greenpete 's review for:

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

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It's hard for me to adequately review this book, maybe the most difficult book I've ever read. His language is beautiful and poetic, even after English translation. But his sentences are like coiling serpents. Attempting to unravel just one sentence, in a 400-plus page novel (and only the first part of a seven-part tome) requires far too much effort for my limited brain capacity. Proust is totally unconcerned with pacing or time as he delves into the childhood consciousness of his narrator (Proust himself) and will examine something as seemingly insignificant as a raised eyebrow over multiple pages of text, covering every conceivable thought or feeling associated with that seemingly minor gesture. By the time he's reached the end of his "analysis," the reader (at least, this reader) forgets what originally prompted the analysis!

I think, like Shakespeare, Proust was a genius. Which makes it impossible to fathom (for me, without assistance, anyway) the density of his prose.