declasse wife who is destined to give birth to the narrator's first crush. How this section escaped the turn of the 21st century' mania for turning literary classics into teen soap operas is beyond me. It's all here: warring cliques, social snobbery, gossip, the stubborn unwillingness of anyone to be sincere or honest about their feelings...
Swann is pretty perpetually a dick to Odette (more in his mind than in reality, of course but we're stuck in his mind almost as firmly as if Swann himself was narrating). She can get nothing right, can Odette, nor is she even his idea of pretty! But this is, for all its tiresomeness, a first rate evocation of the gulf between the emulations of people we create in our heads and the real people themselves. I'm exhausted, but impressed.
My original plan was to read all seven novels in a go, but I need a break before In A Budding Grove. I'm pretty sure that title's a metaphor.
For young women's boobies.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Lesbophobia, and Misogyny
Minor: Sexual assault
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