From the Bookshelf of Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014…

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

Marcel Proust,

C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator)

Start date: June 29, 2014

Finish date: August 30, 2014

Discussion: Sodom and Gomorrah

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 9 topics — 491 comments total

Sodom and Gomorrah

Week ending 08/09: Sodom and Gomorrah, to page 489 / location 35180
By Renato · 37 posts · 17 views

last updated Oct 26, 2014 10:05AM

Week ending 08/30: Sodom and Gomorrah, finish
By Renato · 89 posts · 17 views

last updated Aug 29, 2014 05:32PM

What Members Thought

Jun 21, 2011 David Lentz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Some have accused Proust of being "long-winded." However, he suffered acutely from shortness of breath but not shortness of breadth. Proust preferred to work on a large canvas. Having read the first four volumes of "In Search of Lost Time," I am even more convinced that Proust is a literary talent of the highest order. He is a writer of immense sensibility in the true sense of the word. His perception and memory and intelligence permeate his writing. Like Balzac, whom he admired, Proust focused Some have accused Proust of being "long-winded." However, he suffered acutely from shortness of breath but not shortness of breadth. Proust preferred to work on a large canvas. Having read the first four volumes of "In Search of Lost Time," I am even more convinced that Proust is a literary talent of the highest order. He is a writer of immense sensibility in the true sense of the word. His perception and memory and intelligence permeate his writing. Like Balzac, whom he admired, Proust focused his sensibility upon high society in Paris in his heyday. He continually discoursed about the the manners of the circles in which he moved and sheds light, as did Balzac, on the complexities of the strata and protocol and behavior of his social peers. One is able to get a close look at this realm in which he was considered a literary luminary and rightly so, after winning France's greatest literary prize at such an early age. Like Balzac he built his volumes in a "serial" fashion by ending each in dramatic fashion: the characters reappear from volume to volume. And one learns about their health, their misfortunes, their affairs often through the hearsay of other characters, as it happens in real life. Despite the despicable ways that the characters often treat each other, Proust speaks within the tapestry of the "human comedy" as the humble voice of reason. "When you reach my age you will see that society is a paltry thing, and you will be sorry that you put so much importance to these trifles," a judge observes. But for Proust society was his life and his legacy is partly at least the light that he sheds upon his own human comedy. The beauty of the language is breathtaking --the language is utterly lyrical and once one surrenders to the pulse and flow of his long sentence syntax, one finds the transforming genius of his art. I am eager to begin Volume 5 -- the man is a bonafide genius. He deals with sensitive subjects in good taste and with sage discretion -- Proust communicates with his readers as he probably did in society: honestly, articulately and with the best of all manners. He didn't live long enough to read the publication of half the volumes of his greatest masterpiece: Volume 4 was the last he lived to see published. What an absolute pity! ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Apr 01, 2014 Stephen Baker rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Life goes on, from Paris to Balbec, and M spends much of the book observing and theorizing about homosexuality. As in the other volumes, some days some glide by, others drag. But I've come to accept that. It's as though I have a brilliant and long-winded friend who is an amusing and insightful raconteur, while at the same time obsessive, immature, and not entirely believable--at least when it comes to his own desires. Sometimes he rambles, or whirls in circles... How's the book? It's him and his ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 01, 2015 Sammy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: second-eleven

Women shall have Gomorrah and men shall have Sodom - Alfred de Vigny, epigram

"[The Sodomites] form in every land an oriental colony, cultured, musical, malicious, which has charming qualities and intolerable defects."

For his next trick, Marcel Proust contrives to up-end much of what has come before, as his narrator goes ever further in search of lost time. (My reviews of the first three volumes can be found: here, here, and - what do you know? - here.) I'd have to say that volume four, Sodome e ...more

Like · see review