steven_nobody's review against another edition
5.0
I'm glad I've finished this immense, magnificent, confusing work of art.... totally unique in all of literature, probably.
meehoi's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Wtf
amelia555's review against another edition
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.
nick_jenkins's review against another edition
5.0
I believe that it is in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home that the father says something like, if you don't read the Recherche before you're thirty, you probably won't. Well, now i don't have to worry.
Seriously, though, Time Regained was my favorite volume of the novel, and it is rather shocking to see how immensely talented Proust is at achieving a range of effects that we surely have not yet seen: his description, for instance, of a zeppelin attack on Paris is astonishing, reminiscent of Wells in War of the Worlds.
This volume also is denser, I feel, in Proust's greatest strength, his combined mode of social observation / philosophical meditation that is neither about people or characters nor about ideas or truths, but about habits and norms. The closing passages about aging, for instance, are not really about how the specific characters of the novel have aged, nor about the metaphysical specter of the aging process, but about the conventional perceptions that people make use of to see aging as a set of recognizable deviations from a norm of youth, and about the equally conventional strategies by which people try to evade or confuse that code of perception.
Those passages are, incidentally, perhaps the best answer to Alison Bechdel's father: there may be something to what he says, but why that is (or isn't) is less about age than it is about our fears about the norms of aging, the habits that we fear we cannot break once we have settled into life. The novel itself, as the story of its own composition, reflects a late triumph over habit--Marcel breaks off from his procrastinatory life to commit himself to real writing. The cost is great, but it is also, I feel, an inspiration.
Seriously, though, Time Regained was my favorite volume of the novel, and it is rather shocking to see how immensely talented Proust is at achieving a range of effects that we surely have not yet seen: his description, for instance, of a zeppelin attack on Paris is astonishing, reminiscent of Wells in War of the Worlds.
This volume also is denser, I feel, in Proust's greatest strength, his combined mode of social observation / philosophical meditation that is neither about people or characters nor about ideas or truths, but about habits and norms. The closing passages about aging, for instance, are not really about how the specific characters of the novel have aged, nor about the metaphysical specter of the aging process, but about the conventional perceptions that people make use of to see aging as a set of recognizable deviations from a norm of youth, and about the equally conventional strategies by which people try to evade or confuse that code of perception.
Those passages are, incidentally, perhaps the best answer to Alison Bechdel's father: there may be something to what he says, but why that is (or isn't) is less about age than it is about our fears about the norms of aging, the habits that we fear we cannot break once we have settled into life. The novel itself, as the story of its own composition, reflects a late triumph over habit--Marcel breaks off from his procrastinatory life to commit himself to real writing. The cost is great, but it is also, I feel, an inspiration.
amaravia's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
I have been tandem reading the 7 volumes of Proust using an ebook and these Naxos recordings. Unfortunately the translator for the first six volumes never got to the 7th and so my ebook and this audio now differ and I can’t read and listen simultaneously. Much as I will miss the audio I’m going to stick with the ebook.
reading_at_the_zoo's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
cs4_0reads's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
lokster71's review against another edition
5.0
Just a note, page 451 is the end of the book in this edition. The other pages are appendices/indexes.
I have finished 'In Search of Lost Time'. How do you review a book like this. Well, first I'm going to use a comparison that I think no one has ever used before. I am going to compare it to Trial of a Time Lord. Yes, I am lowering the literary tone, but I don't care. Why Trial of a Time Lord? Because it is a story of many threads that you can read as separate stories, but are in truth one story and that the real brilliance of 'In Search of Lost Time' comes in its completeness.
I'm not going to pretend it was an easy read. There were moments, I think particularly with 'The Captive and the Fugitive' where I almost gave up. It is a hard book to read. Not because of the language, which I think - the occasional word aside - is pretty straightforward but because it contains...everything.
I'm not going to pretend that the narrator doesn't come across as an utter prick at some points, but for all his negative qualities he does try to understand not just himself but other people. He is also trying to bring to life people who would have been forgotten by all but a very niche group of French historians.
Should you read it? Yes. But don't think you have to read it at a gallop. It took me two years to read it. There were points when I put it down for months. The Vintage editions, which are translated by Moncrieff and Kilmartin, are about 3600 pages long so I recommend breaking it down into chunks. But, hey, you might feel you can handle swallowing it whole. You may find yourself having to look up names as characters change names as they change titles (or other people take their titles.)
The book has some of the most memorable characters in literature: Baron de Charlus and Mme Verdurin being perhaps the two most vivid. Both monsters in their own way.
These books cover everything: love, grief, joy, pleasure, homosexuality, art, landscape, flowers, military history, politics, writing, jealousy. Especially love and jealousy. But it is really is about being alive.
I still need a bit of time to digest what I've read. I may come back to this review anon.
I have finished 'In Search of Lost Time'. How do you review a book like this. Well, first I'm going to use a comparison that I think no one has ever used before. I am going to compare it to Trial of a Time Lord. Yes, I am lowering the literary tone, but I don't care. Why Trial of a Time Lord? Because it is a story of many threads that you can read as separate stories, but are in truth one story and that the real brilliance of 'In Search of Lost Time' comes in its completeness.
I'm not going to pretend it was an easy read. There were moments, I think particularly with 'The Captive and the Fugitive' where I almost gave up. It is a hard book to read. Not because of the language, which I think - the occasional word aside - is pretty straightforward but because it contains...everything.
I'm not going to pretend that the narrator doesn't come across as an utter prick at some points, but for all his negative qualities he does try to understand not just himself but other people. He is also trying to bring to life people who would have been forgotten by all but a very niche group of French historians.
Should you read it? Yes. But don't think you have to read it at a gallop. It took me two years to read it. There were points when I put it down for months. The Vintage editions, which are translated by Moncrieff and Kilmartin, are about 3600 pages long so I recommend breaking it down into chunks. But, hey, you might feel you can handle swallowing it whole. You may find yourself having to look up names as characters change names as they change titles (or other people take their titles.)
The book has some of the most memorable characters in literature: Baron de Charlus and Mme Verdurin being perhaps the two most vivid. Both monsters in their own way.
These books cover everything: love, grief, joy, pleasure, homosexuality, art, landscape, flowers, military history, politics, writing, jealousy. Especially love and jealousy. But it is really is about being alive.
I still need a bit of time to digest what I've read. I may come back to this review anon.