Proust, Marcel Remembrance Things Past(boxed
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Good set!
Proust, Marcel Remembrance Things Past(boxed
Marcel Proust
Manufacturer: Chatto and Windus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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  1. Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove (Vintage) Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove (Vintage)
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ASIN: 0701125594

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Good set!.......2007-01-23

this was a gift and I am very pleased. Great price great condition

Thank you
Remembrance of Things Past: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past (Graphic Novels))
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Note: this review is of Heuet's adaptation, not the original book
  • The Holy Grail
  • A Worthy Investment
  • my favorite book
  • Learning to swim-- my first Proust reading experience
Remembrance of Things Past: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past (Graphic Novels))
Marcel Proust , and Stanislas Brezet
Manufacturer: ComicsLit
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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  1. Remembrance of Things Past: Volume II - The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain (Vintage) Remembrance of Things Past: Volume II - The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain (Vintage)
  2. Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past) Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past)
  3. Remembrance of Things Past; Volume 2 Part 2: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past) Remembrance of Things Past; Volume 2 Part 2: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past)
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ASIN: 1561633429

Amazon.com

Marcel Proust whiled away the first half of his life as a self-conscious aesthete and social climber. The second half he spent in the creation of the mighty roman-fleuve that is Remembrance of Things Past, memorializing his own dandyism and parvenu hijinks even as he revealed their essential hollowness. Proust begins, of course, at the beginning--with the earliest childhood perceptions and sorrows. Then, over several thousand pages, he retraces the course of his own adolescence and adulthood, democratically dividing his experiences among the narrator and a sprawling cast of characters. Who else has ever decanted life into such ornate, knowing, wrought-iron sentences? Who has subjected love to such merciless microscopy, discriminating between the tiniest variations of desire and self-delusion? Who else has produced a grief-stricken record of time's erosion that can also make you laugh for entire pages? The answer to all these questions is: nobody.

Book Description

Long out of print, the many adaptations that Russell has done of famous operas are finally collected again in 3 volumes, in the wake of his highly successful massive recent adaptation of Wagner¹s Ring of the Nibelung. This first volume presents his adaptation of one of Mozart¹s most famous works, a farcical tale mixed with fantasy. The story begins as the Queen of the Night sets Prince Tamino on a quest to rescue her daughter, Pamina from the evil Sarastro. On the way, he meets the bird-catcher Papageno, who is ³persuaded² to help Tamino in his quest. Tamino¹s spiritual quest is counterpoised with Papageno¹s own earthly search for his one true love, Papagena. Both couples¹ strivings are juxtaposed with the eternal conflict between Sarastro and the Queen of the Night.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Note: this review is of Heuet's adaptation, not the original book.......2006-10-17

Stephane Heuet, Remembrance of Things Past: Within a Budding Grove, vol. I (ComicsLit, 2000)

Heuet continues his ambitious adaptation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past with the first part of Within a Budding Grove. Our narrator is growing up, and the focus of this volume is a trip to the seaside, meeting some people, getting in touch with old friends, always silently reflecting on both his memories of the past (of course) and the social consciousness of the world around him. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one as well. ***

5 out of 5 stars The Holy Grail.......2006-08-10

Very well....I'm finally, after years of putting it off, writing a review of a work of Art that can't be reviewed in any meaningful sense of the term, a work of Art that approaches the sacred. As another reviewer puts it, if you think you have read literature with "depths" before, this opus will make ANYTHING you've ever read seem, in comparison, like one of those vapid books one picks up at airports during layovers. It is a work by which other novels, poems, paintings are to be judged rather than the other way around. In fact, after reading Proust, one can immediately tell if other "great writers" have read him almost from the start. Recent Booker Prize winning John Banville's The Sea is a good example of this.

The first time I read this work, about ten years ago, it was the ONLY thing I did, so enraptured was I. For a month, all I did was lie on my bed or, alternately, on the sofa downstairs and read, putting a dash mark at the end of one of the two-page paragraphs when I had to get up to eat or to check the mail or to feed my dog or to answer the phone or to get some shuteye, and then dive back in as soon as possible. - I don't use the term "dive" lightly - That's the only metaphor that comes close to expressing what it's like to read this book. You dive in and plunge deeper and deeper than you thought any Art could ever take you and, if you make it to the end, arise out of the deep cadences of philosophical reverie that constitute Proust's spellbinding meditations on love and time to behold a world rich and strange. - Proust truly does change your life. One never really recovers from reading him.

A few comments on what some of the other (serious) reviewers have said: 1) A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is not untranslatable and I don't know why exactly the English translation wasn't In Search of Lost Time instead of Remembrance of Things Past, taken, of course from the Shakespearian sonnet. But there it is. 2) I am in complete agreement with the reviewer who avers that unless you have been in love and suffered, which critic Harold Bloom remarks, commenting on Proust, means, eventually, everyone who has ever been in love, you will miss Proust's deepest apercus and regard them (as one reviewer does) as "silly."

I'm not sure what else I can say. I've probably go on too much already. If you are a true lover of Art in its highest sense, please pick up this Holy Grail of literature, even if you are intimidated, as many reviewers admit to being at first. For, as Proust says:

"Thus, it is in states of mind destined not to last that we make the irrevocable decisions of our lives."

Reading Proust is one of these decisions you won't regret

5 out of 5 stars A Worthy Investment.......2006-07-12

Yes, it is long. Yes, the sentences are complex. Nonetheless, this novel is a worthy investment of one's efforts, because it isolates events that are so innately human that anyone who reads this novel will relate to it. Beyond just reading it because one feels obligated to do so as bibliophile, enjoy the greatest achievement of 20th-century France because it is witty, insightful, daring, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

I recommend reading this novel quickly, rather than being bogged down by details that result in confusion or distraction. I read the novel in 15 weeks in a class at UC Berkeley, and have concluded that it must be read twice--once, to understand the plot and big ideas, and a second time to linger over the concepts that piqued one's interest the most. However, even if only reading it once, it is worth an investment of one's time and emotion.

5 out of 5 stars my favorite book.......2006-02-15

so i was a berkeley english major who needed a class....i just happend to wander into a course on Proust.

it is my favorite book.

it is not light reading, it is for those who want to expericence one of the great novels in the cannon.

I ended up reading the first three volumes.
Swans way left me with satisfation. It is a senory trip in which insecurities and obession exsist without judment. It deals with much of the human psyche in all its forms.

As a lower income Latino male i could still find the univerals truths that bond me to other works that are outside of my personal experience.

It is a work that exsist outside of time, in constant senory experience.

Read it... then reread it.

5 out of 5 stars Learning to swim-- my first Proust reading experience.......2005-10-21

Some time ago, I received the Vintage three-volume box set version of Remembrance as a gift. I had rashly mentioned to a friend that I wanted to read Proust and he took me at my word-- the heavy set arriving by mail and scaring me half to death. It took me a long time to get around to reading it, but I finally summoned up my courage and took down the first volume.

I have many thoughts on the books, and the experience of reading them was not always easy. I will summarize, however, by saying that I believe that I was amply rewarded for making the time and space free to tackle this piece.

It took me quite a while to let myself get into the prose. Although I found it immediately beautiful, haunting even, I struggled over the long complex sentences and the unusual structure. The only advice that I can give to the potential first-time reader is to stop trying to catch everything and let yourself swim along. Eventually if you stop fighting the structure, it really starts to work and you are drawn along with it to the point where you no longer experience it as difficult.

Where is the reward for the reader? There is a passage in the book where Proust is discussing how time flows in any given life. He argues that in order to capture time passing, the novelist generally is given to "wildly accelerating the beat of the pendulum, to transport the reader in a couple of minutes over ten, or twenty, or even thirty years." What I found the most amazing on my first reading of Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove was that remarkable sense of time in life that Proust is able to portray. He uses more than the wild leaps and jumps that he attributes to his generic novelist. He condenses time, extends it, shortens it and rearranges it. The array of memories along this life is beautiful, and the more beautiful for being so clearly anchored in a particular place in the life of the characters. I am not sure where he is going with all these people-- I will need to read the other books to find out. Still, I was actually content with these two books as a separate reading experience for this element of time passing alone.

I think that on balance if I had bought these books for myself, I would have chosen the Lydia Davis translation. This is based on conversations with friends who were reading the Davis translation at the same time that I was reading this edition. It sounds as though it is fresher, and more readable. However, I found this edition much more accessible than I had feared. Either the Montcrief edition has much less gingerbread prose than generally held, or Kilmarten really did a remarkable job of smoothing it out. I needed to arm myself with a dictionary while reading, since the two of them used some very obscure and/or archaic vocabulary. Although this was occasionally annoying, there were also times when I felt as though less specificity would have hurt the images that were being described.

Recommended, but not lightly.
Remembrance of Things Past: Volume II - The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain (Vintage)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Proust (the revenge)
  • Continuing down the road.
  • The Best Work of "Fiction" I've Ever Read
  • French or Irish
Remembrance of Things Past: Volume II - The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain (Vintage)
Marcel Proust
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Proust, MarcelProust, Marcel | ( P ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:
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  3. A Simple Story (Oxford World's Classics) A Simple Story (Oxford World's Classics)
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  5. How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel

ASIN: 0394711831
Release Date: 1982-08-27

Amazon.com

Before his death in 1922, Marcel Proust accomplished the monumental feat of recording Remembrance of Things Past, a fifteen-volume literary history, much of which was based upon his own adventures and minute observations. The Guermantes Way is an installation in this collection and recounts, among other things, his childhood in Combray and the relevance of grasping the importance of particular events and people from his past in his development as a writer. Although autobiographical, Proust employs suspense and the observation of minutiae to illustrate our own subjective existence.

Book Description

Including THE GUERMANTES WAY and CITIES OF THE PLAIN.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Proust (the revenge).......2006-02-15

Where as Joyce's Masterpice takes place in one day proust's Masterpiece Swans Way is only the begining. In the first Part Swans way we have the world of le boheim Part 2 or Guermantes way Opens the world of the bougios. A world of the rich in which image is everything...sex, obssesion, grandmothers...ect ect.. If you are reading this then you are familar with the obsesive beatuty that is proust's writing. Equally great however, personally there is a satifaction after Swans way,(first time with Proust's writing)that make the first volume my favorite.

5 out of 5 stars Continuing down the road........2005-12-29

Volume I of this Vintage series was a little bit overwhelming as a reading experience. Proust is dense, difficult and the diction takes quite a bit of getting used to. It was a relief for me that the reading experience got much easier by the time that I reached this volume. Nothing is going to leaven Remembrance or make it less dense, but if you make it as far as The Guermantes Way then you are bound to have come to some peace with the language.

The Guermantes Way and Cities of the Plain are full of both broad humor and deep sorrow. The treatment of the death of the Grandmother, particularly the way that she slowly retreats in dreams, is one of the most real and affecting sequences of its kind that I can remember in fiction. On the other hand, the comedy of manners at the society parties plays out like a kind of Belle Epoque Sex & the City. Proust skewers the foibles and fables of the relationships of the rich, and often left me chuckling to myself as I read.

The farther I go, the more I find these books to be one of the most memorable reading experiences of my life. Nothing in these books makes me lessen the recommendation that I read after reading Volume I. In fact, I find that my admiration is only increasing as I read.

If you can, try tackling Volume II as quickly as possible after finishing Volume I. It really helps a lot to treat Remembrance as a single book, rather than a series. It also avoids time re-learning the feeling of the Proust prose.

5 out of 5 stars The Best Work of "Fiction" I've Ever Read.......2004-06-19

Moncrieff/Kilmartin's translation is still the best. Proust's life-work is the most psychologically acute novel ever written, and a perfect match between form and content. His form is the memoir, conceived as a piece of music, with themes and variations, codas and recapitulations. The content is a list of evolving concerns, from love (in all its forms) to aesthetic creation and appreciation, as well as a sort of living autopsy of the aristocracy of his time. His motives were manifold, but it seems Proust primarily wanted to get in the final word on those people he knew throughout his life, and show he both understood them (better than they themselves) and that they had little inkling of his amazing inner life. For all his encounters with and criticisms of snobs and poseurs throughout the work, and his tendency to fully absorb himself in his experiences, Marcel the narrator risks coming off as a snob himself; but quite the opposite, he denigrates himself constantly with reference to his own writing abilities, up into the very last section of "Time Regained" when the structural idea for the novel we have just read comes to him. He's disappointed many times by his own experiences, when they are is measured and conditioned by the background of his keen aesthetic imagination. His salvation is both the Idea for the novel, and a theory of time/identity which has been "calling out" to him with his famous episodes of "involuntary memory" (the most famous of which is the tea-dipped madeleine). As one reads on, there are times when it seems Proust has suspended all action and narrative in favor of impressions which resonate against one another. It may seem gratuitous or self-indulgent, but he is "performing" his theory at the same time he's telling you about it. They each have a purpose, and it seems he's trying to enact a philosophical theory of identity and experience: as if we the subject are nodes of activity that blend memory and present conscious experience.

"Remembrance of Things Past" can be a difficult work to read, but it is so very much worth it. One needs no guide to read this work; it's not as allusive as "Ulysses" nor esoteric like "Gravity's Rainbow". Proust's style is very reader-friendly (albeit he spins very long sentences). He respects the reader, and wants her to understand exactly where he's coming from, for this novel is like the map Borges once described in one of his "Ficciones": it's a representation so large and subtle and complex that it is as big as what it depicts.

If Proust were alive today, he'd probably be kibbitzing with Hollywood stars or the world's billionaire elites...And not much of this book would change!

5 out of 5 stars French or Irish.......2001-11-29

It really is between joyce and proust....
Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past (Graphic Novels))
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • It's like the Illustrated Classics have returned in graphic novel form.
  • I can finally run for presidency
  • your kids will love french litterature .... at last!
  • Toujours, Proust et A La Recherche
  • Highly recommended for all graphic novel fans in general
Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past (Graphic Novels))
Stephane Heuet , and Marcel Proust
Manufacturer: Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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  3. Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time
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ASIN: 1561632783

Book Description

At last brought to the U.S., the best-selling comics adaptation of the great classic of French literature that scandalized the French establishment as reported on the front page of the New York Times! Step back into a world of insightful reflection as Proust is brought back, through the legendary magic of the smell of a madeleine, to his youth in a small town of France.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars It's like the Illustrated Classics have returned in graphic novel form........2006-09-21

Stephane Heuet, Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (ComicsLit, 1998)

Stephane Heuet has taken on the unenviable, and quite Herculean, task of adapting Marcel Proust's vast Remembrance of Things Past and adapting it into graphic novel form. Combray, the opening part of the novel Swann's Way, is the first offering in the series.

This is not your typical graphic novel, but then one would be hard-pressed to adapt Remembrance... in traditional graphic novel form. There's a whole lot of exposition, and many pretty pictures, and very little dialogue. Heuet's people look more than a tad like Herge's, which has me constantly wondering when Snowy and the Captain are going to barge into any given scene, but that's a minor distraction. The story is-- obviously-- abridged, but it still serves, so far, as a fine introduction to Proust for, say, the high-school set. ***

5 out of 5 stars I can finally run for presidency.......2005-08-27

As a slow reader, I always favored "bande desinees" [graphic novels]. At the annual picnic of my wife's employer, the french dept of a university, I can finally converse with her collegues and actually sound smart. I can even, what can I say, run for Presidency 2008. Oops: that would overqualify me...

Really interesting. Maybe I should now challenge myself to read the real thing...

5 out of 5 stars your kids will love french litterature .... at last!.......2002-09-29

For the first time, Marguerite (11), Louis (16) did understand and appreciate what Proust means for the rest of us! When I brought them to Illiers (the actual name of Combray village, near Chartres)we asked the "boulanger" for "Proust-madeleine" cakes. But he does not make them anymore. Some shops are for sale, there. Maybe one of Amazon.com readers should settle down and start a "Proust-cake" business there. This book is terrific because the graphics are as "bon-goût" as the text.

5 out of 5 stars Toujours, Proust et A La Recherche.......2001-09-01

How incredible to find my much beloved Proust placed in my equally beloved comics format! At last, the astoundingly complex and beautiful novel is being made more accessible to the masses. The simplistic Eurocomics style is perfect in the uncomplicating process. Heuet has quite adroitly whittled away to the essence. This can hopefully serve as an introduction to the masterwork; at very least, it will acquaint more with what may indeed be the greatest novel of the 20th Century. I was particularly pleased at the attention paid to Proust's droll humor. Can't wait for the next installment. A profound addition to the often mundane plethora of graphic novels.

5 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for all graphic novel fans in general.......2001-06-07

Stephane Heuet successfully adapts Marcel Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past into the format of a graphic novel in the first volume of a planned 12 volume series. The result is an impressive work that will aptly serve to introduce a whole new generation of readers to an outstanding example of French literature. Indeed, it was Proust's cogent and discerning observations that in the hands of graphic artist Stephane Heuet that provides today's readers with a revealing and engaging examination of a time when life was more bucolic, less stressful, and contemplation friendly than life today. This NBM edition of Remembrance Of Things Past is highly recommended for all graphic novel fans in general, and Marcel Proust enthusiasts in particular!
Remembrance Of Things Past (Naxos Audio)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • remembrance of things past
Remembrance Of Things Past (Naxos Audio)
Marcel Proust
Manufacturer: Naxos Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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  1. Swann in Love Swann in Love
  2. The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatory - Paradise (Naxos AudioBooks) The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatory - Paradise (Naxos AudioBooks)
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ASIN: 9626342536

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars remembrance of things past.......2005-08-09

This is my all-time favorite book. The reader is excellent; he has a real feel for Proust and his writing, his diction is great--his voice and tone show that he understands the book very well and appreciates it.
I was disappointed that the book is abridged, but that's not his fault.
The book kept me alert on a recent 9-hour drive, plus return. Since I'm almost 77, I'm extremely grateful for that--and am delighted to have these wonderful CD's.
Swann's Way: Remembrance of Things Past
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Swann's Way
  • Hmmm....Will it get any better than this?
  • Fabulous Writing But Not A Novel: A Lengthy Narrative On Life
  • Beautiful but fatiguing
  • A Must-read
Swann's Way: Remembrance of Things Past
Marcel Proust
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:
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ASIN: 067972009X
Release Date: 1989-03-13

Book Description

The first and best known volume of one of the landmarks of world literature. Available separately for those who want to approach Proust carefully!

Download Description

Swann's Way, the first part of A la recherche de temps perdu, Marcel Proust's seven-part cycle, was published in 1913. In it, Proust introduces the themes that run through the entire work. The narrator recalls his childhood, aided by the famous madeleine; and describes M. Swann's passion for Odette. The work is incomparable. Edmund Wilson said "[Proust] has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent in the full scale for the new theory of modern physics."

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Swann's Way.......2007-07-15

The product and the narration is very well done. Unfortunately, I found that Proust is just not for me.

3 out of 5 stars Hmmm....Will it get any better than this?.......2007-03-07

So i finally made the commitment to reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I've been contemplating this for years, and this spring i have the time so i've excitedly decided to forge what will be a memorable relationship with the author and the text.

But geez, am i DISAPPOINTED with the first "installment"!!! I'm usually an avid reader of European classics, and although i wasn't expecting Proust to be thrilling, i guess i didn't realize that the work was completely plotless.

I have to stop and remind myself (lest i give up?) that i am reading for the full experience rather than instant gratification, so i'm going to doggedly push on, and read something "fun" like Waugh or Vonnegut between each of the 6 books of I.S.O.L.T...

On a postive note, Proust's unique style allows the reader's mind to wander with the narrator, so i honestly can't say that i was "bored". It is also interesting that Proust is so often right on target about the human psyche and about society, when he, an invalid, was himself removed from it for much of his life.

Finally, Swann's Way is, let's face it, a moderately thick book. Without plot, you'd think that it would be a slow and dragging read. However, his long sentences somehow propel the reader forward to the next interesting speculation or to the next social event, and once again, his style is such that we become involved in the character's life....what will be the next step in Swann and Odette's relationship?

Although i have mixed feelings about the start of my Proustian journey, I console myself with his notions of time. The way we feel and think about something while we are in the midst of it may differ greatly from the way we feel and think about it once we are removed from it. Perspective is altered by distance (and memory, imagine that...). Perhaps once i finish the work in its entirety the pieces will all come together and there will be a cumulative gain. If nothing else, there will be a sense of accomplishment!

5 out of 5 stars Fabulous Writing But Not A Novel: A Lengthy Narrative On Life.......2007-02-03

In search of Lost Time is regarded by many as a key work of modern literature, bridging ideas from the 19th and 20th centuries. Proust is often compared to Joyce and Kafka.

This is revised translation of the early Moncrieff translation. That was the primary translation for the first 50 years after the first publication in French. The present work includes the later changes to the original French manuscripts made in 1954. These additions and changes were excluded in the first manuscript from Proust. The manuscript was revised in the Pleiade edit of 1954 to include all of Proust's final edits. Those edits, additions, and changes are now translated and revised by Enright.

There are three parts to Volume I:
- Combray (the town)
- Swann in Love (Swann is the family name of the narrator)
- Place-Names-The Name

Here is a question for the average reader: is this a novel? What is it? The present Volume I is 600 pages, and if you continue on after Volume I, you face another 5000 pages or so. It is not a novel and it is not a play or drama as one sees with Shakespeare; instead, it is a seemingly endless narrative. Should we be concerned with what it is? The answer is yes, because some will find Proust to be a tedious challenge while others will love him.

For example, Madam Bovary is a novel. It has a beginning, an end, clear characters who are good, evil, and indifferent. It takes place in 19th century French countryside as does Proust, and unlike Proust it is a gripping tale. The writing by Flaubert is flawless. The structure is perfect. That is a novel. I read all 500 pages of Madame Bovary in one day and was very entertained and impressed.

Proust's Volume I, by contrast, has taken me 12 months to read. Again, as with Flaubert, the prose is faultless and the details described are done exquisitely, but there is no plot, and it is not gripping. It is a series of memories or short sections. Almost by definition, these short pieces do not carry the drama of a well balanced novel. They are weakly linked together plus the writing is complicated by many characters, often relatives of the narrator. If you put the book down and start again you are momentarily lost. Some readers, and that includes myself, wonder why we continue.

Proust is part of our literary education and one can appreciate the interwoven snapshots of life, the beautiful descriptions of rural Combray, the characters of France, and the relatives in his family. It is an endless narrative about a man's life and those pieces of his life. It is a collection of memories. Here in Volume I we see three broad snapshots of one man's life; we escape to 19th century France, and we become part of a seemingly endless tale about the fine details of that life. If that interests you, then you will love Proust.

Only the most patient should read Proust. Be prepared for beautiful prose and French 19th century life.


4 out of 5 stars Beautiful but fatiguing.......2007-01-24

Clearly, Proust has a remarkable gift for perception, as if he is able to see human experience, circumstance, and even plain objects, in exploded detail, and distill them for the reader. Particularly in the first and third parts of the book, he frequently drops gems of absolute truth, in much the same way that Shakespearean couplets remarkably capture the essence of love or revenge. To me, this is the reward of reading the book, and what makes the challenge worth undertaking.

At first, you may be overwhelmed by his very complex sentences, as others have noted. It is important to Proust to express an entire thought in one sentence; a lofty objective with sometimes dire consequences, but Proust adheres to it admirably. You soon learn to maintain the subject of the sentence in your head while Proust explores two or three tangents to the original thought before he comes back to it. What works in the reader's favor is that Proust is very regular with his sentence structure, so once you develop a feel for it, it ceases to intimidate.

The book is divided into three parts: The first and third parts recount experiences of Proust's early childhood, while the second part details the love affair of Charles Swann. To me, the first part is the most beautiful, followed by the third part. You will be able to tell within the first 50 or so pages whether or not Proust will suit you. The second part of the book becomes plodding and monotonous, as Proust narrates even a simple set of circumstances in many layers of redundancy, each recounted in exhaustive detail, in his complex style which begins to feel formulaic, wordy, and indulgent. Here's the subject of the sentence, tangent number one, the tangent to tangent number one, tangent number two, and then it ends with yet another metaphor about invalids. The regularity of sentence structure is much easier to tolerate in the first and third parts because Proust flits between several ideas or subjects, whereas in the second part, he drills to the very core of the earth on one or two subjects with a few variations. I found myself feeling pretty burned out, counting down pages to the end of Part 2. My advice is to pick up your reading speed if it starts to become boring or if you lose your concentration.

If Proust were not quite so overly thorough in Part 2, or if he had varied his cadence or sentence structure a bit more, I could recommend this book without hesitation. As it is, it will require an unusual investment of concentration and patience, but I believe it is worth it.

5 out of 5 stars A Must-read.......2006-06-21

I have been planning for some years to read IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, and finally started in March with Lydia Davis' translation of SWANN'S WAY.

Proust is one of the most empathetic authors that I have ever encountered. To tell the story of his youth, to describe his fears and joys and loves, he turns inward, and in doing so, gives a strikingly accurate portrayal of the human heart, and human folly.

SWANN'S WAY is diveded into four sections, too long to be called chapters: Combray, Combray II, Swann in Love, Place-Names:The Name.

Combray and Combray II tell of the summers of Marcel's youth, his grandmother and great-aunt Leonie (who never got out of her bed), Francoise, the maid, walks with his parents, meeting M. Swann, their neighbor, meeting M. Swann's daughter for the first time and falling in love with her. It is very difficult for an author to write from the perspective of a child and do it convicingly, but Proust succeeds here. I loved little Marcel, a sensitive, naive little boy who absorbs everything around him.

'Swann in Love' tells the story of M. Swann and how he fell in love with one Odette d'Crecy, a woman not of his class who seduces him and then breaks his heart.

In 'Place-Names: The Name' we read about a slightly older Marcel, and his first attempts at winning the heart of Gilberte, the daughter of M. Swann. My favorite image in SWANN'S WAY comes from 'Place Names' - an image of Odette d'Crecy strolling down the Avenue of the Acacias alone, which Proust includes in his diatribe against the death of elegance.

As the purpose of writing IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME was to recover his forgotten memories, Proust's tale is not told as a series of interconnected events, but as a collection of interwoven memories - some of them incomplete. [The short novella, 'Swann in Love', that is contained in the novel is an exception - though still told from an internalized perspective, that of M. Swann.]

In this format, description trumps plotline and dialogue. His descriptions - of tapestries in cathedrals, of a child's longing for his mother, of the beauty of words and the pain of falling in love - are first rate. I found many times that reading this book was a lot like looking at a great painting, or a sunset - soothing, [also with the exception of 'Swann in Love', where I found myself completely aggravated with M. Swann and hating Odette. An author that can calm you but also create characters capable of arousing passionate anger must be great.]

SWANN'S WAY is highly recommended.
Remembrance of Things Past Two Volume Set
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    Remembrance of Things Past Two Volume Set
    Marcel Proust
    Manufacturer: Random House
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover
    ASIN: B000H24GY2
    Remembrance of Things Past; Volume 2 Part 2: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past)
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      Remembrance of Things Past; Volume 2 Part 2: Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past)
      Marcel Proust
      Manufacturer: ComicsLit
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      Similar Items:
      1. Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past) Remembrance of Things Past: Combray (Remembrance of Things Past)
      2. Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove (Vintage) Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove (Vintage)
      3. Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time
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      ASIN: 1561633488
      Remembrance of Things Past
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        Remembrance of Things Past
        Marcel Proust
        Manufacturer: Random House
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover
        ASIN: B000CECZO8

        Product Description

        2 volume set
        Remembrance of Things Past (Swann's Way)
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Remembrance of Things Past (Swann's Way)

          Manufacturer: The Modern Library, Inc.
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover
          ASIN: B000BP6QPC

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