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cjt64's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.75
funfamilyvideos's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
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
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Emotional abuse, and Antisemitism
Minor: Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexism
marlisenicole's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
brossolette's review against another edition
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
5.0
raulbime's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars.
"It is human to seek out what hurts us and then at once to seek to get rid of it."
That brilliant quote encapsulates this reading experience. Our long-winded narrator is back. All grown up, as obsessive as ever, still sensitive in some ways, and his detailed observations and contemplations of his environment and time as striking as ever. I’m afraid this review is going to be as long-winded as our narrator.
The book continues where the last stopped, during the Dreyfus affair which famously showed the horrifying levels of anti-Semitism in France. The social circles our narrator moves in are as divided as the nation: the first group consisting of the old families with royal ties and conservative, blatantly expressing their anti-Semitism. The second group, consisting mainly of the nouveau-riche and liberal individuals, and the artists and scholars they bring into their circle, mostly support Dreyfus. This book covers a lot (anti-Semitism, homosexuality, social classes, race, gender roles and norms with surprising theories about gender expression), which made me question that vacuous theory about politics and its place in fiction with books such as these and writers such as Proust held up and declared apolitical (let alone that nothing can be apolitical, and only the foolish think themselves gleaned of any trace of the political thoughts of their time, including this one, or the political status given to them).
This is the book I wanted to read most from the volumes. My local library had all the volumes except this one which puzzled me for some time, and my smart and wonderful friend Mwana pointed out what should have been obvious from the start. That it was missing could possibly be that its title caught the attention of a religious homophobe who requested it to be removed from the library. A plausible occurrence; which is odd because that's where I found Renault's The Charioteer, a formative read for me (even though it was last borrowed in the 80s when I took it so maybe the reader didn't get to it), and that the library carries several Holinghurst copies (the thought of this reader innocently stumbling into one of his cruising scenes, truthfully, brings a smile to my face). Which is to say that it took me a while to read this, and it wasn’t until I found all the volumes–this one included this time–luckily and randomly from a second-hand book vendor in the streets of Nairobi that I got to it.
The book's central theme is, allegedly, homosexuality. At least as observed in early twentieth century France, and wouldn’t that make an interesting read? Of course the writer of this book was closeted in his lifetime, even fought a duel when accused of having a gay relationship:https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/02/day-history-february-5th-dueling-dandies/, and his housekeeper maintained to the very last that he wasn’t gay and so, unsurprisingly, the narrator of this book is, allegedly, a neutral observer. For the first time since I started these books, at least from what I can recall, Proust subtly mentions the autobiographical connections the reader could draw and assume from the narrator of the book and the writer:
...“All this,” the reader will remark, “tells us nothing as to the lady’s failure to oblige; but since you have made so long a digression, allow me, dear author, to waste another moment of your time by telling you that it is a pity that, young as you were (or as your hero was, if he isn’t you...
Perhaps aware of the allegations that could arise from the assumptions, he leaves the narrator at a perfect distance. While not explicitly violent or abrasive of homosexual individuals and relationships, and both even described as normal as heterosexual individuals and relationships which is quite liberal for his time, the point of view can’t be the same, and our narrator is even reduced to a peep and eavesdropper at times, and there is only so far a neutral observer can go. I understand and I’m in complete agreement of the writer’s right to discretion, especially considering the times he lived in over a century ago, that would be compromised had this book been narrated by a person who is not only an observer, but part of the queer community in this period. Considering that part of the greatness of this work is how incredibly immersive the narrator is and how he brings the reader completely into his world, that we get only the scraps was disappointing.
Still, even with the scraps, there are incredible points of realization and recognition. One of which being that unspoken language, which fascinates me, that exists between queer individuals, and especially those who are most vulnerable to violence or live in violent places, which can’t be aptly articulated since its essence exists in and consists of the unmentionable. Where gesture, hunch, gaze, look, and luck does more work than words ever could. Its description, Proust excellently provides, is like giving shape to the amorphous or laying grip to fog.
Then of course there’s the insights on life, time, memory, development (it was really adorable reading the narrator’s fascination with–for him– the newly invented telephone, motorcar and airplane), and other interesting subjects such as the etymology of French towns (which went on a bit too much for my liking) are always a pleasure to read from Proust. From this volume I made the very obvious and taken for granted discovery: the distance which time creates, between the area that is called then and that relative area defined as now, which our narrator brings attention to the reader, not so subtly–even humorously–at some point in the beginning of the book and through the reflections of his youth. Carried through age and experience the gift the passage of time, mingled with whatever notions and biases we have, gives us: perspective.
I wish the central theme had remained central, that it hadn’t deviated as much as it did, being less fleshy than better circumstances would have made it. That all of this hadn’t been patches of brilliance surrounded by clouds in the form of high-society anecdotes and the meaning of names of towns I have little care to know of (and in the writer’s defense I was most likely nowhere near the audience he envisioned for his book).There’s so much that I could go on and on about (such as that early version of modern stanning with the Cambremer ladies arguing about Chopin and Debussy), as our narrator does, and as I’ve probably done so far, but this book, while underwhelming in certain ways, is still incredible.
"It is human to seek out what hurts us and then at once to seek to get rid of it."
That brilliant quote encapsulates this reading experience. Our long-winded narrator is back. All grown up, as obsessive as ever, still sensitive in some ways, and his detailed observations and contemplations of his environment and time as striking as ever. I’m afraid this review is going to be as long-winded as our narrator.
The book continues where the last stopped, during the Dreyfus affair which famously showed the horrifying levels of anti-Semitism in France. The social circles our narrator moves in are as divided as the nation: the first group consisting of the old families with royal ties and conservative, blatantly expressing their anti-Semitism. The second group, consisting mainly of the nouveau-riche and liberal individuals, and the artists and scholars they bring into their circle, mostly support Dreyfus. This book covers a lot (anti-Semitism, homosexuality, social classes, race, gender roles and norms with surprising theories about gender expression), which made me question that vacuous theory about politics and its place in fiction with books such as these and writers such as Proust held up and declared apolitical (let alone that nothing can be apolitical, and only the foolish think themselves gleaned of any trace of the political thoughts of their time, including this one, or the political status given to them).
This is the book I wanted to read most from the volumes. My local library had all the volumes except this one which puzzled me for some time, and my smart and wonderful friend Mwana pointed out what should have been obvious from the start. That it was missing could possibly be that its title caught the attention of a religious homophobe who requested it to be removed from the library. A plausible occurrence; which is odd because that's where I found Renault's The Charioteer, a formative read for me (even though it was last borrowed in the 80s when I took it so maybe the reader didn't get to it), and that the library carries several Holinghurst copies (the thought of this reader innocently stumbling into one of his cruising scenes, truthfully, brings a smile to my face). Which is to say that it took me a while to read this, and it wasn’t until I found all the volumes–this one included this time–luckily and randomly from a second-hand book vendor in the streets of Nairobi that I got to it.
The book's central theme is, allegedly, homosexuality. At least as observed in early twentieth century France, and wouldn’t that make an interesting read? Of course the writer of this book was closeted in his lifetime, even fought a duel when accused of having a gay relationship:https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/02/day-history-february-5th-dueling-dandies/, and his housekeeper maintained to the very last that he wasn’t gay and so, unsurprisingly, the narrator of this book is, allegedly, a neutral observer. For the first time since I started these books, at least from what I can recall, Proust subtly mentions the autobiographical connections the reader could draw and assume from the narrator of the book and the writer:
...“All this,” the reader will remark, “tells us nothing as to the lady’s failure to oblige; but since you have made so long a digression, allow me, dear author, to waste another moment of your time by telling you that it is a pity that, young as you were (or as your hero was, if he isn’t you...
Perhaps aware of the allegations that could arise from the assumptions, he leaves the narrator at a perfect distance. While not explicitly violent or abrasive of homosexual individuals and relationships, and both even described as normal as heterosexual individuals and relationships which is quite liberal for his time, the point of view can’t be the same, and our narrator is even reduced to a peep and eavesdropper at times, and there is only so far a neutral observer can go. I understand and I’m in complete agreement of the writer’s right to discretion, especially considering the times he lived in over a century ago, that would be compromised had this book been narrated by a person who is not only an observer, but part of the queer community in this period. Considering that part of the greatness of this work is how incredibly immersive the narrator is and how he brings the reader completely into his world, that we get only the scraps was disappointing.
Still, even with the scraps, there are incredible points of realization and recognition. One of which being that unspoken language, which fascinates me, that exists between queer individuals, and especially those who are most vulnerable to violence or live in violent places, which can’t be aptly articulated since its essence exists in and consists of the unmentionable. Where gesture, hunch, gaze, look, and luck does more work than words ever could. Its description, Proust excellently provides, is like giving shape to the amorphous or laying grip to fog.
Then of course there’s the insights on life, time, memory, development (it was really adorable reading the narrator’s fascination with–for him– the newly invented telephone, motorcar and airplane), and other interesting subjects such as the etymology of French towns (which went on a bit too much for my liking) are always a pleasure to read from Proust. From this volume I made the very obvious and taken for granted discovery: the distance which time creates, between the area that is called then and that relative area defined as now, which our narrator brings attention to the reader, not so subtly–even humorously–at some point in the beginning of the book and through the reflections of his youth. Carried through age and experience the gift the passage of time, mingled with whatever notions and biases we have, gives us: perspective.
I wish the central theme had remained central, that it hadn’t deviated as much as it did, being less fleshy than better circumstances would have made it. That all of this hadn’t been patches of brilliance surrounded by clouds in the form of high-society anecdotes and the meaning of names of towns I have little care to know of (and in the writer’s defense I was most likely nowhere near the audience he envisioned for his book).There’s so much that I could go on and on about (such as that early version of modern stanning with the Cambremer ladies arguing about Chopin and Debussy), as our narrator does, and as I’ve probably done so far, but this book, while underwhelming in certain ways, is still incredible.
grayjay's review against another edition
3.0
The narrator arrives at the salon of the Princesses de Guermantes unsure if he was invited or not. Previously he had spied upon a flirtation and subsequent lovemaking that revealed that the Baron de Charlus is gay. He has several awkward encounters at the salon as, although no one wants to, he tries to convince various other guests to introduce him officially to the hostess. He observes M. de Charlus and his interactions in the salon, noting other guests' reactions to him under the new light of his knowledge of his sexuality.
He returns to Balbec under the direction of a doctor, and is now confronted with the grief he had not faced over his grandmother's death. He again takes up his love affair with Albertine, but at the suggestion by another friend, becomes suspicious that she loves women. There is a confrontation in which she weakly denies it, and they continue their relationship.
While he is in Balbec he is invited to the home of the Verdurins; thus, we are treated to the social observations of another set. Charlus also partakes of this salon as he is staying in Balbec, carrying out a love affair with a young violinist called Morel.
A large section is dedicated the Baron's insecurities that Morel is sleeping with other men (which he sometimes is), and his trials in keeping him interested. The narrator is even employed by the Baron as a go-between in an adventure where the Baron pretends to be challenged to a duel on behalf of Morel's honour.
He returns to Balbec under the direction of a doctor, and is now confronted with the grief he had not faced over his grandmother's death. He again takes up his love affair with Albertine, but at the suggestion by another friend, becomes suspicious that she loves women. There is a confrontation in which she weakly denies it, and they continue their relationship.
While he is in Balbec he is invited to the home of the Verdurins; thus, we are treated to the social observations of another set. Charlus also partakes of this salon as he is staying in Balbec, carrying out a love affair with a young violinist called Morel.
A large section is dedicated the Baron's insecurities that Morel is sleeping with other men (which he sometimes is), and his trials in keeping him interested. The narrator is even employed by the Baron as a go-between in an adventure where the Baron pretends to be challenged to a duel on behalf of Morel's honour.
casparb's review against another edition
these queens ! what an undertaking. delightful delightful & one forgets how proust can be genuinely funny -- -- I'm committed
chicokc's review against another edition
3.0
En este tomo explora el tema de la homosexualidad en la sociedad francesa y claro, como el autor era homosexual, pues pudo explorar el tema.