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A review by amelia555
Time Regained by Marcel Proust
5.0
Funny how so many reviews of this one start with "I finished it!" In Search of Lost Time is a years-long reading experience for me, too, as I decided not to read the books one after another (and now I'd find it to be difficult as I drowned in Proust's writing, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes in agony). Yes, finishing it is satisying, but not just because you ended something you started long time ago, but because the ending is satisfying itself.
The narrator finally understood time, realized his own aging and mortality, it's an important moment not just in his story, it resonates with us, too (I can't say it happened to me yet, though, I'm still being silly). The vices the characters had became their undoing. The generations changed and those who were crème de la crème stopped being it without even noticing. It all made sense in the end.
The saga itself was sometimes exhilarating (that first volume!), sometimes almost physically painful (the whole time the narrator was talking about his love life). The thought of someday rereading it is scary to me now, but I'm certain I'll come back to certain parts. Thought-provoking, educational, charming, eyebrow-raising, funny, tedious, sad, monumental.
The narrator finally understood time, realized his own aging and mortality, it's an important moment not just in his story, it resonates with us, too (I can't say it happened to me yet, though, I'm still being silly). The vices the characters had became their undoing. The generations changed and those who were crème de la crème stopped being it without even noticing. It all made sense in the end.
The saga itself was sometimes exhilarating (that first volume!), sometimes almost physically painful (the whole time the narrator was talking about his love life). The thought of someday rereading it is scary to me now, but I'm certain I'll come back to certain parts. Thought-provoking, educational, charming, eyebrow-raising, funny, tedious, sad, monumental.