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A review by levitybooks
In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1: Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove, Part 1 by Marcel Proust
4.0
Video review for Swann's Way
In the video above I show the book and describe my complete thoughts for Swann's Way.
About this edition:
I think the Everyman Classics edition is very nice. It's a revised version of Montcrieff's translation and has a Foreword by Harold Bloom which is wonderfully informative however a bit revealing of the entire series of books — NOTE: this Vol.1. has a foreword and translator's preface for the entire series, the remaining volumes do not have these.
Why I'm pausing my Proust journey:
Here are some of my 'more negative' views about Proust, which are why I'm not continuing to read Proust for now. Swann's Way is a love story in slow-motion, and it's very well articulated and descriptive in ways I have never seen, and doubt I ever will see again. However, I did find parts of Swann's Way tiresome — Proust might spend 5 or 10 pages writing about a Church steeple or a party where people are making the most mundane smalltalk. I'm sure everything makes sense eventually, like, in the fifth book there might be some flashback to the Church steeple and it'll seem like Proust meant all along to make some extended metaphor, but honestly, I just wonder whether it's vastness for the sake of vastness. There's a lot of profound thought on the nature of recognition and memory but it almost feels like it reaches the end of its development and the story is just stuck on the same reflections. This too, might be intentional and later seen to be the core point.
Maybe what I am trying to write is that Proust just isn't that fun, or funny to me (yet). It is too slow and uneventful as a narrative, regardless of how wonderfully descriptive it is. Something feels empty about it to me. And Proust is certainly an excellent case for wondering — did this really need to be this long? I can't imagine why every single page of Swann's Way is necessary to the entirety of In Search of Lost Time. Maybe the effect is to create a vastness of a life lived in reflection, but were it so, it all seems a bit excessive to me.
I also find some of Proust's views outdated or not true to my experience. This doesn't seem a great comparison given it being over a century old, but if Proust as an author is going to write a story where most of it is him narrating to you what he thinks life is about, then it deserves to be judged on the utility of that narration.
*******************[previously written]***
Review coming soon.
Note: I only read Swann's Way of this collection (up to page 416 of 633). I don't intend on reading Within A Budding Grove any time soon. I'm marking this as Read for simplicity's sake, and so I can feel done with it, and keeping it to this edition for my page number references. I doubt book 2 would differ much in quality, but I could be wrong.
In the video above I show the book and describe my complete thoughts for Swann's Way.
About this edition:
I think the Everyman Classics edition is very nice. It's a revised version of Montcrieff's translation and has a Foreword by Harold Bloom which is wonderfully informative however a bit revealing of the entire series of books — NOTE: this Vol.1. has a foreword and translator's preface for the entire series, the remaining volumes do not have these.
Why I'm pausing my Proust journey:
Here are some of my 'more negative' views about Proust, which are why I'm not continuing to read Proust for now. Swann's Way is a love story in slow-motion, and it's very well articulated and descriptive in ways I have never seen, and doubt I ever will see again. However, I did find parts of Swann's Way tiresome — Proust might spend 5 or 10 pages writing about a Church steeple or a party where people are making the most mundane smalltalk. I'm sure everything makes sense eventually, like, in the fifth book there might be some flashback to the Church steeple and it'll seem like Proust meant all along to make some extended metaphor, but honestly, I just wonder whether it's vastness for the sake of vastness. There's a lot of profound thought on the nature of recognition and memory but it almost feels like it reaches the end of its development and the story is just stuck on the same reflections. This too, might be intentional and later seen to be the core point.
Maybe what I am trying to write is that Proust just isn't that fun, or funny to me (yet). It is too slow and uneventful as a narrative, regardless of how wonderfully descriptive it is. Something feels empty about it to me. And Proust is certainly an excellent case for wondering — did this really need to be this long? I can't imagine why every single page of Swann's Way is necessary to the entirety of In Search of Lost Time. Maybe the effect is to create a vastness of a life lived in reflection, but were it so, it all seems a bit excessive to me.
I also find some of Proust's views outdated or not true to my experience. This doesn't seem a great comparison given it being over a century old, but if Proust as an author is going to write a story where most of it is him narrating to you what he thinks life is about, then it deserves to be judged on the utility of that narration.
*******************[previously written]***
Review coming soon.
Note: I only read Swann's Way of this collection (up to page 416 of 633). I don't intend on reading Within A Budding Grove any time soon. I'm marking this as Read for simplicity's sake, and so I can feel done with it, and keeping it to this edition for my page number references. I doubt book 2 would differ much in quality, but I could be wrong.