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A review by reidob
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
3.0
Reviewing a "classic" book is always fraught; on the one hand expectations are very high and bound to be overblown, on the other the impulse is to therefore give the author the benefit of the doubt where he perhaps does not deserve it, which can lead to an "emperor's new clothes" situation, a more favorable review than can truly be justified.
So I went into my experience of this first volume of Proust's masterwork with an open mind (to the extent that is possible). What I found was a work that is truly masterful in the author's use of description; rarely have I experienced an author so thoroughly devoted to finding the right words to give an impression of every tiny detail of the experience of our protagonist and the other characters upon which he focuses his attention.
But not all items and circumstances are equally worthy of such treatment, as much as it seems that Proust may disagree with this sentiment. The middle section, Swann in Love, I found particularly tedious—there are only so many ways one can describe a passionate obsession with a woman who is simply not all the interesting. I do not begrudge Swann's love; far be it from me to judge another man's passion. But for something that could be taken care of in a few paragraphs to go on for pages and pages and pages, hundreds of them, feels self-indulgent at best.
When he is on his game, such as in the natural world or the protagonist's inadvertent, clandestine discovery of lesbian love, no one can match Proust's descriptive powers. At times the reader can be transfixed by the minute detail that most of us pass by without a moment's notice. He does us a great service by requiring us to slow down and smell, feel, see, and totally experience the roses.
I intend to soldier on with the other volumes in this massive work in the hopes that his obsessions will tend a bit more toward the truly fascinating and less in the world of the mundane and boring passions we do not and cannot share.
So I went into my experience of this first volume of Proust's masterwork with an open mind (to the extent that is possible). What I found was a work that is truly masterful in the author's use of description; rarely have I experienced an author so thoroughly devoted to finding the right words to give an impression of every tiny detail of the experience of our protagonist and the other characters upon which he focuses his attention.
But not all items and circumstances are equally worthy of such treatment, as much as it seems that Proust may disagree with this sentiment. The middle section, Swann in Love, I found particularly tedious—there are only so many ways one can describe a passionate obsession with a woman who is simply not all the interesting. I do not begrudge Swann's love; far be it from me to judge another man's passion. But for something that could be taken care of in a few paragraphs to go on for pages and pages and pages, hundreds of them, feels self-indulgent at best.
When he is on his game, such as in the natural world or the protagonist's inadvertent, clandestine discovery of lesbian love, no one can match Proust's descriptive powers. At times the reader can be transfixed by the minute detail that most of us pass by without a moment's notice. He does us a great service by requiring us to slow down and smell, feel, see, and totally experience the roses.
I intend to soldier on with the other volumes in this massive work in the hopes that his obsessions will tend a bit more toward the truly fascinating and less in the world of the mundane and boring passions we do not and cannot share.