Book Description
For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of À la recherche du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).
Customer Reviews:
Moments of the radiance of the eternal caught on paper........2007-06-20
If someone told me ten years ago that one day I would read 4,000 pages of dense, hypeliterate ramblings, filled with single sentences that sometimes go on for at least ten pages, I would have thought myself more crazy than the guy who wrote them. Two years after reading all of Proust, incredibly, I find myself longing to spend afternoons again immersed in it. Such is the beauty of this momumental work.
While James Joyce's Ulysses deserves to be considered the best and greatest novel of the 20th century, I think it's fair to say that it's doubtful that any writer will ever reach the majesty and breathtaking beauty found in Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". Proust is not great for the 20th c., it's great for all time.
Marcel Proust & my book "Archetypes for Writers".......2007-03-04
Like others who've read and reviewed Proust's opus here, I did not read it in one consistent long read. I read the first ten pages and put it down for a year. I then read up to page 100 and put it down again for six months. Thereafter, pregnant with my first child, I read through all the rest.
I found Proust immeasurably easy and pleasant to read. The long sentences are almost musical and facilitate rather than impede understanding of Proust's deep insights.
Further, despite Proust's own unhappiness, I have never been happier reading a book. Nor have I ever felt so "let into" a person's life as I did reading him.
But, as important as my joy in reading Proust was the fact that it was Proust's masterpiece -- and most especially the last volume (Past Recaptured, by the old title) and particularly Chapter 3 of that volume -- that confirmed much of what I already secretly and silently knew and had begun developing into a method for finding one's own already-existing characters inside oneself, which I had already started teaching and continued to teach for twenty years (first in my own business and then at the New School University in NYC) and finally developed into my book "Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious" (available on Amazon).
Proust's value for me was not in his exquisitely minute and drawn-out descriptions of drinking tea or misstepping on a cobblestone (which both triggered the reliving of lost moments for Proust). It is a misunderstanding of Proust to think that that is all he is about. (There was, in fact, an entire acting method developed out of this view (called "method acting").)
Rather, I found Proust's understanding of character valuable. He knew the power of juxtaposition -- which he called "mental gymnastics" and "the miracle of analogy."
I found his articulation of the "extra-temporal being" or "the man freed from the order of time" valuable -- that which I have called to my students: the "author self," the self that knows the whole story of all one's characters: the beginning, the middle, the end -- without having to wait for anything to happen -- a knowledge that almost presupposes the non-existence of time, in an Einsteinian sense -- and something which I have found is naturally developed through the use of the skill I called "arkhelogy" or "doing archetypes."
The habit or skill of "being in the moment" -- something that is a primary skill enumerated in my book -- is also something of what Proust reveals (he calls it a "minute freed from the order of time")
Proust practiced suspending moments in his mind in order to reclaim his past, but it is also a central skill possessed by all great novelists -- for, how do you experience the life of another if you do not grasp and suspend in your own mind the moments in which that person lives and breathes?
And this brings me to another concept that Proust knew and realized in his work (but did not express in the way I do), which was something I had learned from my years in the theater: analogy. Proust talked about analogy in the context of the juxtaposition of two moments. But analogy is also about making analogies between oneself and others (something which Proust called "substitutions"). In other words, finding how to "relate" to another, how to feel what the other feels. This, of course, is a human ability, but it is also a skill that can and should be encouraged and practiced. Proust achieved this level of understanding of his fellow humans to a high degree.
Finally, there is Proust's recognition that "in fashioning a work of art we are by no means free, that we do not choose how we shall make it but that it is pre-existent to use and therefore we are obliged, since it is both necessary and hidden, to do what we should have to do if it were a law of nature, that is to say to discover it." Similarly, one of the main premises in my book is that one's character's and their stories already exist and that one needs only to learn how to find them -- which is, of course, what all the rest of Proust's novel is about (and my exercises teach one to do).
I owe a great debt to Proust. Apart from my sense of love for his language, his words, his phrases, not to mention his insights into people and events, Proust was for me the major impetus behind the development of both the book "Archetypes for Writers" and the course out of which the book grew.
Lost Time? Not at all........2007-01-05
Reading Proust is a major undertaking, a life-changing event for some, if only the committment of time is considered. This edition is superbly translated from the French, and loses very little (as my undergraduate French is concerned). The text[s] allow one immerse in Proust and the turn-of-the-century life of an upper class family. As an academic I see so many uses for this material, but as a reader it's a pleasurable experience to take in a true genius who can spend seven wonderful pages describing and elaborating on taking tea. Well-worth the small amount of money.
On reading Proust........2006-10-09
I've just finished reading The Search for Lost Time and I'd like to share a few thoughts.
First, commit to reading the whole thing, all seven volumes, all million+ words. However if the commitment frightens you (as it should) first read Swann's Love, the middle part of the first volume.
Second, if you commit don't be afraid to take a break and leave the book aside. I began reading it fifteen years ago, and read Swann's Love several times before finally getting a one volume omnibus and reading the whole thing. It took me eight months, during which I freely allowed myself to read other books.
Third, don't read Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life until you're reached the final volume. It's a wonderful book, but if you want to read the Search, then De Botton's little book is a "digestif" that will help you put Proust in perspective.
Fourth, you don't have to read Proust. No one does. If you don't enjoy reading the Search, leave it alone. Proust never liked the title "The Search for Lost Time" and I think he might have actually preferred the now discredited original English translation title "Remembrance of Things Past".* In French Lost Time (Temps Perdu) implies a waste of time, and Proust was very conscious of having wasted the first forty years of his life.
Lastly, I wouldn't worry too much about the translation. I read the Search in French and it struck me that translating Proust wouldn't be much harder than reading him. The essence of Proust's style is not dramatic rhetoric, it is patient and painstaking descriptions and explanations. He wants the reader to understand something very complex and subtle: his or her own self. You'll find the drama in his philosophy. His sentences are long, convoluted, dreamy, full of meandering turns, but Proust doesn't use French the way, for instance, La Fontaine or Hugo do. Most of Proust's meaning will survive the translation, very little will be lost.
Vincent Poirier, Tokyo
*I was wrong there, Proust hated the "Remembrance..." title. See the comments for details.
Vincent
Ne plus ultra.......2006-09-10
In my sixty-five years I have read most of the West's great literature and much of its trash. But this was the culminating experience. Read Proust and die.
I would suggest reading the new translations (by various translators) now being published by Penguin, which Amazon is selling.
Book Description
Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust's masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis's internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann's Way.
Customer Reviews:
Immerse yourself in a rich, dense world of descriptive thought.......2007-08-31
I think people make too much of the 'difficulty' of Proust's writing, and I'm no over-educated super-literary snob, either (probably sufficiently proven in this sentence alone). Don't be scared off by the reviews claiming to have not been able to get through it. Sure you need to concentrate, hopefully without interruption, while reading Proust, but is that so bad? Isn't that a big part of what reading is all about?
Swann's Way is a rich and elegant tapestry, reflected nicely in the beautiful new cover design. It feels like a volume of pure thought of the first order - ruminative, peripatetic, placid, and somehow effortless and simple, despite the highly embroidered language. However, the language is not merely complex for complexity's sake, but to convey the intricacy of the thought therein, and, when combined with the gentle, steady pacing from which Proust never wavers, creates the feeling of wisdom itself unfolding on the page. It is a welcome antidote to the concoctions of the most "brilliant" contemporary authors being trumpeted today, that often leave you with nothing other than a fleeting amazement at the cleverness of the author.
After every reading session I felt richer and wiser, and more able to face the world with the same thoughtfulness that the narrator does (this doesn't mean that I was able to, mind you, just felt so). To me that's what reading is all about, and if that's wrong...then I don't wanna be right.
Unreadable.......2007-07-30
This was not a book I could pick up and read. Although I read the intro and a study guide and was keenly anticipating reading one of the greatest books ever written, I was unable to. I read the first Combray twice and still did not understand sections I had read. I felt defeated, disappointed, and stupid. The book, for me, requires intense concentration - no distractions or noise while reading - a virtually impossible scenario in my world. After reading the synopsis in the back of the book I wasn't sure I would want to pursue this even in a study group or classroom situation. It sounded dry and boring and I'm not sure it would be worth the effort for me.
something you should simply do..........2007-06-04
Reading Proust is one of those things that simply should be done. Swann's Way is 400+ pages of almost unbelievable prose, a river, a torrent of words, phrases, paragraphs that sweeps you along through it seemingly without conscious effort or care to the all too quick end.
This book is simply staggering, I can't think of any other way to describe it or explain it. It simply must be read.
There is an old saying that everyone should see Paris before they die. The same sentiment is true for Proust - you should simply do it.
Fine translation..........2007-03-01
Before reading Lydia Davis's translation, I'd wandered half-way into Scott Moncrieff's original version before getting lost. I'd read a review of this edition by Christopher Hitchens, who faults Davis's prose in comparison to Moncrieff/Kilmartin's. I feel however, that Proust's sentence-construction is so complex that the modernized language is a tremendous asset. This is a fine introduction to Proust; it comes with an introductory essay, a complete set of notes (which is very much needed), and a brief synopsis at the back (which could actually be a little more thorough).
compare the translations first!.......2007-02-21
Just as a general note with Proust translations, compare them in a bookstore before you buy any of them.
There is the original C.K. Scott Moncrieff translation, which is beautiful, though based on a flawed edition put together shortly after Proust's death (especially the later books in the set).
Then there is Terrence Kilmartin's revision, which is based on a much better French edition. You can still find editions of this used, and occasionally new as well. I prefer this one, as Kilmartin didn't change most of the truly beautiful language that Moncrieff rendered except in a few places to clarify confusing sentences.
D.J. Enright, who worked with Kilmartin, made further revisions after the latter's death, whose work (so he says) was incomplete. His reworking is based on yet an even newer edition of the French text, though with fewer changes than the previous French edition had from the original. I feel that Enright modernized the language too much. He claims French hasn't changed much as a language compared to English since the early 20th Century, so to approximate how it would read to a French person today, it needs to be put into more comtemporary language. I don't care for it personally.
I've read some of these other, altogether new translations, which is a good effort considering the potential for incoherence you might have reading a revision of a revision of a translation (whew!). They're not bad, but nowhere near as much of a "new standard" as, say, the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations of Dostoevsky, which give the reader a clearer original while still using beautiful and idiomatic English.
But back to Proust. Decide for yourself! Compare an old version of Moncrieff's translation to his revisors, and then check out these new ones published by Penguin.
And better yet, if you understand French at all, look at a French copy and just absorb the rhythm, the flow of the words, and find a translation that feels the same.
I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to people who hated foreign books in translation, only to find out they read a translation that reads like a textbook and not like something that was meant to be enjoyed!!
Customer Reviews:
You've come this far, don't stop now.......2007-02-18
If you've read the first four volumes of the Penguin Modern Classic, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, then don't let the publication restriction in the US stop you from buying the British text versions. Except for minor presentation, they are exactly the same that will be published in the US when the copyrights expire. The only differences (which are hardly a great obstacle to the enjoyment of reading the novel), are the footnotes in back and the original French lyrics which Proust occasionally quotes from in the body of the work -- apparently the British assume we colonial philistines do not know as much French as they do.
The introduction to The Fugitive I found hugely welcome -- British translator Carol Clark is unapologetically direct in summing up for us what the previous 4 volumes have been about -- a long wished for insight as I have been dying to know up to this point whether or not I have been truly getting Proust all along.
The curse and the blessing is that Proust died before he could give the final sign off on these manuscripts before publication. A curse because he most certainly would have removed or resolved many errors, and extended or rewritten many parts which are its weakest sections. A blessing in that, to be sure, there are in this and the next volume several obvious errors which a good copy editor would have detected and eliminated, but with time have become such a part of Proustian lore that they can no more be removed than say Jimmy Durante's nose shortened or Richard Burton's pockmarks removed or Marilyn Manson's makeup wiped clean.
And if one has lasted this long, the addiction to Proust's peregrinations from the plot to discuss seemingly unrelated topics and issues in minute detail - as seen from the other end of binoculars, as Roger Shattuck writes in Proust's Binoculars- one will not be at all bothered about any perceived sloppiness in these last two volumes. On the contrary, one will feel proud to detect them for oneself, and have a private chuckle about it as Proust is forgiven for what would be unacceptable by today's publishing standards.
SO don't wait four more years - you'll not care by then or have forgotten much of the threads of the protean plot which keeps all volumes tied into one - for most of what is written in these last volumes is the rich reward the reader deserves after having hung in there until the end, to discover the final fate and full identities of all the rich and lively characters we have come to love - Charlus and St Loup, Albertine and Gilberte, oh, and Mme Potbus' maid - remember her?
The Prisoner and the Fugitive translated by Carol Clark
This is almost a novel within the novel as it deals in two parts with the final resolution of the narrator's relationship to Albertine, this character who, more so than any other, the narrator has kept directly from the reader's curious view and desire to know her in her own voice.
Finding Time Again translated by Ian Patterson
The fates of the rest of the characters are revealed, and the narrator in this last volume himself ages (or catches up to the age at which he began telling this long story -- and we will learn why he had to write it all before his death, as the line between fiction and reality between Marcel the narrator and Marcel the famed French writer nearly disappears). This is the volume where, winding down at last from what was always a nebulous plot to one last social scene,like a curtain call, all the characters take their final bows together in old age (either still alive or in the narrator's memory of them). And there are some great surprises left to discover, which hopefully too much reading of Proustian criticism, biographies, and reviews hasn't already revealed to the `well informed but too reluctant to read A la Recherché du Temps Perdu for themselves' lover of literature.
again, a misleading heading.......2005-03-12
Though it bears the title of Proust's seven-volume masterpiece, this is actually just the final volume, called "Finding Time Again" in this new translation. This particular book would be the British paperback edition, for the American press run has so far only given us four volumes, all of which are for sale on Amazon in a uniform style.
There are small but real differences between the British and American editions. With their greater tolerance for continental foibles, the Brits retained French punctuation, using dashes instead of quotation marks for conversation. They also retained the French wherever Proust makes a literary reference, providing a translation in the notes; in the American edition, this policy is reversed.
In reading the first two volumes ("Swanns' Way" and "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower") I noticed typographical errors that might well have resulted in converting the British to the American languages, rather than from French to English. For example, on page 95 of "In the Shadow" there is the phrase "Professor Cottard and his wife were not to partake of the pleasure" when the sentence should actually read "NOW to partake," since Swann has decided to introduce the Cottards to the Duchesse! Not earthshaking, but it does rather spoil Proust's little joke.
In short, these British paperbacks will serve very nicely if the American reader is in a hurry to complete the novel, and they may also be more free of errors. But I will probably wait for the uniform hardcover Viking volumes.
I haven't read Mr. Patterson's translation of volume seven, but I give it five stars based on the company it keeps.
Customer Reviews:
Don't stop now.......2007-02-18
If you've read the first four volumes of the Penguin Modern Classic, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, then don't let the publication restriction in the US stop you from buying the British text versions. Except for minor presentation, they are exactly the same that will be published in the US when the copyrights expire. The only differences (which are hardly a great obstacle to the enjoyment of reading the novel), are the footnotes in back and the original French lyrics which Proust occasionally quotes from in the body of the work -- apparently the British assume we colonial philistines do not know as much French as they do.
The introduction to The Fugitive I found hugely welcome -- British translator Carol Clark is unapologetically direct in summing up for us what the previous 4 volumes have been about -- a long wished for insight as I have been dying to know up to this point whether or not I have been truly getting Proust all along.
The curse and the blessing is that Proust died before he could give the final sign off on these manuscripts before publication. A curse because he most certainly would have removed or resolved many errors, and extended or rewritten many parts which are its weakest sections. A blessing in that, to be sure, there are in this and the next volume several obvious errors which a good copy editor would have detected and eliminated, but with time have become such a part of Proustian lore that they can no more be removed than say Jimmy Durante's nose shortened or Richard Burton's pockmarks removed or Marilyn Manson's makeup wiped clean.
And if one has lasted this long, the addiction to Proust's peregrinations from the plot to discuss seemingly unrelated topics and issues in minute detail - as seen from the other end of binoculars, as Roger Shattuck writes in Proust's Binoculars- one will not be at all bothered about any perceived sloppiness in these last two volumes. On the contrary, one will feel proud to detect them for oneself, and have a private chuckle about it as Proust is forgiven for what would be unacceptable by today's publishing standards.
SO don't wait four more years - you'll not care by then or have forgotten much of the threads of the protean plot which keeps all volumes tied into one - for most of what is written in these last volumes is the rich reward the reader deserves after having hung in there until the end, to discover the final fate and full identities of all the rich and lively characters we have come to love - Charlus and St Loup, Albertine and Gilberte, oh, and Mme Potbus' maid - remember her?
The Prisoner and the Fugitive translated by Carol Clark
Quick summary: This is almost a novel within the novel as it deals in two parts with the final resolution of the narrator's relationship to Albertine, this character who, more so than any other, the narrator has kept directly from the reader's curious view and desire to know her in her own voice.
Finding Time Again translated by Ian Patterson
The fates of the rest of the characters are revealed, and the narrator in this last volume himself ages (or catches up to the age at which he began telling this long story -- and we will learn why he had to write it all before his death, as the line between fiction and reality between Marcel the narrator and Marcel the famed French writer nearly disappears). This is the volume where, winding down at last from what was always a nebulous plot to one last social scene,like a curtain call, all the characters take their final bows together in old age (either still alive or in the narrator's memory of them). And there are some great surprises left to discover, which hopefully too much reading of Proustian criticism, biographies, and reviews hasn't already revealed to the `well informed but too reluctant to read A la Recherché du Temps Perdu for themselves' lover of literature.
Frustrating, with moments of greatness.......2006-01-06
I started reading In Search of Lost Time 2 years ago. I can't say it was always smooth sailing, but I got through the first 4 volumes (i.e., finished Sodom and Gomorrah) pretty happily, working with the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation (not to mention taking a Proust class at night at Rice Univ. here in Houston). If you're reading this review, you probably already know that the 3 books after that (usually published in 2 volumes) were incomplete, in manuscript, at the time of Proust's death. How they were put into publishable condition is another story. But the end result, for this reader at least, was tough going. I tried both of the Moncrieff-based translations, and--true confession--found multiple phrases and sentences (and sometimes more) that I just didn't follow.
I found the Penguin translations (by multiple translators with a common editor) while I was living overseas recently. I should state up-front that I am no French scholar...I'm just speaking as a reader. I'd say that the Penguin version of these two books (The Prisoner and The Fugitive) seems not quite as smooth, sometimes, as the Moncrieff-based translations. But I feel like I follow more of what Proust is trying to say. The sentences being less mellifluous suggests to me the possibility, at least, that the Penguin translators concentrated more on content than on rendering Proust's poetic (and somewhat hyperventilated) style, which is more to the good, for me at least--though I'd love to know what a Proust, and French, scholar thought of the comparison. The introductions and editorial comments are very good, as well. So, if you're at this point in the Proust-reading process, and particularly if you're finding it hard going, I'd give serious thought to giving the Penguin translations a try.
5th and 6th 12 years off.......2006-01-03
I have been told that the Viking editions of the 5th and 6th volumes of the Proust series cannot be published in America for at least 12 years due to copyright issues. So you may want to snap these up.
None the less, these are excellent books and I highly recommend them.
not the book suggested by the heading!.......2005-03-12
The book shown here is actually the British paperback of volumes 5 and 6 of the new translation of In Search of Lost Time. Vol. 5 "The Prisoner" was translated by Carol Clark; vol. 6 "The Fugitive," by Peter Collier. Sadly, they do not appear to be available in hardcover in the United States, at least not yet--and I want them for my library! Nevertheless, I can confidently give this paperback five stars on the basis of the enchantment I've had out of reading the first two volumes of this magnificent new translation. If you want to know more about the actual contents, you can paste the ISBN/ASIN number into your search engine and bring up the publisher's page. -- Dan Ford
Book Description
For any reader who has been humbled by the language, the density, or the sheer weight of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Roger Shattuck is a godsend. Winner of the National Book Award for Marcel Proust, a sweeping examination of Proust's life and works, Shattuck now offers a useful and eminently readable guidebook to Proust's epic masterpiece, and a contemplation of memory and consciousness throughout great literature. Here, Shattuck laments Proust's defenselessness against zealous editors, praises some translations, and presents Proust as a novelist whose philosophical gifts were matched only by his irrepressible comic sense. Proust's Way, the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, will serve as the next generation's guide to one of the world's finest writers of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
A non-essential but still useful and entertaining "field guide".......2006-10-25
Roger Shattuck has written on Marcel Proust and his "In Search of Lost Time" for over forty years, and in PROUST'S WAY: A Field Guide he describes the book for the current generation of readers, who now have many choices for how to approach the work. The book contains portions both for those who haven't made their way through even the first volume yet, as well as chapters for those champion readers who want to look back and reflect on the whole seven-volume work.
Material for those who haven't--or have barely--begun includes a biography of Proust, some discussion of his general aesthetics, and "How to Read a Roman-Fleuve". This last part is useful as it gives several charts to understand how characters relate to each other. There are some "spoilers" here, although it's hardly more than you'd learn from the dust covers of the Modern Library editions, and Proust isn't just about plot anyway. There's also a very helpful graph here of how in the course of the novel the protagonist ends up a failure, while at the same time the narrator becomes a success.
For the reader who has made it through the entire Recherche, there are several chapters providing a critical view of Proust's literary technique and themes. Shattuck identifies four scenes at the heart of the Recherche as encapsulating a distincting comic vision, which many readers miss because of its very obviousness. Shattuck writes on Proust's notions of memory and recognition, as well as art and idolatry. Very fascinating is Shattuck's venture on what the structure of the Recherche is, what holds it together during seven volumes and four thousand pages, as well as what it might have become had its author only lived long enough to tie up loose ends.
For me the most interesting chapter was "Continuing Disputes", suitable for all readers, even those who don't know if they want to embark on the Recherche. The author writes a passionate, though not entirely convincing, polemic against the 1987 Gallimard "Pleiade" text, where there's almost as much cut text and critical material present as there is the final novel. He also talks about English translations, explaining exactly how Kilmartin and then Enright revised the old Moncrieff version. It is a pity that this was written a bit too early to cover the new Penguin version, with each book done by a different translator. Film adaptations are also mentioned. Shattuck admires the Pinter screenplay, and I agree that Proust fans should check it out. The last two portions of this chapter are on philosophical notions in Proust, which I found overly academic for a book marketed to the layman.
You don't *have* to read this or any other guide before starting on the Recherche (as Proust's masterwork is often called, from the abbreviation of its French title). Proust's work is massive in its proportions, but fairly easy to follow; you just have to stick with it. Still, for those interested in the general subject of his novel, guides like this provide something entertaining to read.
One of the very best introductions to Proust available.......2003-05-12
Although there are several superb biographies to Proust in print, there are comparably few good introductory works. This book by Shattuck is likely the one that most sophisticated readers will profit by the most.
The book is rather loosely structured. It is arranged thematically, but there is not a lot of logic to the arrangement of the themes. For instance, there is no obvious reason for why the chapter on "Continuing Disputes" is placed where it is, or placed in the volume at all. It is one of the more interesting chapters in the book, but it is more a chapter in which a lot of rabbits are chased than any real issues introduced. In the end, the book is a somewhat rambling affair. The upshot in the end, however, is that Shattuck discusses virtually every theme in Proust.
There are two aspects of Shattuck's approach to Proust that I thoroughly applaud and that anyone coming to Proust for the first time should heartily embrace. First, he adamantly refuses to take the approach developed by Proust's great English-language biographer George Painter, and imitated by a host of his weaker readers, and treating IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME as material for finding all the real life models for Proust's characters. As one of his French readers has pointed out, one can read much of Proust's life into the SEARCH, but one cannot read much of life out of it. In the end, focusing on what character inspired who tends to take one away from the novel and back to a gossipy preoccupation with Proust's life. Shattuck simply refuses to do this. Secondly, Shattuck, although himself an academic, refuses to acknowledge that Proust is primarily the property of the academics. He eschews editions of Proust's text weighted down by largely unusable critical apparatuses. Likewise, while he writes in a highly literate fashion, he refuses to get bogged down in any of the more arcane literary debates concerning Proust.
Speaking of not focusing on Proust's biography in reading Proust, I would like to take issue with the reviewer who found fault with Shattuck's tacit acceptance of the Narrator's affair with Albertine being a heterosexual one, and for three reasons. First, the reviewer assumes in making that statement that a reading that takes as primary the real-life sources of Proust's characters. The problem with this approach is that it overlooks the fact that it is a work of literature, and Proust did not leave his real life sources alone, but remolded them into fiction. Proust composed Albertine as a female, and a quite convincing one at that. Unless one happens to know that Albertine is modeled on several homosexual relationships, one isn't likely to think of the Albertine affair as a homosexual one. Second, "Albertine" is not based on any single, or on just a couple, of primary characters. For instance, Proust wrote many of the Albertine sections before meeting Alfred Agostinelli (commonly regarded as the most significant model for "Albertine"), who caused him to expand the character and the plot. Third, many present day readers don't seem to realize that Proust completely feminized homosexual relationships. At no place does he conceive homosexual affairs in current terms, as two males engaged in an affectionate relationship. In all Proust's affairs, one of the two involved took the "female" role. Likewise, throughout his work, he views male-female love as basic, with one or other of the male participants in an "inverted" relationship (his term) substituting for a female.
Not an introduction.......2002-07-01
It's interesting if you're already interested in Proust but it's not an introduction. It's more of a book for someone who has already read at least half way through A la Recherche. As a cost-effective introduction and a sort of Cliff's Notes (maybe there are real Cliff's Notes on Proust) I would recommend Time Regained (the Enright translation) with A Guide to Proust both in one volume published by Random House in the Modern Library series. One problem is that Shattuck's style can be difficult e.g. "We live by synecdoche, by cycles of being" and "this iridescence never resolves itself completely into an unitive point of view." By the time you've read 250 pages of this you could have read a lot of Proust.
He is very kind to the Moncrieff translation, which I find too full of archaic English. He accepts without comment that Albertine is female. To me the Albertine episodes make more sense as a homosexual love affair and one Proustian I asked about this said that this was a common theory.
Just Read Proust.......2000-09-24
No book as good as In Search of Lost Time needs a reading plan. Books like Shattuck's, while not without interest, create a silly mystique about texts which are quite approachable on their own.
Bottom line: if you're looking up this book and reading this review, you can read and enjoy Proust without help. If you find that In Search of Lost Time is too confusing or boring (rather than the invigorating, funny, moving spectacle it struck me as being) then stop and read something else. It's OK if it's not your sort of book. How to's and guides are for people who would rather talk about a book or be seen holding a copy in public than actually settle down and read it.
A must read if you're into Proust's entire career.......2000-08-12
Almost no one remembers any more that before Proust moved to France and started writing his bestsellers, Marcel "Hometown Slugger" was for 14 glorious seasons one of the best all-around outfielders in the Chicago Cub's lineup. Along with less interesting theoretical analysis, digressions such as these make this a truly memorable summary of Proust and his work. Also be sure to examine the photos of Proust fishing for salmon with Hemmingway in a little ravine in the Swiss Alps circa 1930, Proust and his mother (and stepmother) with her collection of clocks as a child, and a proud grandfather Proust with newborn novelist in 19th century Paris.
Book Description
After the relative intimacy of the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, The Guermantes Way opens up a vast, dazzling landscape of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, as the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of the literary and aristocratic salons. Both a salute to and a devastating satire of a time, place, and culture, The Guermantes Way defines the great tradition of novels that follow the initiation of a young man into the ways of the world. This elegantly packaged new translation will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust.
Customer Reviews:
Proust knows the way.......2006-12-29
I've come to Proust quite late. I tried to read Remembrances many years ago but couldn't get my head around the extended sentences liberally convoluted with parenthesis. Recently I took another plunge and a different approach. I realized that to read Proust is a consuming commitment. The reader has to relinquish the comfort of the customary literary narrative. If you do this then the world of Proust will first entice you then become an obsessive pleasure into which you will eagerly immerse yourself.
Having said this now comes the question of which translation to read. I've read the first English translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff published by Random House in 1927. I've also read the new Penguin translation of The Guermantes Way by Mark Treharne. The Penguin translations are "easier" to read and cater more to a 21st century sensibility. To my mind the restructuring of sentences at times, unfortunately, sacrifice the poetics of Proust's language in favor of adherence to modern grammatical convention. Montcrieff also had the advantage of doing his translation closer to the time in which Proust actually lived and worked; the flavor of this early translation feels more "authentic" and contemporaneous with the period. An example: The first sentence in Montcrieff's The Germantes Way reads: "The twittering of the birds at daybreak..." Treharne's reads: "The early-morning twitter of the birds..." Does this matter? It's your call.
Read the Penguins if this gets you into Proust. But don't discount earlier translations. Just read Proust...you'll be happy you did!
Holy Grail of literature.......2005-10-03
If I had to send a single book to space martians, it would probably be Anna Karenina, the most concise powerhouse ever written. But as for sheer reading experience and linguistic ability, Proust is the grandmaster. In Search of Lost Time is the most staggering human achievement ever produced. Many of his famously long sentences contain more beauty than most people's complete bodies of literary work. I marvel that a human being was able to so beautifully and succinctly articulate, by using himself, the whole human experience. Proust's only rival in terms of felicity of language is Charles Dickens, but the former's subject matter is inarguably just so much more sophisticated than the latter's. I wish I could speak French just to read this masterpiece in its original language. I don't know if this translation is particularly better or worse, I just know the voice that comes through is unmistakably Proust's, and that's plenty. I am thrilled that I still have four volumes left to read, but I'm also greatly discouraged that no one else is reading them with me. Each time I tell people that I'm reading Proust, they either think I'm kidding or say, "you must be the only person in America to be doing that." Knowing that a piece of art like this is perennialy ignored in the museum while the line goes out the door for Thomas Kincaide's sugar packets is enough to make you want to hang yourself.
Book Description
Sodom and Gomorrah—now in a superb translation by John Sturrock—takes up the theme of homosexual love, male and female, and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Proust's novel is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles in earlier volumes now reappear in a different light and take center stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus.
Book Description
The “Guermantes Way,” in this the third volume of In Search of Lost Time, refers to the path that leads to the Duc and Duchess de Guermantes’s château near Combray. It also represents the narrator’s passage into the rarefied “social kaleidoscope” of the Guermantes’s Paris salon, an important intellectual playground for Parisian society, where he becomes a party to the wit and manners of the Guermantes’s drawing room. Here he encounters nobles, officers, socialites, and assorted consorts, including Robert de Saint Loup and his prostitute mistress Rachel, the Baron de Charlus, and the Prince de Borodino.
For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).
Download Description
The Guermantes Way is the third volume of Proust's masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu. "The Guermantes Way" refers to the path that runs past the château belonging to the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes near Combray and also to the route the narrator takes to make his way into their Parisian salon. He encounters a world of nobles, officers, socialites, and assorted consorts--individuals like Robert de Saint Loup and his prostitute mistress Rachel, the Baron de Charlus, and the Prince de Borodino. The narrator becomes a party to the wit and manners of the Guermantes drawing room, an important playground for Parisian society interested in the latest theatrical triumph and the progress of the Dreyfus case.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful and challenging.......2005-12-30
In this third volume of Marcel Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time, the narrator gains entrance into the Duc and Duchesse de Gurmante's chateau near Combray and becomes more intimate with the elite Parisian society, he provides a detailed portrait of the mechanics of social interaction and the underlying driving forces that motivate the bourgeoisie. He encounters nobles, officers, aristocrats, and of course his friends Robert de Saint Loup and his prostitute Rachel, and the Baron de Charlus at a number of extravagant and detailed parties. Proust situates the reader in the world that he vividly experienced, and it's a totally absorbing experience. We see Oriane Guermantes calculate every social decision like a four-star general; she refuses to show at the parties which expect her and forces herself into the parties which did not to draw consideration to herself. Guermantes Way is also, somewhat surprisingly a much more political section of the book. It deals with military strategy, with socialism, anti-Semitism, and class struggle. However, unlike the previous volumes, the last one hundred pages slow down to a near stand-still in pure social observation. Readers often cite this section of the work as the most difficult, and their judgment is correct. The pace is simply comatose here, but it picks up again for those with enough patience to get through it. The Guermantes Way is a powerful and beautiful centerpiece to Proust's great novel.
save your money for the new translation.......2005-03-29
Perhaps the most exciting publishing venture of the 21st century is the new Penguin/Viking translations of "In Search of Lost Time," as the book is now (and more accurately) titled. I have read the first two volumes in this series, and they are a wonderful improvement over the rather dusty prose of Scott Montcrief and his colleagues. I am betting that the new "The Guermantes Way" will match them. It's available in hardcover (the ISBN is 0670033170) and paperback (0143039229) from Amazon. The translator is Mark Trehane. Go for them! -- Dan Ford
High Society.......2003-12-15
In the previous two volumes of IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, we have seen the young Marcel fantasize about love (in the persons of Gilberte and Albertine) and high society (in the person of the Duchesse de Guermantes). The bulk of THE GUERMANTES WAY's 819 pages is concerned with two parties involving the glitterati of fin-de-siecle Paris.
At the party of the literary Mme de Villeparisis, Marcel gains his first admittance to the world of the nobility and gets invited to an evening of his prized Dutchess, whom he had gazed on from afar when she attended church services in Combray, amid the tombs of her ancestors. Sometimes, however, when you get your heart's desire, there is that nagging question: "Is this all there is?"
At one point in the latter party, Swann says to Marcel that "one can't have a thousand years of feudalism in one's blood with impunity." The novel ends with the Guermantes about to leave for yet a more empyrean social gathering, to which Marcel is not even sure he is invited. (As we see in the next volume, he is invited and does attend.) At the very end, the Duke puts off seeing a dying friend and begins carping about his wife's choice of shoes.
We see the beginnings of Marcel's disenchantment with the social scene. Since this volume covers such a short span of time, we do not yet see the effect of his grandmother's death on the young narrator. We leave him, stunned and confused, at the threshhold of a personal triumph that has already lost much of its luster for him.
As I re-read Proust's great series, I am struck by how much I missed the first time I read it years ago. Many reviewers are struck by the length of the scenes describing the parties, but now I find that there is so much going on, and so many undercurrents, that the interior action passes quickly. Most of the action takes place in Marcel's mind as he encounters these gods of society and their hangers-on as they duel for position in their circles.
"Thus I beheld the pair of them," muses Marcel, "divorced from that name Guermantes in which long ago I had imagined them leading an unimaginable life, now just like other men and other women...."
In touch with the high spheres of society.......2003-12-03
The third volume of In search of Lost Time begins with the moving of Marcel's family to an apartment in a palace, next to the which Charlus lives. This is where Marcel begins to deal with the highest society: the Guermantes family, which seemed so distant to him in his child fantasies, becomes soon part of his life. He goes to parties and meetings, where he can see Mme Cambremer, duchess Orianne and her husband, Charlus, Odette, Swann, etc. The words of the narrator are as thorough as his sight, and he describes for pages and pages the dialogues and behaviours that take place during such encounters. In this volume is where we begin to find the diferent sexual tendencies that will be later explored. As Marcel keeps visiting Saint-Loup, Mr. Charlus develops an interest in Marcel, therefore he begins to play a series of odd games: Charlus will have outbursts of rage as Marcel's shallowness becomes clear to the count.
The snobism and everchanging criteria, through the which political circles consider someone as part of the group of desireable relations, are shown through the detailed depiction of the Dreyfuss affair. The fears of society are suddenly embodied in the character of this german diplomatic, who apparently is spying on the french government. But, even worse, he is a jew. The colliding opinions about this affair divide society. In the midst of this social confusion, Marcel is but a quiet witness, whose interventions seem to stop in invitations and references to other great names of society. One of his favorite activities during this parties is to find and reconstruct the family ties between the different participants. An interesting relationship develops between Marcel and Orianne and her husband, while Charlus finds this to be of bad taste. Marcel will know through these people the details surrounding Saint-Loup's romance with an "indecent" dancer. He knew something from the days he spent visiting his friends while he was in service.
By the end of this volume we get to see Swann's decadence in the high circles, while his wife, Odette, seems to gain more terrain everyday. Swann tries to mantain his contact with the Guermantes, but they are less interested in him as time goes by... and not even his revelation of being in the route of death, due to an ailment, captures their interest. Even more, they don't believe him.
Proust keeps working in describing the defyning coordenates of this world of looks and absurd, hollow judgements. The life of the court parties is ruled by worldly signs, theatrical effects and empty forms. Although the character's fantasies surrounding the name of the Guermantes crumbles after he meets them and find them to be... just humans (and not the corporeal reality behind the images he used to see with endearment in Combray); although this fact, he is more and more fascinated by their importance between the other aristocrats. His desire is renewed by the inclusion of a third party that desires to establish contact, or to hold good relations with the Guermantes. It is the game of snobism, in which fear seems to be the main tool.
Paris society under a microscope.......2003-12-03
In "The Guermantes Way," the third volume of "In Search of Lost Time," Proust's nameless narrator has reached his teenage years and continues to observe the world around him as inspiration for his planned career in literature. His family's relocation to a new apartment building in Paris, the Hotel de Guermantes, affords him the opportunity to acquaint himself with the Faubourg Saint-Germain and what he imagines to be the fashionable, intellectual side of the city's society, personified by the Duke and Duchess de Guermantes.
The narrator's fascination with the Duchess could be described as an infatuation far surpassing that he used to have of Gilberte, the daughter of his parents' friend Charles Swann. Sickly and meek, he has trouble making a positive impression on the Duchess in his chance encounters with her, but he is persistent. He happens to have befriended her nephew Robert de Saint-Loup, a young military officer, from whom he politely requests a proper introduction by claiming a common interest in the work of a painter named Elstir. Through Robert's help, the young narrator gains admission to the high society of his dreams, which gradually destruct into the apprehension that the rich can be frivolous and boring.
As Balzac's interest was in the depiction of Paris society as a "human comedy" in all its colors and movements, Proust's palette is much more subtle and sensitive but no less broad, taking prose about as far as it can go in the description of the intimacy of all the various complex emotions. Cruelty, for example, is a simple subject, but Proust's portrayal of the nasty trick that Robert's girlfriend Rachel, a full-time actress and part-time prostitute, plays on one of her rivals, allows the narrator an inconceivably deep meditation on the ugliness of conceit. Similarly, the narrator's unreasonably lengthy account of his grandmother's stroke and subsequent death is actually a brilliant exposition on the agony of mortality.
The events of "The Guermantes Way" play against the backdrop of the Dreyfus affair, and Proust remarkably demonstrates the heavy impact this incident had on the society of the day, bringing to the surface the particular virulence of French anti-semitism, usually latent, occasionally blatant. Society is divided between pro-Dreyfus and anti-Dreyfus factions, Proust's sympathetic narrator being of the former but, like most "Dreyfusards," not too vocal about the matter. Proust uses a Jewish character, a rising dramatist named Bloch, as a token of the conflict, exhibiting him as an object of a peculiar French attitude that is less racial hatred than exotic curiosity.
Swann, himself of Jewish heritage, makes an appearance towards the end of the volume to remind the reader of his long relationship with the humble narrator. Roughly I detect an analogy, not easily sustained by the evidence presented in this review but palpable in the text nonetheless, of their friendship with that of James Joyce's Leopold Bloom, also a Jew in a hostile environment, and Stephen Dedalus. What Proust and Joyce really have in common, though, is their ability to forge bold new forms of literature that explore aspects of life never before exposed on the printed page.
Book Description
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is Proust's spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence, charged with the narrator's memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lie his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family. As a meditation on different forms of love, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower has no equal. Here, Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions, from the magnificently dull M. de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator's life—the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine.
Customer Reviews:
Another fine translation..........2007-05-14
Grieve's translation of "A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs" is a fine follow-up to Lydia Davis's "Swann's Way." This is the first time I am reading the "Search" and, as far as the translation goes, I only have about a hundred pages of Moncrieff to compare it to. I don't feel that there is anything missing from the language, however. Other reviewers have commented on Grieve's use of English clichés to replace the French clichés (this is especially noticeable in the case of M. de Norpois) but I don't have a problem with this - I actually thought it was a good solution to a tricky problem. All in all, I am very pleased with the new Penguin translations, so far.
As for the novel itself, it is divided into two parts, which both have a "blossoming" young female characters. In Part I - "At Mme Swann's" - the young girl is Swann's daughter, Gilberte. This part of the novel was originally meant to be included in Swann's Way, and - if one reads the novels back-to-back - the story continues smoothly between the novels. Gilberte is Marcel's first great, doomed love affair.
Part II takes place in the fictional seaside resort town of Balbec. The girl in question here is Marcel's main love-interest, Albertine. Although people view Albertine as the most significant factor in the novel, I don't find this to be true - she's barely in the story. More significant is Marcel's friend, Robert Saint-Loupe.
What is striking about the novel are its undertones of homosexuality. I don't just mean the literal references to homosexuality, but the narrator's as well. This may anger some readers - they would say that, just because Marcel Proust was gay, that doesn't make his narrator gay. Taken as a character however, Marcel has many gay characteristics - he is a sensitive, sickly, delicate, young man who is obsessed theater, literature, and art. Granted, these things don't make him gay, per se - but the overall tone of the writing gives that impression.
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.......2006-01-16
This translation is an impressive achievement if you can get over its two main deficiencies: its overly liberal use of British slang, and slight but noticeable change in Proust's word order.
Like Robert Fagles' translations of Homer, Grieve has written a rather literal translation, of a piece with the rest of Penguin's new six-volume, seven-translator Proust translation. Unlike Moncrieff, who inserted phrases which were not in the original French in order to maintain Proust's distinctive rhythm, Grieve is more concerned with Proust's meaning than the style in which he communicates that meaning; in doing so, however, he makes the grave error of assuming that style itself does not communicate meaning. It's fair to say, though, that he generally handles Proust's intricate sentences and formulations deftly.
What is irksome but not overly so is, first, Grieve's liberal use of British slang. It detracts from the distinctly French atmosphere that Proust evokes. The repeated use of words such as "bloke," "chum," "scotch," etc., is unnecessary when other words, free of British associations, will do fine. Even better, as Lydia Davis does in her translation of SWANN'S WAY, would be to use words with French associations when applicable.
Second, Grieve is not always faithful to Prousts' carefully selected word order. Distinctive of Proust is his tendency, at the end of a multi-layered sentence, full of hesitations and diversions, that captures all of a situation's undercurrents of tension, to end with a staccato word that informs or even reframes the entire thought. It is one of his trademarks. Grieve is unfaithful at times in rearranging this word order and not ending with the "reframing" word, if you will (by adding clauses in the same vein as "if you will" at the end of the sentence).
On the whole, however, this is a bracing translation that, I hope, will encourage more readers to try on Proust.
the new translation is a joy to read.......2005-06-19
Penguin's new translations of "In Search of Lost Time" were just the nudge I needed to read Proust's masterwork again. I was particularly impressed by the job the American writer Lydia Davis did with "Swann's Way". By contrast, I have a few complaints about James Grieves's rendering of "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower". Where Scott Moncrieff translated "petite bande" (of girls) with the expected "little band," Grieves uses "little gang," which to an American ear sounds rather tough. He mangles one of my favorite quotations. And there's a typo on the bottom of page 95: "not" instead of "now"!
Overall, though, I like the liberties Grieves takes with the text, and we were certainly overdue for a freshened-up translation of one of the most important books of the 20th century. Unlike Proust's French, Scott Moncrieff's English has come to seem dusty and overblown. (For example, he rendered the title of this volume as "Within a Budding Grove", the literal translation being too racy for his 1920s audience of post-Victorians.)
-- Dan Ford at readingproust dot com
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.......2005-02-28
A book of this stature hardly needs another review explaining how great it is, and, not being all that cultured, I can't provide a lot of literary context or comparisons with past translations. I can offer a recommendation, though, as a young modern lay reader who suffers the usual hesitations about approaching classic texts.
With regard to previous translations, all I know is that this volume apparently used to be called In a Budding Grove - which may be the worst literary title ever - and is now called In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, which may be the best literary title ever. As far as I can tell the translation flows very smoothly, too, and even though Proust's style, as most people probably know, features sentences which go on for a very long time and have complex constructions buried in them (sort of like this one), I thought it was more readable than the likes of Joyce and Pynchon, because the power of the first-person voice often makes the meaning clear. There were a couple of points where I thought the translator used a word that seemed too modern and idiomatic - 'hubby' was one - but it's not that much of a distraction.
Proust's habit is to spend a lot of time discussing small, specific things, but that isn't to say he describes every single event of his childhood in excruciating detail - he often skips over major events, or describes something's prelude in more detail than the event itself, summarizing the things which had the deepest emotional impact on him at the time. The result is a narrative which is very engaging because all of the details in it, however small they might be, shed light on something deeper.
With this specific volume (about the experience of youth), speaking as someone whose own adolesence isn't far behind him, I found it eerily insightful. Reading about people from a different century, I would suddenly come on an insight which might have been a direct comment on me or someone I knew, and what I think really makes Proust one-of-a-kind is that he never stoops to satire, charicature or didactics; it's just straight observation. The people he describes might be the comic relief or even buffoonish villains in the works of a lesser author, but something about the way he describes them so exactly produces sympathy, as if the reader were allied as much with them as with the narrator.
Of all the 'classic' books I've read, ISYGIF is one of my favorites, and I recommend it to anyone able to read it. Like I said, I don't think Proust's style is as hard to grasp as certain other modern authors; but if it does seem difficult, then it's certainly worth the effort of becoming accustomed to it, for the beauty which emerges from it and the uncanny human analysis.
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Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time
How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel
The Cambridge Companion to Proust (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Ulysses
The Magic Mountain
