The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3) in The Year of Reading Proust

Jun 05, 2013 Mala rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013-the-year-of-reading-proust, classic-ever-enduring-appeal

We are attracted by every form of life which represents to us something unknown and strange, by a last illusion still unshattered.

I read this book in a purple haze of the summer daze–no, not the Hendrix variety, rather, a surreal read where words seemed to be scuttling across text, dropping off the pages, dimming when I focussed on them-closed the book, thinking, tomorrow is another day-& found no recollection of the previous day's read, started all over again... Didn't help that there were en ...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Richard Magahiz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-in-2013

This volume was harder to finish than the first two, because I am not naturally a fan of stories fascinated with silly celebrities. The nobles here are people known not so much for anything they think or do than for the antiquity of their genealogy and the extent of their fortunes. The Narrator character grows more and more fascinated with them for what they represent, taking a break from the obsessive attraction he's shown toward certain girls in the past. The second chapter starts out with a v This volume was harder to finish than the first two, because I am not naturally a fan of stories fascinated with silly celebrities. The nobles here are people known not so much for anything they think or do than for the antiquity of their genealogy and the extent of their fortunes. The Narrator character grows more and more fascinated with them for what they represent, taking a break from the obsessive attraction he's shown toward certain girls in the past. The second chapter starts out with a visit from Albertine, a middle-class girl who figured prominently in the last volume, but she scarcely makes any impact here. Even lower down the class ladder is when Saint-Loup's mistress Rachel is portrayed in the first part of the book, another object of obsession but one not shared by the Narrator. Contrast these with the Narrator's stalkerish pursuit of the Duchess of Guermantes early on, one that he tires of just about the time when he happens to be accepted into her circle. There is starting to be a recurring pattern where disillusionment takes place at the same time as pointed satire aimed at pretensions and deceits laid bare.

As in the preceding works, the prose is lavish, the plot is virtually absent, and action takes a backseat to spectacle. This volume affords few opportunities to portray the natural world, for a change, and the salons and ballrooms where scenes play out are barely described in any detail. The names and titles come at the reader by the dozen, and even with the help of a guide to the characters it is nearly impossible to keep all the relationships straight. The one exception is the brief interlude when the Narrator's grandmother is shown in her final illness, every impression drawn so clearly without sentiment or illusions clouding the scene making this section stand out even more against the rest of the book, up till the very end, where Swann shows up again, also close to death. This volume doesn't try to stand on its own, but it feels like a crucial turning point in the overall arc. ...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Margaret rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-summer-2013, translation, french, literature, 20th-century-literature, proust-2013

The Guermantes Way feels like a turning point in In Search of Lost Time for me. By the end of Within the Budding Grove I was thoroughly frustrated with our narrator, wanting him to grow up already or have some deeper insight about the loves of his life than his admiring their beauty (an exaggeration, I know, but after several hundred pages it felt like the same repeated trope).

From other GoodReaders and Proustians, I'd gathered that this third volume of In Search of Lost Time contains some subs The Guermantes Way feels like a turning point in In Search of Lost Time for me. By the end of Within the Budding Grove I was thoroughly frustrated with our narrator, wanting him to grow up already or have some deeper insight about the loves of his life than his admiring their beauty (an exaggeration, I know, but after several hundred pages it felt like the same repeated trope).

From other GoodReaders and Proustians, I'd gathered that this third volume of In Search of Lost Time contains some substantial plot. I was ready to see what Proust would come up with in terms of this element of fiction, since the first two volumes were relatively plot light.

And it impressed.

The Guermantes Way without too many spoilers, is about the social world of Paris, specifically the circle of the Guermantes, the other wealthy family that the narrator knows from Combray. From our narrator's experience with reactions to the Dreyfuss affair (almost like he is discovering popular politics for the first time and notes how everyone has an opinion on the issue, especially the socialites), the final illness of his grandmother (my favorite and especially poignant part of the work. Proust can be very spot on within the complex and occasionally opaque writing, and the recounting of the narrator and family's reactions to the illness and death are incredibly true on a great-works-of-literature-true level) as well as male friendships, attempted liaisons, and of course girls. While our narrator has matured some, he's still in pursuit of his current (and sometimes concurrent) lady loves and his experiences within the upper class of Paris makes him both realize the "fakeness" of some while being still perplexed and almost impressed by the artful and manipulative people around him.

Moreover, the ending is a delightful and surprising piece of writing. It is almost a modern day cliffhanger, where a character announces his or her impending death and another character treats it in a typical fashion: ignoring it, because ignoring things work in his or her life already very well. Saying any more is giving way too much away, but for the struggling Proustian it is definitely worth sticking out The Guermantes Way.

Might I be a struggling Proustian right about now? Maybe. Do I sometimes need the encouragement of the Proust 2013 group to keep through? For sure. Proust is any large dose for me is something I need to read in a group, both for keeping my willpower up as well as confirming some of the more surprising or obtuse plot points. At just over half way through, with what I think are some of the more interesting in terms of plot parts of In Search of Lost Time to come, I am encouraged intimately by the narrator continuing to surprise me with insight and humanity that I'd previously written off for this often frustrating male character, who may or may not be Proust himself. ...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001, classics, france, coming-of-age, french-literature

Now I know why I was having trouble with this book. Proust's words as per usual, drip off the page like an overflowing honey pot but that can't hide the subject matter which is social climbing and snobbery. I realize the last two books were based on this but in this volume our narrator is so obsessed with it that it often overshadows some of the beautiful writing.

When I managed to push that into the background the words once again began to flow and ebb with Proust's moods and the subjects he wa ...more

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Aug 04, 2013 Mike Clinton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In this third volume of Proust's epic novel A la recherche du temps perdu, readers enter the Parisian salons, the gathering places of the effete mondaines of an aristocratic world that serves only to charm and fascinate impressionable bourgeois like the narrator - and the readers themselves. Perhaps my least favorite episode in any of the volumes of Proust that I've read so far is the dinner scene at the Guermantes, not because it was long (which it was) and tedious (which it wasn't always) - Pr ...more

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Sep 23, 2015 Sammy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-of-my-life

The twittering of the birds at daybreak sounded insipid to Francoise.

With this exquisite opening, Marcel Proust plunges us into the third volume of seven, Le Côté de Guermantes (The Guermantes Way), which seems to be the only one of the seven books that is consistently titled across all English translations. (My reviews of the first two books can be found here and here. The third volume of the book charts the early-twentysomething narrator as he makes his way further into the twisted depths of ...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Emma rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: france, read-in-2013

I admit honestly this volume was very painful. It focuses a lot on social events, and those meals and parties can go on forever, one is over 100 pages, and it was really boring. Plus I never feel...

more of my thoughts here:
http://wordsandpeace.com/2013/12/12/m...
...more

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