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david_rhee's review against another edition
4.0
I was finally able to pick up the 5th volume of Remembrance of Things Past almost 2 years after finishing Sodom and Gomorrah. Even after that long layoff things just seemed to pick up where they left off which I feel is a testament to Proust's masterful literary flow. Marcel continues to torture himself by imagining that his love Albertine is unfaithful to him. This consuming jealousy dominated Sodom and Gomorrah, so its transition is seamless. He resolves to hold her captive in his home to keep an eye on her, but ironically it is he who really becomes the prisoner. His obsessive efforts to keep Albertine bound in turn entwine around himself and rob him of peace of mind and freedom.
There's no use continuing a synopsis of the book, so I'll focus on Proust's strengths the most notable of which is his description of involuntary sensations. His reflections on memory, subjective beauty, and desire are a treat. All of this is expressed in a flowing prose that carries the reader along in its current. Reading Proust is not a labor, and one needs to save his energy to digest the complicated web of relations which span this giant novel. His keen sense for the manifold nonverbal communications which accompany people's interactions can get overwhelming. I would think a common mistake in reading Proust is to become overly concerned with the event sequence, ie. "what is happening?" It's best to let the sequence fall into place or backtrack with a synopsis later.
There's no use continuing a synopsis of the book, so I'll focus on Proust's strengths the most notable of which is his description of involuntary sensations. His reflections on memory, subjective beauty, and desire are a treat. All of this is expressed in a flowing prose that carries the reader along in its current. Reading Proust is not a labor, and one needs to save his energy to digest the complicated web of relations which span this giant novel. His keen sense for the manifold nonverbal communications which accompany people's interactions can get overwhelming. I would think a common mistake in reading Proust is to become overly concerned with the event sequence, ie. "what is happening?" It's best to let the sequence fall into place or backtrack with a synopsis later.
braxwall's review against another edition
4.0
Femte boken, den första postumt utgivna och då kliver författaren för första gången in i handlingen men markerar samtidigt att författaren inte är berättaren. Det är många teman och den mest ojämna boken. Till höjdpunkterna hör berättarens relation till Albertine och den extrema svartsjuka som får hennes tillvaro att likna ett fängelse. Intressant är också analogierna mellan minnet och konsten som fragment av livet, där de enda sanna lärdomarna kan göras genom att betrakta saker genom andras ögon; den resa i tid och rum som vi gör genom konsten eller minnets fragment av förflutenhetens landskap. Jag känner att jag börjar närma mig Marcels horisont!
bamdad's review against another edition
5.0
این احساس دل شکستگی بعد از پایان هر جلد از کجا میاد؟!
پ.ن: کاملا بی ربط ولی بعضی از کتابا هستن که با یک آهنگ برای من گره میخوره چون معمولا توی زمان استراحت بین شروع مجدد کتاب چندبار به اون آهنگ گوش میدم و با این جلد " در جستجو.." این آهنگ هم برای من جاودانه شد:
Ben Howard - End of the Affair
و ترکیب این حس پایان کتاب و این آهنگ و مقاله ای که دیروز از خانم ویرجینیا وولف خوندم چیز عجیب و غریبی شده.
پ.ن: کاملا بی ربط ولی بعضی از کتابا هستن که با یک آهنگ برای من گره میخوره چون معمولا توی زمان استراحت بین شروع مجدد کتاب چندبار به اون آهنگ گوش میدم و با این جلد " در جستجو.." این آهنگ هم برای من جاودانه شد:
Ben Howard - End of the Affair
و ترکیب این حس پایان کتاب و این آهنگ و مقاله ای که دیروز از خانم ویرجینیا وولف خوندم چیز عجیب و غریبی شده.
likecymbeline's review against another edition
Of course I'm still at it. If I was ever going to stop, it would've been in The Guermantes Way. As it is, I'm committed.
Our narrator continues his unlikable behaviour and all I want to do is free Albertine. However, the book is more readable either because I've become too used to the style, or because a service was done to the prose in Proust dying before he could go back to edit it.
For a man whose theme is memory, he sure forgets who died a few paragraphs before. At least three rather mundane but significant deaths are quickly retconned. What the hell, Marcel.
Our narrator continues his unlikable behaviour and all I want to do is free Albertine. However, the book is more readable either because I've become too used to the style, or because a service was done to the prose in Proust dying before he could go back to edit it.
For a man whose theme is memory, he sure forgets who died a few paragraphs before. At least three rather mundane but significant deaths are quickly retconned. What the hell, Marcel.
floriannepb's review against another edition
3.75
Bon, c'est Proust on s'entend, mais moins bon que Sodome et Gomorrhe.
kisaly's review against another edition
3.0
The sublime descriptions of music deserve five, six stars. Having to spend another 300 pages with this sociopath of a narrator does not. Proust's lack of a final edit in this volume seems to show. I'm very much looking forward to Time Regained, but not necessarily the Fugitive slog to get there.
jacquesdevilliers's review
4.0
A critic having written that in Vermeer's View of Delft a little patch of yellow wall was so well painted that it was, if one looked at it in isolation, like a precious work of Chinese art, of an entirely self-sufficient beauty...
'That is how I should have written, he said to himself. My last books are too dry, I should have applied several layers of colour, made my sentences precious in themselves, like that little patch of yellow wall'...
In a heavenly scales he could see, weighing down one of the pans, his own life, while the other contained the little patch of wall so beautifully painted in yellow. He could feel that he had rashly given the first for the second.
A proper review of this book is forthcoming, but I'll just say here that there is something especially moving in this quintessentially Proustian comparison between painting and literature, given that this was the first volume of Proust's novel to be published after his death. Yet whatever Proust's doubts, it's clear to me from this volume alone that he more than painted his patch of yellow wall.
'That is how I should have written, he said to himself. My last books are too dry, I should have applied several layers of colour, made my sentences precious in themselves, like that little patch of yellow wall'...
In a heavenly scales he could see, weighing down one of the pans, his own life, while the other contained the little patch of wall so beautifully painted in yellow. He could feel that he had rashly given the first for the second.
A proper review of this book is forthcoming, but I'll just say here that there is something especially moving in this quintessentially Proustian comparison between painting and literature, given that this was the first volume of Proust's novel to be published after his death. Yet whatever Proust's doubts, it's clear to me from this volume alone that he more than painted his patch of yellow wall.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Je pouvais bien prendre Albertine sur mes genoux, tenir sa tête dans mes mains, je pouvais la caresser, passer longuement mes mains sur elle, mais, comme si j'eusse manié une pierre qui enferme la salure des océans immémoriaux ou le rayon d'une étoile, je sentais que je touchais seulement l'enveloppe close d'un être qui par l'intérieur accédait à l'infini.Sottises ! Conneries ! Pheu !
nataalia_sanchez's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mcgreig's review against another edition
4.0
Thankfully, I found this much more interesting that Sodom & Gomorrah. I found that the links between the different volumes and the underlying themes of the story became clearer; I have renewed enthusiasm for completing the entire set!