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A review by gh7
Time Regained by Marcel Proust
4.0
Proust is lauded for his pioneering insights into the relationship of the human mind with time. This is when he's his most inspired and dazzling. But I've spoken about that in my reviews of the other parts. What I liked a lot less was -
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.