From the Bookshelf of The Year of Reading Proust…

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

Marcel Proust

Start date: January 1, 2013

Finish date: February 24, 2013

Discussion: Swann's Way, vol. 1

Why we're reading this: Alternate translation.
[close] Alternate translation.

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Swann's Way, vol. 1

Through Sunday, 6 Jan.: Swann's Way
By Kris · 373 posts · 819 views

last updated Mar 29, 2025 09:41AM

Through Sunday, 24 Feb.: Swann's Way
By Kris · 142 posts · 381 views

last updated Feb 27, 2015 10:45AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 14, 2013 David Cerruti rated it it was amazing

Shelves: paris, favorites

If you are reading this review, there is no doubt that you are a Goodreader, possibly someone contemplating reading all of In Search of Lost Time, or just trying Swann’s Way to see if you like it, or you might have already read Swann’s Way and are curious as to how an amateur would dare attempt to review it, or perhaps you are a member of that highly esteemed Goodreads group “The Year of Reading Proust,” that ad hoc collection of enthusiasts, scholars, and virtual friends, who are for the most p ...more

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Jan 30, 2013 M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, library, read-in-2013

Swann's Way starts with the famous sentence "Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure" (For a long time, I went to bed early) and goes on for pages about the act of going to bed, memories of chilhood bed rituals and that split-second feeling of disorientation one feels when waking up, accentuated by being away from home. Elegantly, Proust has just introduced many of the themes he is going to develop in his larger-than-life novel - memory (involuntary vs. voluntary), habit, sensorial experienc ...more

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Aug 29, 2013 John Beck rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed, fiction

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/20...

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I finished the first book of Marcel Proust's masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. I enjoyed Swann's Way, but I did not love it. The first 100 pages or so were a slog.

When I rail against the Victorians, I often forget that the early 20th century was still chock full of Victorian values and ideals... and ideas about what makes good writing.

I suppose what separates the great works of the 19th century from those of the 21st centu ...more

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Dec 09, 2015 Sir Jack rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“Yet this novel is not autobiography wearing a thin disguise of fiction but, rather, something more complex—fiction created out of real life, based on the experiences and beliefs of its author, and presented in the guise of autobiography…. a crucial alchemy—art’s transformation of life….” (from Lydia Davis’s introduction)

Because there are seemingly clear differences between the Narrator and Marcel Proust, or at least two crucial ones: Proust was Jewish (or at least his mother was); the Narrator ...more

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