The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3)

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The Guermantes Way (À la recherche du temps perdu #3)

by Marcel Proust, Mark Treharne (Translator)

4.34 of 5 stars 4.34 · rating details · 1,950 ratings · 151 reviews

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 Guermante...more

Paperback, Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 619 pages

Published May 31st 2005 by Penguin Classics (first published 1920)

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Jan 15, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-am-reading-proust, littry-fiction

how can a sociopath love society so much??

because, make no mistake, that is what we are dealing with here.in this third installment, our dear narrator graduates from being a feeble child, from being a lovesick adolescent into a manipulating, stalking, social climbing creature who learns a lesson in disillusionment. cheers.

for all his bookish intelligence, his overthinking, his lofty words, at the end of the day, he is just a pale sticky thing masturbating in society's stairwell.

this is his idea...more

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Jun 29, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Virginia Woolf

Shelves: 2011, french-francophone, modern-love, reviewed, virginia-woolf-recommends, overshare

I read No Exit in high school, when I was a pretentious teen and I thought existentialism was cool, not because I understood it, because it seemed like an excellent way to irritate my friends who hadn't heard of it at all. All grown up now, I read the mighty Proust because Virginia Woolf loved him. (It inspired my favorite, Mrs. Dalloway). But I've spent most of the hundreds of pages of this volume thinking it might be more enjoyable, certainly easier, to read No Exit again, instead of the hell...more I read No Exit in high school, when I was a pretentious teen and I thought existentialism was cool, not because I understood it, because it seemed like an excellent way to irritate my friends who hadn't heard of it at all. All grown up now, I read the mighty Proust because Virginia Woolf loved him. (It inspired my favorite, Mrs. Dalloway). But I've spent most of the hundreds of pages of this volume thinking it might be more enjoyable, certainly easier, to read No Exit again, instead of the hell of an afternoon in a French salon at the turn of the twentieth-century. The narrator's disillusionment with society (Is this all it is? These shallow people and their insipid talk is what I've been ~~scheming, maneuvering, conniving~~ aching to become a part of?). Oh yes, he does it with art, with nuance, with charm, wit, cleverness, and a subtlety that would make Jane Austen grind her teeth with raw envy, but with all the dullness of being in such a salon, day after day, trying to remember whose top hat is whose and the correct form of address for La Duchesse, Mme de Guermantes (it is a very big deal to forget the Mme, should you ever find yourself in such a situation), listening to pompous people praise those they do not like, wondering who is sleeping with whom, and generally trying to stay awake (or was that last just me?). I felt like I was in No Exit.

But wait! It's also a complete, complex examination of the Dreyfus affair, which appealed to me in a way no discussion of the lining of men's hats could. In college, I took a few classes on race relations and a few classes on French history and every time they intersected (as they were wont to do), there was the Dreyfus affair. The glory of Proust (leaving aside just how well he writes) is how he captures a time, a feeling, a nasty undercurrent and dividing socio-political reality that could be us, today, right now, and everything in it is tainted by the sickening green lights of Mordor. The beauty seen on the surface is merely a sheer over the real shape of these lost souls. For that reason, it's compelling, not the hair styles and the crisis of how to get out of the house before a footman arrives to tell you your relative has died (because then you'd have to stay home and miss the party).

Oh, death. Death is everywhere in this. The death of the heart (and do, please, read Elizabeth Bowen's book of that name; she too understood what society does to the soul) is shown to us along with true death, the real, valid, wrenching kind that makes you weep, even though it is for a character in a book and not only because she seems like the only authentic person in it. I loved this section, this seemed real, especially after a hundred pages of top hats, at-homes, and visiting cards. It also, surprisingly, validated the reality of what had been presented earlier, and after that, I was able to get through the next two hundred and fifty pages of a very detailed dinner party, without the same pain of the earlier section.

I explained to a friend who wanted to know why I was torturing myself with this exercise that it's because Proust brings up everything. I can't read twenty pages without stopping to write something down or to just stop myself from spilling into my own thoughts about whatever revelation has just been made so quietly that I don't realize it immediately; I only notice later that my mind has wandered from whatever thought Proust wrote down into a memory, a story, or even a series of images, that had all sparked from that thought. (Then I'd have to read that section again, since I had no memory of what happened in it). In a way, it feels like when I first learned to read and had to stop to look up words (or ask for help) all the time. The progress is slow but the satisfaction, when completed, is better than any book, no matter how good, that was easier to read.(less)

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May 12, 2013 Aubrey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french, prose-prose-prose, translated, ever-on, reviewed, 5-star

And even in my most carnal desires, oriented always in a particular direction, concentrated round a single dream, I might have recognized as their primary motive an idea, an idea for which I would have laid down my life, at the innermost core of which, as in my day-dreams while I sat reading all afternoon in the garden at Combray, lay the notion of perfection.

-Marcel Proust

I go forward slowly, dead, and my vision is no longer mine, it’s nothing: it’s only the vision of the human animal who, wit
...more
And even in my most carnal desires, oriented always in a particular direction, concentrated round a single dream, I might have recognized as their primary motive an idea, an idea for which I would have laid down my life, at the innermost core of which, as in my day-dreams while I sat reading all afternoon in the garden at Combray, lay the notion of perfection.

-Marcel Proust

I go forward slowly, dead, and my vision is no longer mine, it’s nothing: it’s only the vision of the human animal who, without wanting, inherited Greek culture, Roman order, Christian morality, and all the other illusions that constitute the civilization in which I feel.
Where can the living be?

-Fernando Pessoa

Constants are a comfort. Predictable, reliable, indestructible, themes upon which to stake a claim, build a life, and conjure up a culture. Without them, there would be no tradition, no heritage, no common meaning that has been given centuries to bring together the many millions of humanity, and will continue to do so long into the future.

Transience is stimulating. Unique, original, unpredictable, the many spices that fill each day of life with novelty and excitement. Without them, civilization would die a slow death, unable to provide for the insatiable minds crowding its surface, compensate them for all the rules and regulations that confine them in every aspect of their lives.

In Swann's Way, we were introduced to the fragile chaos that is memory, all of its invisible triggers and surprising strengths when it came to prying forth events that molt and flex with each passing second, as fast as we ourselves can metamorphosize. In Within a Budding Grove, we found beauty, then lost it, then found it again, so long as we lied and were lied to, consciously or otherwise, in hopes of that one instant where what we loved was indeed what was. In Guermantes Way, we reach out of our protective cocoons, and unleash these truths of mind and matter to rampage over the wide plane of humanity.

What results is both admirable and terrible, a truth of life whose nakedness proves too ferocious for the majority of minds. We are satisfied with neither peace nor war, with neither the unchanging monotony that lies too close to the cold and silent realm of mortality, nor the rampant fury that upturns our sensibilities and forces us through evolutionary contortions at a sometimes deathly speed. We yearn for connections based on similarity, and shy away from anything that decries our individuality. We wish to be understood; we do not want to be spoken through.

So we form our societies, our little cliques, our passion plays that eternally jest with one hand and keep a tight hold on emergency conventions with the other. We set the trends, watch as the clusters form and the enthusiasm rises to a fever pitch, then switch gears as soon as the crowds begin to settle and the dissonant murmurs begin to rise. We ensure that, above all else, shallowness is the key to every sort of success; we make sure to never tread too deeply in the psyche, where the shadowy past looms large and conforms more thoroughly than one with inherent beliefs in ones self can bear. We adapt at every social turn and mental acrobatics trick so that the momentary thrill is always there and always momentary, and make the word hypocrisy nothing more than the incessant whine of those who failed.

One never has to worry about disagreeing states of mind so long as one is the ringmaster of the entertainment. One never has to concern oneself with, say, feelings, and justice, and empathy, when the supreme goal is maintenance of the social formula. One need not ever have to plant oneself in another's shoes, when one is so busy in leading a parade of thousands.

For how else are we supposed to be satisfied, we social animals with our countless hopes and dreams and mentalities, always clashing when together and so very lonely when apart? How else do we function within the constricting walls of ideologies that have had millenia in which to grow, find a little variation to make the promise of a new day something of a comfort rather than a living hell? Our minds, our bodies, our souls change with every passing moment, and yet we seek the refuge of similarity with a fellow human being whose transformations are just as quick and just as erratic. We grow upon ideas that have given us security since the first idea came into being, and then we find ourselves outgrowing them, flaying ourselves on insidious restrictions that are almost too ingrained to be even be considered in words, let alone questioned.

Our thoughts swim to gorgeous depths that cannot sustain life, and so we must wait on the surface and make do with the wreckage that manages to float up through the darkness. The bits and pieces last until they no longer suffice for a pleasant existence, what with so many others crowding and crewing and manipulating the flotsam and jetsam to their own advantage. We wonder if it would be more enjoyable to sink down and make ones own way through the sunken ships, with only ones thoughts for company. We would miss the others, though, what with their complete removal from our own frame of mind, so refreshingly different despite all their sometimes aggravating differences.

It's difficult, balancing the worth of self in solitude against that of living in conformation, judging how much of oneself is an identity and how much of it is a sociocultural construct. Truth, versus stability. It's not a wonder that most of the world is devoted to the latter. At least, there, you're not alone.(less)

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Sep 11, 2009 brian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

in the strange world that us readers writers book-report-makers and reviewers inhabit, proust is considered one of - if not the - best. so we really must hold him to the highest standard, eh? his sentences? well, when marcel gets rolling on one of those proustian digressions, there really ain't much better. they're not necessarily my thing -- i prefer the more modern, clean, spare sentence -- but if you dig this kinda thing, proust is the john holmes of the sentence: he shoves 'em down your thro...more in the strange world that us readers writers book-report-makers and reviewers inhabit, proust is considered one of - if not the - best. so we really must hold him to the highest standard, eh? his sentences? well, when marcel gets rolling on one of those proustian digressions, there really ain't much better. they're not necessarily my thing -- i prefer the more modern, clean, spare sentence -- but if you dig this kinda thing, proust is the john holmes of the sentence: he shoves 'em down your throat long and hard. and, yeah, if they're kinda difficult to follow... tough shit. proust, i'd imagine, is a proponent of the theory that the more work one puts into extracting that diamond from the ditch, the brighter the gleam... but my problem lies not with those wonderful digressions, but really with everything else. y'see, the digressions are how my brain works, i really just love when he goes off on most anything. through my day i drop down wormholes and labyrinths and borgesian fuckoffs of thought and marcel! MARCEL! you make me look like a slobbering idiot! i love you! well, i like you a lot. y'see, i give this volume three stars. this volume that goodreads luminaries such as david and DFJ count as their favorite of the series. this volume that bram slaps with a fiver. part three of this series which is nearly always considered the best novel of the 20th century, sometimes the best novel ever written.

a theory: proust has so few detractors (beyond the intimidation factor) in that only those who love him are gonna read 4000 pages. y'know? how many peeps are gonna bust through 7 volumes of loooooongass tangled sentences about the decay of the french caste system only to shrug and say, 'eh... it was okay'.

well, if volume 1 was all oedipal madness & wildman jealousy and volume 2 was love love love & gilberte/albertine, then volume 3 is enchantment turned to disillusionment & social climbing. marcel becomes obsessed with entering the social world of the guermantes and once there finds them to be incredibly dull, snobbish, and quite hollow to the core. the problem is... the book is dull. yes. it must be said. at times it's paint drying. an insurance seminar. a john mayer concert. and it raises an interesting question i've thought many times since reading pauline kael's essay about the relationship between 'good' art and 'enjoyable' art... do i agree? does a work of art need to entertain? i don't know. bresson can be dull. but he's genius. warhol's empire and man sleeping are unwatchable but kind of brilliant. and lou reed's metal machine music? john cage? and proust? what to do after reading 819 pgs of this book and realize that artistically it is a triumph but it was a huge fucking chore to get through?

an example: over the course of 800+ pages we watch Marcel move from serious obsession with the guermantes, with devising any means necessary to get into their social circle, to his ultimate realization that they're pretty horrible people. and here's the rub: there's no major plot twist that makes us or the narrator suddenly realize this. nothing big happens. the guermantes' don't actually do anything to make marcel or the reader realize this. there's no big dramatic scene or plot twist or giant reveal. artistically, there's much merit to this approach. rather than some manufactured turn-'o-the-plot, we gradually learn that these people are rotten snobs through casual and daily human behavior. but dramatically? this approach is a bore. a chore. tedious. repetitious. and there is no doubt that this was proust's intention. as it was godard's intention in le weekend to show a ten minute tracking shot of traffic to lull us into a kind of brechtian boredom and frustration with what we are viewing. but does it work? is it as effective as playing to our emotions? if proust had cooked up a giant set piece that revealed the rottenness of the french aristocracy, one that really hooked the reader, one that worked to effectively punch her in the face, but one which perhaps wasn't as true to real life... would that have been the more effective approach? artistically? emotionally? intellectually?

whattaya think? (less)

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Apr 15, 2010 Manny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french, older-women-younger-men, the-goodreads-experience, life-is-proust

In the first two volumes (I argue, anyway, in my review of A L'Ombre Des Jeunes Filles En Fleurs), Proust was most interested in putting romantic relationships under the microscope. He returns to that theme later on in the series, but in the third book he is primarily concerned with picking apart the concept of wit, more exactly, ésprit, something that has always been terribly important to the French upper classes. If you want an easier tour of the subject, you might like to check out Leconte's...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Greg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

After being a little disappointed in the second volume of Proust, this one returns to the absolute wonderfulness of Swanns Way. I noticed that another reviewer commented on the addictive quality of Proust and I have to agree. A few weeks ago when I started Swanns Way I figured I'd read one of his books, and then maybe next summer go into the next one and leisurely through the remaining years of my thirties read one Proust book a year and enter into my forties being able to say that I'd read Prou...more After being a little disappointed in the second volume of Proust, this one returns to the absolute wonderfulness of Swanns Way. I noticed that another reviewer commented on the addictive quality of Proust and I have to agree. A few weeks ago when I started Swanns Way I figured I'd read one of his books, and then maybe next summer go into the next one and leisurely through the remaining years of my thirties read one Proust book a year and enter into my forties being able to say that I'd read Proust. Instead though as soon as I finish one of his books I want to immediately begin the next.

Thinking about this book and if I was asked to tell someone 'what it was about', a question I've been asked by three people while reading this book. One of them, a security guard at work,and one someone in one of my library classes and the third a person in the park who none of the characters of this book would ever associate with. Each time I told them it was about France around the turn of the century. Each in turn told me they were sorry and it didn't sound interesting, I should note that not one of the people knew who Proust was, a fact that left me a little baffled (I mean what's the point of reading the highest of high brow literature if you can't 'wow' people with your reading material, is there really another reason to be reading this stuff? Isn't one expecting to be seen reading something like Proust or Joyce and then be invited to some wonderful soirée, filled with fashionable and witty people and live out your own little Proust fantasy?).
When I think really what this book is about the answer is almost worse then saying it's about France to people who never heard of the author. Instead it's about a couple of parties, and a little bit of stuff that happens before them. Of course the characters and description given to these couple of parties is so fucking good you might find yourself cursing Proust a little bit when he switches gears and goes back into his internalized bits, but after a few pages of inner monologue I always found myself in following the words with a rapt attention.

Now on to Cities of the Plain.(less)

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Apr 29, 2013 Lee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Five stars for the project, four stars for the bulk of this installment, although it leaps beyond stars every once in a while, which keeps me reading/rating it five stars. It's tough to pull off hundreds of pages of shallow conversations in super-rich salons of bygone Paris, but MP does it. (I'll add a quotation later on that comes around page 725 that sums up the narrator's take on this one's excessive frivolous talk.) Scenes of conversations among sometimes insufficiently characterized artisto...more Five stars for the project, four stars for the bulk of this installment, although it leaps beyond stars every once in a while, which keeps me reading/rating it five stars. It's tough to pull off hundreds of pages of shallow conversations in super-rich salons of bygone Paris, but MP does it. (I'll add a quotation later on that comes around page 725 that sums up the narrator's take on this one's excessive frivolous talk.) Scenes of conversations among sometimes insufficiently characterized artistocratic characters is exactly the sort of stereotype old-timey canonical novels come up against when derided by those who've never read them. Questions readers tend to ask are: 1) what the heck are they talking about and 2) who the heck's talking anyway? Within those scenes are nuggets, morsels, scrumptious bon mots for the attentive reader to savor, but I often found myself fighting upstream through these long passages to get to the good stuff for me in Proust: Marcel rehashing things solo, self-analyzing, taking off on essayistic benders. Like in the Magic Mountain, another major modernist touchstone, where Hans gets caught in a blizzard and the novel hits an eighteen-star peak, in this one, at the beginning of section two, more than midway through, I think, the self-contained ~30 pages about Marcel's granny are about as good as it gets in lit. The sort of thing that's so good, so affecting, so smoothly rendered, so poignant, as they say, that the light of proceedings streaming fore and aft is refracted through its prism (I hope you're picturing the cover of "The Dark Side of Moon") -- like these ~30 pages of serious meaningfulness focus and color the narrator's grayscale social ambitions, emotional longings, and disillusionment with it all. Otherwise, despite at this point way too many apparently good books lined up (seriously just received another -- Schnitzler's "Dream Story" -- as I typed that last phrase!), I hope to power through the final volumes before the end of the year. Looking forward to finishing a first read before returning to it now and then over time.(less)

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Jul 16, 2009 Robin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Proust would both love and hate social networking -- Facebook, Twitter, etc. It would be the answer to his prayers (and would not have necessitated the writing of this opus):

Each of our actions, our words, our attitudes is cut off from the “world,” from the people who have not directly perceived it, by a medium the permeability of which is infinitely variable and remains unknown to ourselves; having learned from experience that some important utterance which we eagerly hoped would be disseminat

...more Proust would both love and hate social networking -- Facebook, Twitter, etc. It would be the answer to his prayers (and would not have necessitated the writing of this opus):

Each of our actions, our words, our attitudes is cut off from the “world,” from the people who have not directly perceived it, by a medium the permeability of which is infinitely variable and remains unknown to ourselves; having learned from experience that some important utterance which we eagerly hoped would be disseminated (such as those so enthusiastic speeches which I used at one time to make to everyone and at every opportunity on the subject of Mme Swann, thinking that among so many scattered seeds one at least would germinate) had at once, often because of our very anxiety, been hidden under a bushel, how immeasurably less do we suppose that some tiny word which we ourselves have forgotten, which may not even have been uttered by us but formed along its way by the imperfect refraction of a different word, could be transported, without every being halted in its progress, infinite distances -- in the present instance to the Princesse de Guemantes -- and succeed in diverting at our expense the banquet of the gods! What we remember of our conduct remains unknown to our nearest neighbor; what we have forgotten that we ever said, or indeed what we never did say, flies to provoke hilarity in another planet….

I was so excited to finish Volume III! Our hero did have to go to some excruciating social events, but that was part of the point -- he had so looked forward to fraternizing with these people (for hundreds and hundreds of pages!) he had heretofore thought untouchable, and then they were just... more of the same. And so funny: after recounting the chatter in such detail, he ends one episode by saying he had scarcely listened to the conversation b/c it wasn’t his definition of pleasure….

He can be super self-aware at times, like when he describes friendship as being necessarily mediocre, but acknowledging that this characterization is selfishly cynical. Such a sad man, and as my friend Harry says, one with perhaps no sense of humor but a deep sense of irony. The jury’s still out for me.

So awesome when he describes genealogy -- both how it shows up physically and socially -- helping make history knowable. And I love the idea of art progressing like science. Art and literature. Even if it’s not true. The most touching part for me was the part about his grandmother (no spoilers here!) and guilt he associated with his treatment of her. Even the poignancy of a telephone conversation he has with her.

I’ve just started Volume IV, and boy does it start out juicy! Sodom and Gomorrah, indeed!

Jessica, I really appreciate your inspiration. You keep me going. You and Marcel.(less)

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Apr 27, 2010 Geoff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The third volume of In Search of Lost Time is the most Parisian of them all up to this point; that is to say, all of the events, with the exception of a brief jaunt to Doncieres to visit Robert de Saint-Loup at his barracks, take place within Paris, and more specifically, within the drawing rooms of the Faubourg St. Germain, the highest of the high of fin de siecle Parisian social circles. More so than the earlier volumes, The Guermantes Way is about the language of a society, about the customs...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Nina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first two volumes of this novel blew me away. This third novel was admittedly tougher for me personally. I got halfway through it the summer before grad school, put it down the day before math camp, and didn't pick it up again until two months after I graduated. Losing my momentum made it very hard to get back into it two years later. Furthermore, this entire novel was about Parisian high society, their parties, and the narrator's fascination with them. And what segment of the population cou...more

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Mar 27, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french

Guermantes Way is like the pretentious, over-educated older sister of Budding Grove who constantly outdoes her little sister at everything. She's longer, she's more boring, she's more interesting, she's wittier and funnier, and she just loves to show off how much she knows.

We really get to know Saint Loup in this volume, as well as the Guermantes family in general - who are some pretty superficial crazies anyway. M., being a creep, stalks Mme. de Guermantes everyday on her morning walks, and be...more Guermantes Way is like the pretentious, over-educated older sister of Budding Grove who constantly outdoes her little sister at everything. She's longer, she's more boring, she's more interesting, she's wittier and funnier, and she just loves to show off how much she knows.

We really get to know Saint Loup in this volume, as well as the Guermantes family in general - who are some pretty superficial crazies anyway. M., being a creep, stalks Mme. de Guermantes everyday on her morning walks, and befriends her nephew, Saint-Loup and is like "oh can I have that picture of your aunt? ...why? uh......." - whatever, we've all been there right? ..right? ....anyone? anyone? Bueller?

We also get historical in this one with the Dreyfus affair as the background. There are a few Jewish characters, Bloch who is totally oblivious about being unwanted and annoying, and Charles Swann who of course we love and sympathize with since he married a whore. The Dreyfus affair really wears Swann out, which is sad, but as a reader you're really distracted by the total creepiness of Marcel so you get over it pretty quickly.

This chapter also emerges us in, what every book ought to have, TONS OF SOCIETY BITCHES. And they're all really obsessed with seeming witty (which I've learned from Balzac is REALLY important to French people). We get a LOT of Mme. de Guermantes superrr bitchy opinions about her friends and family. Like Princess de Parma and etc. We also hear lots of gossip about people we've met, like Charlus and his dead wife and M. de Norpois and his affair with Mme. de Villeparisis. SCANDALOUS. My only complaint about this volume is I felt like it talked about the lineage of the Guermantes for way too long, and like, the lineages of everyone in all of France. It got rather dry for a good 30-100 pages, but it picked up later.

This book kind of kills Elstir in M.'s eyes a little since the Guermantes don't like his paintings. Whatever...bitches.

There's a really funny scene (and witty, go figure) where B. de Charlus has given M. a book of Bergotte's (which happens pretty much right after he's all like "Bergotte sucks"), and then Charlus calls M. to his house and accuses him of slandering him because M. told people he would help him into society (which he did), and he says "Similarly, you did not even recognize on the binding of Bergotte's book the lintel of myosotis over the door of Balbec church. Could there have been a clearer way of saying to you: 'Forget me not!'?" I laughed out loud in an untrammeled geeky way, since it is totally absurd to read that much into such a thing.

The book ends on a CLIFFHANGER. Guys, Proust is basically the Agatha Christie of 4000 page novel-y things that sorta don't have a plot and sorta don't have action verbs and stuff. It ends and its like, WILL M. BE INVITED TO THIS PARTY? You would die without knowing if you didn't ever read volume four. How could you live with that suspense? You couldn't. Onto V.4: Sodom + Gomorrah!(less)

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Dec 27, 2007 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Well, it's not as good as "Swann's Way," but better than "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower." Comparing them is kind of ridiculous, though, since Proust is one of the best writers I've ever read. Here's an Emily Dickinson poem:

A Thought went up my mind today -
That I have had before -
But did not finish - some way back -
I could not fix the Year -

Nor where it went - nor why it came
The second time to me -
Nor definitely, what it was -
Have I the Art to say -

But somewhere - in my Soul - I know...more

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May 14, 2009 Bram rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, proustophilia

Proust was a genius. The intra- and inter- human workings that he describes are universal, and yet he presents them in such a way that they are inarguably sui generis and revelatory, offering each reader an intimate tête-à-tête. In other words he's constantly telling you things you know but didn't know you knew or things you know but could never articulate--even to yourself. If this sounds miraculous...good. It is. To be able to contemplate and savor feelings and ideas that may never have entere...more

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Jul 03, 2011 notgettingenough added it

Shelves: haven-t-read-but, will-be-regretted-on-my-deathbed

I've just finished watching the BEST Proust movie. It's called Little Miss Sunshine. I won't spoil it by saying another thing.

EXCEPT:

As it happens, by complete coincidence the night before I watched A Single Man which doesn't mention Proust but is absolutely also a Proust movie. The similarities are hilarious.

------------

It was suggested to me the other day that my 'will be regretted on my deathbed' subset needs another subset. At the moment it is books I start reading and bitterly wish I hadn'...more I've just finished watching the BEST Proust movie. It's called Little Miss Sunshine. I won't spoil it by saying another thing.

EXCEPT:

As it happens, by complete coincidence the night before I watched A Single Man which doesn't mention Proust but is absolutely also a Proust movie. The similarities are hilarious.

------------

It was suggested to me the other day that my 'will be regretted on my deathbed' subset needs another subset. At the moment it is books I start reading and bitterly wish I hadn't. 'But what about,' asked Manny, 'The books which you will wish you HAD read, when you are lying on your deathbed and realise you've missed your chance? Don't they belong there too?'

So, as it happens, I've had two 'imminent death experiences', where I have been lying on a hospital bed and it hasn't been clear if I'm going to get off it. What did I regret?

Well, the first time I was five, got to hospital just before my burst appendix did its worst. I'm guessing I was probably a bit miffed that I might not ever get to read the rest of the Secret Seven series, but I'm only guessing. Mostly I was wishing that they'd stop stabbing me with needles and giving me food that was even more horrible than I got at home.

The next time was last year. I have to confess that as I lay in emergency, not one thought crossed my mind but that the only book I'd brought with me was the last in the Steig Larsson trilogy and I wish I'd been reading something that didn't weigh so much. And to be perfectly frank the rest of the experience was pretty much in line with the last time I'd had to do this. I was less of a fuss budget about the food, but almost as likely to cravenly beg them to stop stabbing me with needles.

All in all, I think this is just as well. At least I've avoided a whopping barney with Manny about the nature of narrators in twentieth century literature. Because, let's face it. Get into one of those and there is no getting out. I would, at some point in my life, be lying on my deathbed, checking out if anybody had voted for my last review and thinking 'Shit, I'm behind on my comments on the Proust thread. Goddamn. I'd better ----' Breath ceases. Manny gets the last word. Poo.(less)

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Jan 13, 2008 Patrick rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: proust-books

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I liked Swann's Way and Within A Budding Grove. The first half of the book was pretty good, and had some very funny parts, but the second half really dragged on forever, as 300+ pages of it consisted of the narrator's being present at this incredibly snobbish and boring dinner party. I'm guessing that Proust's intent in wirting the interminable dinner party scene was to point out all the absurd foibles of the social elite of Paris's Faubourg-Saint-Germain, but...more

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Aug 04, 2007 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Despite my initial reluctance to pick up where I left off by reading a new translation, I was very relieved to find out that the new version is actually very good. I'm planning to read the next volume in the new translation as well, but I'll finish off the remaining two with the good old Moncrieff version.

In addition to having some wonderfully amusing scenes and commentary about the society and salons of the narrator's Paris, this volume also contained a couple of my favorite sections I've encou...more

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May 08, 2008 Jeff added it

As I neared the end of this volume, I was able for the first time to feel, rather than simply be aware of that fact that this is one long work rather than 7, to the point that it is pointless and maybe not possible to chose favorites. But compartmentalization, analogies and categories are inherent bound to life in our generation, so I will have to say that, by the pound, I liked his observations better in the first 2 volumes. However, I remember that it wasn't until I had finished the 2nd volume...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-in-translation, french-literature

Proust is remarkable at first creating a mystique around la Duchesse de Guermante, when the narrator is trying to make her acquaintance, and then skewering her and all her ilk when he finally makes it to her dinner table. One is simultaneously attracted to the art object and repelled by the duchesse herself as she creates the objet. The backstabbing of people one smiled at the day before and will tomorrow is meticulously rendered, with layers of irony both intended by the characters and at their...more

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May 01, 2013 Fredrik rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

P515 :: "I'm delighted you like it; these flowers are ravishing, just look at the little mauve velvet collars on them; the unfortunate thing is that -- as sometimes happens with people who are very pretty and very nicely dressed -- they have an ugly name and a dreadful smell. All the same, I'm very fond of them. But what is rather sad is that they're going to die."

P389 :: "…it occurred to me that our social life, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches depicting our momentary...more P515 :: "I'm delighted you like it; these flowers are ravishing, just look at the little mauve velvet collars on them; the unfortunate thing is that -- as sometimes happens with people who are very pretty and very nicely dressed -- they have an ugly name and a dreadful smell. All the same, I'm very fond of them. But what is rather sad is that they're going to die."

P389 :: "…it occurred to me that our social life, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches depicting our momentary attempts to capture our need for a great love, but what did not occur to me was that sometimes, if the sketch is not too old, we may return to it and transform it into a completely different work, possibly more important than the one we had originally planned."

P361 :: "Women who are encountered in a brothel are of no interest because they remain static."

P165 :: frebrifuge: A medication that reduces fever; an antipyretic.

P294 :: "It is illness that makes us recognize that we do not live in isolation but are chained to a being from a different realm, worlds apart from us, with no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body."

P180 :: "…suddenly, like some astral phenomenon appearing in the sky, I saw ovoid bodies assuming with dizzying speed all the positions they needed to form an unstable constellation in front of Saint-Loup. Hurled out like missiles from a catapult, there seemed to me to be at least seven of them. They were merely, however, Saint-Loupp's two fists, multiplied by the speed with which they were changing place in this apparently ideal and decorative pattern. […] The man had been loitering about with intent and, seeing Saint-Loup as the handsome solider he was, had propositioned him."

P165 :: brougham (pronounced "broom" or "brohm"): a light, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage built in the 19th century. A small landau, a coupé with a folding top, was called a landaulet. A brougham called a brougham-landaulet had a top collapsible from the rear doors backward. A five-glass landau was fitted with a front glass windscreen and two windows on each side (including retractable windows on the doors).

P164 :: "She was so clumsy with her hands when she ate that one got the impression that she must appear extremely awkward on stage. She recovered her dexterity only when she was making love, with the touchingly intuitive foresight of women who are so in love with men's bodies that they immediately sense what will give most pleasure to those bodies, which are yet so different from their own."

P19 :: "For her [Francoise], wealth was like a necessary condition without which virtue wold lack both merit and charm. She made so little distinction between the two that she came to see the qualities as interchangeable, expecting material comfit from virtue and moral edification from wealth."

P21 :: "He's the one could tell me, but he's a proper toff that one, a great pedant…"
In British English slang, a toff is a mildly derogatory term for someone with an aristocratic background or belonging to the landed gentry, particularly someone who exudes an air of superiority.
A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism and precision, or who makes a show of his or her learning.

P49 :: "…I was already asking tomorrow's impression to provide me with the please yesterday's had denied me."
(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Saïdeh Pakravan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I will review Time Regained and copy this review on all the volumes of A la recherche du temps perdu as Proust's work is called. I read it in French but can't find it listed so am doing this overall review of the English text of In Search of Lost Time or, as it used to be called, my preferred title Remembrance of Things Past.
I came late to this spectacular book despite encouragements from my mother who had read it cover to cover (several thousand pages in all) a number of times and talked about...more I will review Time Regained and copy this review on all the volumes of A la recherche du temps perdu as Proust's work is called. I read it in French but can't find it listed so am doing this overall review of the English text of In Search of Lost Time or, as it used to be called, my preferred title Remembrance of Things Past.
I came late to this spectacular book despite encouragements from my mother who had read it cover to cover (several thousand pages in all) a number of times and talked about it all the time.
When I finally did, it became for me and remains to this day THE book, the one I will remember when all others are forgotten, the one I would take without hesitation to that hypothetical desert island where only one book is allowed. I often make the comparison with Shakespeare, although this is fiction and the bard's work is theater, for the complete grasp both authors have of the world and of human nature. But where Shakespeare's work encompasses cultures and history to describe and explain the individual, Marcel Proust in his indolent dandy manner never moves far from the salons of the Belle Epoque in Paris (he writes of a world older than his own by a few decades). His characters, from the lowly valets to kept women to chattering would-be intellectual queens of the capital and supercilious dukes are not generic but made unforgettable. More than in Dickens, they have all become types. Swann, Madame Verdurin, Odette, the baron Charlus, the rest of the cast of hundreds, we can only nod in recognition of the absolute truth of these people, so precisely drawn and analyzed, with finesse or cruelty as warranted. Yet beyond the affairs, the people trying to push their way up, the nastiness, the parties described to the last gilt chair and sorbet and orchid, Proust gives a complete picture of France at the time, living under the shadow of the Dreyfus scandal (the Jewish captain wrongfully accused of spying, an affair which for years split France in two) the politics, the mores, the music and books and flowers favored then, and infinite disquisitions demonstrating an encyclopedic knowledge of every subject under the sun, from medieval architecture to art history to geographic names to homosexuality, to how low people can stoop and how high they can fly, all this peppered with incredibly funny passages that always has me howling with laughter. A marvel of a book, which I'm sure you understand by now, I adore. (less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Cody VC rated it 4 of 5 stars

somewhere between 3.5 and 4. 3.75, perhaps. it's been years since reading the first two volumes, but the fluidity of the prose/translation coupled with a good introduction made picking this up quite easy.

the historical context&cultural reflections of the saga is my foremost fascination (the veiled homosexuality vs the not-so-veiled, etc) which kept my interest through the chapter-length dropping of names/genealogy that i can never remember, but almost every other page got dogeared, it seems,...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Mike Polizzi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading Proust is a bit like watching the sea There are swells and shifts created over hundreds of pages, characterizations that continually unfold. What's phenomenal is that while Proust is narrating, he provides so much detail but he leaves it to the reader to bring in his or her own memory to tie together some of the longer strings.

The Faubourg St. Germain is a great example. While preludes of salon life have been given, we encounter here the sine qua non via the narrator's perspective- it s...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Much of GW is about snobs being snobs, denying that they're snobs, and the fact that their lives are often much better for their beings snobs: they have better clothes, better food, better taste in art and much, much better conversation than the benighted bourgeois boobies. This is fitting, because this volume of Proust is really for Proust snobs only, the type of person who relishes 800+ page books which mostly describe nothing much other than a couple of parties (see also: Marias' 'Your Face T...more

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May 16, 2013 Michael David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

That was a relief.

Bertrand Russell said that there were only two reasons why one read: the first was that because it's enjoyable; the second is that one could boast about it. His statement is, to me, quite incisive. I simply want to add, however, that the reasons are not mutually exclusive to one another. Sometimes I read because it's enjoyable; other times I read so that I could boast about it. Most of the time, however, it's a combination of both the pride of completion and the enjoyment of th...more That was a relief.

Bertrand Russell said that there were only two reasons why one read: the first was that because it's enjoyable; the second is that one could boast about it. His statement is, to me, quite incisive. I simply want to add, however, that the reasons are not mutually exclusive to one another. Sometimes I read because it's enjoyable; other times I read so that I could boast about it. Most of the time, however, it's a combination of both the pride of completion and the enjoyment of the plot that invites me to read. I slogged through this novel, however, so that I could tell other people that I read Proust at one point in my life. Other than a few scintillating excerpts, reading The Guermantes Way was a painful experience.

With regard to people rating the individual novels of In Search of Lost Time highly, I think that is because the people who do manage to read it actually grow to love the writing through the course of their reading it, or actually prefer or appreciate such a writing style as Proust's. Most of those who try him give up early on, and thus eschew from rating it; most of those who do rate him, manage to finish the novel full of love and admiration for Proust's ability.

I don't doubt Proust's ability to write. However, I also don't admire how he writes.

I appreciate his condemnation of the French high society and its shallowness. His insights are mordant and indeed witty, but I still have a feeling that the novel could have been made a lot shorter without its pith being lost.

The writer I feel that has some similarities with his explication is Faulkner. Both writers have a tendency to write drawn-out, serpentine sentences full of description and adjectives. I feel that Faulkner has an edge, however, in that the discursive sentences congeal on itself: Absalom, Absalom! uses seemingly disconnected events to paint a cohesive picture of what happened due to Thomas Sutpen's bigotry: Proust, on the other hand, uses descriptive sentences for the sake of description. No matter how sweet sugar is, one will still vomit if one imbibed a whole vat of it, and this is how I see Proust and his writing.

Most of it is a waste. (less)

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Jan 09, 2013 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: european-novels

Still dazzlingly written but with a focus on Parisian society and the salon system. Our narrator has grown up a little and appears to have developed into a serial stalker with a princess obsession. Albertine and Swann crop up again and we see more of Saint-Loup. We also see the profound effect the Dreyfuss affair is having on French society. A good working knowledge of the Dreyfuss affair is a pre-requisite for reading this volume, especially as much of it centres on Parisian society.
The writing...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Venus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

بس کم پیش می آید که آدم هایی که در زندگی ما نقش بزرگی داشته اند یکباره و قطعی از ان بیرون بروند.پیش از آن که برای همیشه از زندگی ما جدا شوند گهگاهی می آیند و در آن جا می گیرند.

***

افزوده دانشم درباره ی زندگی(زندگی نه به آن هماهنگی و سادگی که در آغاز تصور کرده بودم) موقتا به انکار هر مطلقی می انجامید. چه را می توان به یقین گفت آنگاه که هرچه در آغاز محتمل انگاشته می شد نادرست از آب در می آید و سپس، در مرحله ی سوم حقیقت می یابد؟

***

وقتی خاطره به یادت می آورد که نامش برای آن کس دیگری که تو در گذشته ها...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Venus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

گفته اند كه سكوت نيرويي است. درست از جنبه ي ديگري ، سكوت نيروي سهمگيني است در اختيار معشوق.سكوت بر دلشوره ي انتظار دامن مي زند. هيچ چيز به اندازه ي آنچه جدايي مي اندازد آدم را به نزديك شدن به ديگري دعوت نمي كند، و چه سدّي گذرناپذيرتر از سكوت؟نيز گفته اند كه سكوت شكنجه ايست و مي تواند زندانيان محكوم به سكوت را به ديوانگي بكشاند.اما چه شكنجه اي بزرگتر از نه سكوت كردن ، كه سكوت دلدار را ديدن؟…….. وانگهي چنين سكوتي ، بس سنگدلانه تر از سكوت زندان ،خودْ زنداني است. حصاري بي گمان غيرمادي ، اما رخنه ناپ...more گفته اند كه سكوت نيرويي است. درست از جنبه ي ديگري ، سكوت نيروي سهمگيني است در اختيار معشوق.سكوت بر دلشوره ي انتظار دامن مي زند. هيچ چيز به اندازه ي آنچه جدايي مي اندازد آدم را به نزديك شدن به ديگري دعوت نمي كند، و چه سدّي گذرناپذيرتر از سكوت؟نيز گفته اند كه سكوت شكنجه ايست و مي تواند زندانيان محكوم به سكوت را به ديوانگي بكشاند.اما چه شكنجه اي بزرگتر از نه سكوت كردن ، كه سكوت دلدار را ديدن؟…….. وانگهي چنين سكوتي ، بس سنگدلانه تر از سكوت زندان ،خودْ زنداني است. حصاري بي گمان غيرمادي ، اما رخنه ناپذير است اين ورطه كه گرچه از خلا آكنده است، پرتو نگاه هاي محكوم به حال خود رها شده از آن نمي تواند بگريزد.

***

هرچه بود اين را فهميدم كه محال بتوان به گونه اي مستقيم و مطمئن دريافت كه آيا فرانسواز مرا دوست دارد يا از من متنفر است.بدين گونه نخستين بار او اين انديشه را در من برانگيخت كه يك فرد ، آن چنان كه من خيال مي كردم ، ذاتي روشن و بي حركت نيست كه با همه خوبي ها ، عيبب ها ،نقشه ها ، نيت هايش درباره ما ( همانند باغچه اي با همه ي گل ها و گياهانش كه از پس نرده اي تماشا كنيم) در برابرمان ايستاده باشد. بلكه سايه ايست كه هرگز در آن رخنه نمي توان كرد و درباره اش چيزي به نام شناخت مستقيم وجود ندارد.

***

از عيب هايي كه همه ناگزير در خانه ام دچارشان مي شوند فهميدم خودم چه عيب هاي طبيعي ناگزيري دارم. خلق و خوي آن ها نوعي نگاتيف خلق و خوي خودم را نشانم داد.

***

چه بارها كه نشد كه شنيدنش دچار دلشوره ام نكند ، انگار كه در برابر اين محل، اينكه نمي توانستم بدون چندين ساعت سفر ، عزيزي را ببينم كه صدايش آن چنان به گوشم نزديك بود، بهتر حس مي كردم كه در پس ظاهر شيرين شيرين ترين نزديكي ها چه مايه سرخوردگي نهفته است، و چه اندازه دوريم از آنان كه دوست مي داريم در لحظه اي كه به نظر مي رسد با دراز كردن دستي مي توان نگاهشان داشت.

***

ما هر لحظه در كار شكل دادن به زندگي خويشيم، اما ناخواسته صورت كسي را كپي مي كنيم كه هستيم، نه آن كه خوش داريم باشيم.(less)

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Sep 17, 2011 David Williamson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

OMG! With sections of this book reading like a high brow version of Gossip Girl, its no wonder people have found it difficult to finish. It starts of well and is good (ie not as nearly as good as Swann's Way or as good as Within a Budding Grove) for about 350 pages, of which very little happens, but what do you expect its Proust. The next 200 pages are dull, very very dull. Page upon page of text on people or characters that are unimportant, or at the very least will never be mentioned again, as...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Frankie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: french, mytop10

Great book. I feel it's better than the first two. Maybe it's the collective impression I'm getting from the epic so far. This one felt heavier, and seemed to affirm the character's doomed perfectionism and naivete. I loved the structure, the first part building his introduction into society, the central event which matured him, and the second part his actual introduction. Mme de Villeparisis' salon as a dress rehearsal for Mme Guermantes salon (which is hinted to lead to Princesse Guermantes' i...more Great book. I feel it's better than the first two. Maybe it's the collective impression I'm getting from the epic so far. This one felt heavier, and seemed to affirm the character's doomed perfectionism and naivete. I loved the structure, the first part building his introduction into society, the central event which matured him, and the second part his actual introduction. Mme de Villeparisis' salon as a dress rehearsal for Mme Guermantes salon (which is hinted to lead to Princesse Guermantes' in the next volume). The notion of disappointment is a strong theme, his imagination is never satisfied by the boring and unintelligent figures he meets.

The grandmother character's humility made me well up. I won't spoil it, but nothing affects me more than when someone keeps their suffering secret from the ones they love. The narrator, of course, fails to appreciate the purely good characters. Like Albertine, who shows up to tempt Marcel but is cast aside by his new society fascinations.

In the second part of the novel, I found myself stuck in a drawing room amid cruel gossip, the narrator's disappointments, and eternal genealogical regressions and premonitions for 133 pages. The name-dropping, back-biting dialogue was the most difficult, but I believe it to be historically accurate. Most period literature would not impose on the reader the full tortures of a visit with royal Parisian snobbery. Stendhal and Flaubert at most give the reader a sample of society, while modern writers tend to demonize society and aristocracy. Proust's upper class depictions are quite raw, not indecent, just tiresome – more genuine. When Charlus finally prances on stage, he makes everyone in the previous scene seem angelic by comparison.

One thing that bothers me throughout the series – I'm not convinced of the believability of the narrator's invitations into society. Everyone seems to welcome him exclusively as if he was a famous writer or academic, but the character at this time hasn't written. He doesn't say much, especially nothing witty. Is he remarkably handsome? He mentions his indifference as a key, but I'm not convinced that it's enough (he's only truly indifferent on the one occasion when he's full of thoughts of Mme Stermaria). Even Charlus, who sought to use his society connections to woo Marcel, seems surprised that Marcel is so openly welcomed. Perhaps some indication is on its way in further volumes.(less)

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Jan 23, 2013 Kiof added it

I made the unwise decision of reading two volumes of Proust in a row... Now, a few weeks later, I'm all hazy on what happened in each. One thing I do know is that I love this volume more than I love volume two. In fact I think it's a return to form- the form being Swann's Way. I've resigned myself to the likely fact that I'll never get as much enjoyment out of the other volumes- if this is because of quality or just familiarity's progeny, I can't say. I am going to read the rest (at least at som...more

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About Marcel Proust

French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style. Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during t...more

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Books by Marcel Proust

Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (In Search of Lost Time, #2)

Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove

Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time, #4)

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“One pretended not to know that the body of a hostess was at the disposal of all comers, provided that her visiting list showed no gaps.” — 3 people liked it

“But should a sensation from the distant past-like those musical instruments that record and preserve the sound and style of the various artists who played them-enable our memory to make us hear that name with the particular tone it then had for our ears, even if the name seems not to have changed, we can still feel the distance between the various dreams which its unchanging syllables evoked for us in turn. For a second, rehearing the warbling from some distant springtime, we can extract from it, as from the little tubes of color used in painting, the precise tint-forgotten, mysterious, and fresh-of the days we thought we remembered when, like bad painters, we were in fact spreading our whole past on a single canvas and painting it with the conventional monochrome of voluntary memory.” — 2 people liked it

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