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A review by jacquesdevilliers
Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust
4.0
In books of this scope, there are parts which have never had time to be more than sketched in and which will probably never be finished because of the very extent of the architect’s plan. Think how many great cathedrals have been left unfinished!
Proust was my great COVID read. I started A la recherche in October of 2020, at 4AM, sitting in the emergency room during a brief respite from kidney stones. A few days later I contracted COVID and read the remaining volumes battling the chronic fatigue that marked a particularly intractable form of the virus (writing this two days before the end of 2021, I still feel its effects). I recall finishing Le Temps retrouvé in March of this year, on what had been one of my better days.
There are obviously obstacles to reading Proust while ailing so. He’s hardly light reading. But to read Proust while sick is to also taste a little of the conditions of the novel’s making. For much of his life Proust was not a healthy man, and he died before finalising the final three volumes. This fear of incompletion in the face of illness becomes a theme in Le Temps retrouvé, just about the last theme Proust’s enormous novel tackles. It is moving to read, and beautifully written. But it also points to a fundamental weakness in the back half of A la recherche: there is much that is simply too rough.
Take Proust’s grand finale. A culmination of so many people, places, and memories, much of this last 150 pages are deeply moving. But it’s difficult to remain in this state when repetitions and inconsistencies abound. Significant passages repeat nearly verbatim. Characters like Rachel and M. de Guermantes appear to our protagonist and are recognised across the passage of years since they were last seen, only to reappear again a few pages later, seemingly for the first time, by a protagonist who can barely recognise them. Reading this kind of stuff makes me wish editors had more confidence in their own abilities, or at least weren’t cowed into feeling they have to publish everything verbatim. This work is obviously incomplete and not up to the standard of Proust’s finished writing. So do Proust the justice of editing it.
But ultimately the real magic of Le Temps retrouvé lies not on the narrative plane, but in the intellectual breakthrough Proust and his protagonist make. The middle and end parts read less like a novel and more like a philosophical rallying cry: to take up the task of creation in the face of inevitable death; to even use death and the obliteration of memory as your inspiration. It is poignant and galvanising and anyone at all serious about making any kind of art should probably read it.
Granted, doing so requires you to wade way deep and thoroughly submerge yourself in this oceanic novel. When I try now to recollect the months of reading Proust, I recall the experience as alternately exhausting and exhilarating. Granted I had chronic fatigue, but even a healthy person might feel like they’re drowning. And yet, starting in 2022 I know for certain that I will be re-reading Proust, traversing one volume a year, engaged in a seven-year orbit for as long as I may live. The novel is its own madeleine. There is so much unforgettable writing to forget and be sweetly reminded of all over again.
Proust was my great COVID read. I started A la recherche in October of 2020, at 4AM, sitting in the emergency room during a brief respite from kidney stones. A few days later I contracted COVID and read the remaining volumes battling the chronic fatigue that marked a particularly intractable form of the virus (writing this two days before the end of 2021, I still feel its effects). I recall finishing Le Temps retrouvé in March of this year, on what had been one of my better days.
There are obviously obstacles to reading Proust while ailing so. He’s hardly light reading. But to read Proust while sick is to also taste a little of the conditions of the novel’s making. For much of his life Proust was not a healthy man, and he died before finalising the final three volumes. This fear of incompletion in the face of illness becomes a theme in Le Temps retrouvé, just about the last theme Proust’s enormous novel tackles. It is moving to read, and beautifully written. But it also points to a fundamental weakness in the back half of A la recherche: there is much that is simply too rough.
Take Proust’s grand finale. A culmination of so many people, places, and memories, much of this last 150 pages are deeply moving. But it’s difficult to remain in this state when repetitions and inconsistencies abound. Significant passages repeat nearly verbatim. Characters like Rachel and M. de Guermantes appear to our protagonist and are recognised across the passage of years since they were last seen, only to reappear again a few pages later, seemingly for the first time, by a protagonist who can barely recognise them. Reading this kind of stuff makes me wish editors had more confidence in their own abilities, or at least weren’t cowed into feeling they have to publish everything verbatim. This work is obviously incomplete and not up to the standard of Proust’s finished writing. So do Proust the justice of editing it.
But ultimately the real magic of Le Temps retrouvé lies not on the narrative plane, but in the intellectual breakthrough Proust and his protagonist make. The middle and end parts read less like a novel and more like a philosophical rallying cry: to take up the task of creation in the face of inevitable death; to even use death and the obliteration of memory as your inspiration. It is poignant and galvanising and anyone at all serious about making any kind of art should probably read it.
Granted, doing so requires you to wade way deep and thoroughly submerge yourself in this oceanic novel. When I try now to recollect the months of reading Proust, I recall the experience as alternately exhausting and exhilarating. Granted I had chronic fatigue, but even a healthy person might feel like they’re drowning. And yet, starting in 2022 I know for certain that I will be re-reading Proust, traversing one volume a year, engaged in a seven-year orbit for as long as I may live. The novel is its own madeleine. There is so much unforgettable writing to forget and be sweetly reminded of all over again.