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A review by bucket
Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust
4.0
My thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole are below! First, my thoughts on Time Regained:
Well, Proust definitely knew how to write a satisfying ending. The last 100 pages of the novel are a glorious culmination of the themes and ideas that have filled the previous 2900 pages. I did find things ever so slightly repetitive after a while, but not because Proust was literally repeating himself. This was more because he was coming at his major themes (time, memory, literature, art, change, identity) from an endless variety of closely-associated angles and teasing out every little nuance. For me, someone who is terrible at writing conclusions and summaries, this process was absolutely fascinating. Every step of Proust’s novel seemed to come into account here in the final volume and I was amazed and impressed.
My takeaways:
It’s not the wittiest or best-educated person who is a true artist, it’s the person who “can become a mirror and thereby reflect his life.”
We as individuals are many different people – each person who describes and judges us sees us as a different person and as we change over the course of our lives we become new people all the time.
“But it would be absurd to sacrifice to the symbol the reality which it symbolizes.”
Life seems dreary, even though so many moments are wonderful, because we base our assessment on memories, which are very different from actual life moments in that they no longer contain life itself, which is what is beautiful.
Experiencing a Proustian moment is basically being in two times at once – experiencing in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.
“The book whose characters are forged within us, rather than sketched by us, is the only book we have.”
Happiness is good for the body, sorrow strengthens the mind.
Life continues to weave new connections and ideas around old memories, even when you aren’t thinking about them. Then, revisiting them years later, you can find them much changed.
Some of the effects of time: “forgiveness, forgetting, and indifference”
“I was thinking of my book in more modest terms, and it would be a mistake to say that I was thinking of those who would read it as my readers. For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one of those magnifying glasses.. I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” (A means but not an end – a starting point.)
It is a universal feeling that we occupy an ever larger place in time as we age. “It was this notion of embodied time, of past years not being separated from us, that it was now my intention to make such a prominent feature in my work."
One niggling complaint –about the Penguin translation, not Proust. All throughout I’ve really been impressed with the group of translators who worked on this edition – the endnotes and introductory notes have been excellent, and the translation has read smoothly and fluidly. This final volume is, comparatively, quite subpar. Sentences are confusing – as though Ian Patterson, the translator, didn’t put enough time into ensuring their grammatical flow once translated – and there are actually quite a few missing words and other mistakes that aren’t original to Proust’s manuscript. Additionally, the introduction was very rushed and I got the impression Patterson’s heart wasn’t in the project. I definitely feel disappointed in his effort – especially since he chose to work on the novel’s very important culmination.
A distillation of my thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole:
I’ve always said that I’d rather a book be short on plot and long on thought than fast-paced and full of clever plot devices but lacking realistic characters and something thought-provoking to sink my teeth into. The fact that I truly loved reading this 3000-page novel, from beginning to end, puts my money where my mouth is. After all, the first volume (Swann’s Way) opens with 30-ish pages describing that weird feeling of waking up and not knowing for a split where, who, or when you are.
In Search of Lost Time is impossible to summarize, but here I go: The novel is about Marcel (the narrator, not the author) discovering, after a long life of distractions and failures, that he can reach the goal of writing a novel that he gave up long ago. The novel has two “I’s” - both young Marcel and old Marcel (writing the novel we’re reading) wax and wane throughout. This provides the reader with two different looks at characters and events that combine to give us a more rounded perspective. As Roger Shattuck, literary critic and Proust scholar says, this is just like the way that our two eyes with their slightly different locations on our face work together to give what we see depth.
There are dozens of central characters and plot points and hundreds of pages of philosophical musings and digressions, but the last 100 pages are a glorious culmination. Proust comes at his major themes from an endless variety of closely-associated angles, teasing out every nuance. Ultimately, I feel comfortable distilling In Search of Lost Time down to the following themes, in order of increasing importance, that will continue to haunt my thoughts for a long time:
Art and Literature – Proust is very clear that both literature and art are tools for human growth and reflection. This does not, however, mean that reading a good book or watching an acclaimed play will automatically change the reader/viewer and help her grow. Rather, literature and art are means to an end, starting points. As Marcel (our narrator) describes the readers of his novel: “For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one those magnifying glasses… I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” Merely having and experiencing the tool isn’t enough, the reader must then do his or her own internal work to gain from the experience.
Identity – We are, each of us, an endless number of people. As we change over time, we become new people. Additionally, we are a different person in the eyes of each person who knows us. As Marcel describes himself: “I was not one single man, but the march-past of a composite army manned, depending on the time of day, by passionate, indifferent or jealous men.”
Memory and Time – I’m discussing these two themes together because they are so interwoven. Proust very thoroughly show how our memories aren’t static, but are shaped and filtered by how our identity changes and what happens to us over time. Life weaves new connections and ideas around old memories, changing them. Proust also argues that the more we consciously focus on creating or thinking about a memory, the less real and visual it will be because we wring all the strength out of it. Involuntary memories – what readers of In Search of Lost Time would call “Proustian moments” – are the most potent. The most famous Proustian moment in the novel is when the narrator takes a bit of a madeleine cake he has dipped in tea and very suddenly recalls his childhood in an extremely sensual way. This moments allows the narrator to occupy two time periods at once, the one he is in and the one he recalls – he “experience[s] in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.” The novel closes with a rapid succession of five such moments, which ultimately lead the narrator to write his novel.
It took me six months to work my way through In Search of Lost Time and I would not be exaggerating to say that the experienced has changed me. My perspective has deepened, my self-visualization has been refined. And, to end on a lighter note, I’ve found another reason to read literature to add to my growing mental list:
“To read genuine literature is to accumulate within oneself a fund of possible experiences against which to achieve an occasionally intensified sense of what one is doing, to recognize that one is alive in a particular way.”
Through literature, the young look forward to life, and the old look back at it.
Well, Proust definitely knew how to write a satisfying ending. The last 100 pages of the novel are a glorious culmination of the themes and ideas that have filled the previous 2900 pages. I did find things ever so slightly repetitive after a while, but not because Proust was literally repeating himself. This was more because he was coming at his major themes (time, memory, literature, art, change, identity) from an endless variety of closely-associated angles and teasing out every little nuance. For me, someone who is terrible at writing conclusions and summaries, this process was absolutely fascinating. Every step of Proust’s novel seemed to come into account here in the final volume and I was amazed and impressed.
My takeaways:
It’s not the wittiest or best-educated person who is a true artist, it’s the person who “can become a mirror and thereby reflect his life.”
We as individuals are many different people – each person who describes and judges us sees us as a different person and as we change over the course of our lives we become new people all the time.
“But it would be absurd to sacrifice to the symbol the reality which it symbolizes.”
Life seems dreary, even though so many moments are wonderful, because we base our assessment on memories, which are very different from actual life moments in that they no longer contain life itself, which is what is beautiful.
Experiencing a Proustian moment is basically being in two times at once – experiencing in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.
“The book whose characters are forged within us, rather than sketched by us, is the only book we have.”
Happiness is good for the body, sorrow strengthens the mind.
Life continues to weave new connections and ideas around old memories, even when you aren’t thinking about them. Then, revisiting them years later, you can find them much changed.
Some of the effects of time: “forgiveness, forgetting, and indifference”
“I was thinking of my book in more modest terms, and it would be a mistake to say that I was thinking of those who would read it as my readers. For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one of those magnifying glasses.. I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” (A means but not an end – a starting point.)
It is a universal feeling that we occupy an ever larger place in time as we age. “It was this notion of embodied time, of past years not being separated from us, that it was now my intention to make such a prominent feature in my work."
One niggling complaint –about the Penguin translation, not Proust. All throughout I’ve really been impressed with the group of translators who worked on this edition – the endnotes and introductory notes have been excellent, and the translation has read smoothly and fluidly. This final volume is, comparatively, quite subpar. Sentences are confusing – as though Ian Patterson, the translator, didn’t put enough time into ensuring their grammatical flow once translated – and there are actually quite a few missing words and other mistakes that aren’t original to Proust’s manuscript. Additionally, the introduction was very rushed and I got the impression Patterson’s heart wasn’t in the project. I definitely feel disappointed in his effort – especially since he chose to work on the novel’s very important culmination.
A distillation of my thoughts on In Search of Lost Time as a whole:
I’ve always said that I’d rather a book be short on plot and long on thought than fast-paced and full of clever plot devices but lacking realistic characters and something thought-provoking to sink my teeth into. The fact that I truly loved reading this 3000-page novel, from beginning to end, puts my money where my mouth is. After all, the first volume (Swann’s Way) opens with 30-ish pages describing that weird feeling of waking up and not knowing for a split where, who, or when you are.
In Search of Lost Time is impossible to summarize, but here I go: The novel is about Marcel (the narrator, not the author) discovering, after a long life of distractions and failures, that he can reach the goal of writing a novel that he gave up long ago. The novel has two “I’s” - both young Marcel and old Marcel (writing the novel we’re reading) wax and wane throughout. This provides the reader with two different looks at characters and events that combine to give us a more rounded perspective. As Roger Shattuck, literary critic and Proust scholar says, this is just like the way that our two eyes with their slightly different locations on our face work together to give what we see depth.
There are dozens of central characters and plot points and hundreds of pages of philosophical musings and digressions, but the last 100 pages are a glorious culmination. Proust comes at his major themes from an endless variety of closely-associated angles, teasing out every nuance. Ultimately, I feel comfortable distilling In Search of Lost Time down to the following themes, in order of increasing importance, that will continue to haunt my thoughts for a long time:
Art and Literature – Proust is very clear that both literature and art are tools for human growth and reflection. This does not, however, mean that reading a good book or watching an acclaimed play will automatically change the reader/viewer and help her grow. Rather, literature and art are means to an end, starting points. As Marcel (our narrator) describes the readers of his novel: “For they were not, as I saw it, my readers, so much as readers of their own selves, my book being merely one those magnifying glasses… I would be providing them with the means of reading within themselves.” Merely having and experiencing the tool isn’t enough, the reader must then do his or her own internal work to gain from the experience.
Identity – We are, each of us, an endless number of people. As we change over time, we become new people. Additionally, we are a different person in the eyes of each person who knows us. As Marcel describes himself: “I was not one single man, but the march-past of a composite army manned, depending on the time of day, by passionate, indifferent or jealous men.”
Memory and Time – I’m discussing these two themes together because they are so interwoven. Proust very thoroughly show how our memories aren’t static, but are shaped and filtered by how our identity changes and what happens to us over time. Life weaves new connections and ideas around old memories, changing them. Proust also argues that the more we consciously focus on creating or thinking about a memory, the less real and visual it will be because we wring all the strength out of it. Involuntary memories – what readers of In Search of Lost Time would call “Proustian moments” – are the most potent. The most famous Proustian moment in the novel is when the narrator takes a bit of a madeleine cake he has dipped in tea and very suddenly recalls his childhood in an extremely sensual way. This moments allows the narrator to occupy two time periods at once, the one he is in and the one he recalls – he “experience[s] in a flash a little bit of time in its pure state.” The novel closes with a rapid succession of five such moments, which ultimately lead the narrator to write his novel.
It took me six months to work my way through In Search of Lost Time and I would not be exaggerating to say that the experienced has changed me. My perspective has deepened, my self-visualization has been refined. And, to end on a lighter note, I’ve found another reason to read literature to add to my growing mental list:
“To read genuine literature is to accumulate within oneself a fund of possible experiences against which to achieve an occasionally intensified sense of what one is doing, to recognize that one is alive in a particular way.”
Through literature, the young look forward to life, and the old look back at it.