Swanns Way

At the age of nine, Proust had an asthma attack, and he suffered from asthma for the rest of his life. While at school, Proust became a visitor of various salons, including some of the most exclusive. His first published book was Les Plaisirs et les jours , a collection of short stories. He worked on a novel, Jean Santeuil , from to , but never finished it. Toward the end of this time, he became less active in social circles, partly due to his failing health and partly because of his involvement in the Dreyfus affair, in which the Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus was accused of spying and imprisoned unjustly.

Proust began writing what would become his masterpiece, the heavily autobiographical In Search of Lost Time , after the deaths of his father in and his mother in Financial independence enabled him to devote more time to his writing. In , he moved to a Paris apartment, where he had the bedroom lined with cork to muffle sound while he was writing.

He rarely left home, giving up almost all social ties. During World War I , Proust revised his idea of the novel, which he had originally planned for three volumes, expanding it to seven. Proust died in Paris in , before the last three books were published. Is there such a thing as a core self, according to the novel? Why is the Combray church so intensely meaningful to the young narrator?

Why does Swann come to love Odette passionately, despite not being attracted to her initially? The effort one made in order to seduce switches sides and becomes the effort the other has to make in order to break-up. After Odette landed Swann and he fell for her, she turns cold and distant, leaving him jealous and wary. He needs to know her every thought, as if it was possible to detach her scalp and pick up her brain like a woolen ball that, once disentangled, would become a long thread of readable sentences containing all of her opinions and ideas. I thought this would be a much slower read; I planned to let the book dictate its own pace and take as much time as needed to get through this second read, for I had a feeling this was how it would go.

For having already read these 3, pages of the Recherche once - and precisely because of this intimidating length - the only promise I made was to re-read Swann's Way , although I did feel the lingering desire to re-read everything. But I imagined that I would be better equipped in making that decision after reading the first volume. And now I know: Despite its name, it does borrow scenes, characters and episodes from the other volumes, not confiding itself strictly to chapter 2 of this book, so be advised of spoilers. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower: Albertine disparue The Fugivite: View all 41 comments.

Memory is a slippery little sucker. It constitutes an elusive, transient cache of data, the reliability of which decreases in reverse proportion to the length of time it has been stored. It can even be a blatant liar! How often have we found ourselves convinced of the details a particular memory only to have those details called into question by some testimony or other of which we have been made newly aware?

It is almost frightening how quickly and naturally the bytes of our mind can be removed Memory is a slippery little sucker. It is almost frightening how quickly and naturally the bytes of our mind can be removed and supplanted by ones more convenient, ones designed to soothe our psyche, thereby allowing us to live at peace with ourselves. Though we believe a person or a place from our past remains stationary in our idea of them while its true-life counterpart adapts and progresses, Proust shows us how memory can have a life of its own, as well.

And yet when his narrator bites into that famous piece of sponge cake and transports us back to the days of his French childhood, we go willingly, not hesitating to question the accuracy or the validity of his musings. Their relationship is doomed from the start, being based on superficialities at its onset and becoming increasingly toxic as it progresses, yet by no means does its toxicity ever invalidate the love Swann has for Odette. That part of it is wholeheartedly genuine. For anyone who has ever been in such a relationship, it is kind of wild how realistically it is depicted. For all the difficulties I anticipated reading Marcel Proust, I have to admit how pleased I was by its readability.

I think what I enjoyed most, besides its perfectly constructed sentences, was that if I had been able to track the number of times I would encounter a passage that so exquisitely peels away the complicated layers of the human condition, exposing its unadulterated innards, I View all 72 comments.

View all 53 comments. Jul 08, Florencia rated it it was amazing Shelves: Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence… My great adventure is really Proust. Well—what remains to be written after that? How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped—and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance?

One has to put the book down and gasp. T Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence… My great adventure is really Proust. The pleasure becomes physical—like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined. Thus begins the most challenging novel I have read this year, which I have been deliberately avoiding for a very long time, daunted by its renowned intricacy and sumptuous sophistication.

With those simple words — to which I cannot relate since going to bed early and sleeping through the night is not something I am known for — a vast array of themes are brought to life by virtue of the magnificent and oh, lord, intellectually demanding pen of Marcel Proust; and this is hardly a complaint: Being fully aware of this novel's complexity, I thought about getting a great Spanish edition in order to avoid overexertion and provide my brain with a chance at survival; then I reconsidered and decided to indulge my desire for a real literary challenge, ergo, I purchased this English edition brilliantly crafted by Lydia Davis, filled with helpful footnotes that enlightened me about many matters and informed me at once of some clever puns that unfortunately I wasn't in the position to comprehend due to obvious language restrictions.

Clearly, I took my time I can't deny reading this novel was a bumpy ride, but the benefits it brought me far outweighed any benign bump or educational jolt that ultimately led me to sheer beauty and utter knowledge; for the best things in life — as the best kind of people — are not easy to find. I need to rest for a couple of weeks, but I look forward to the time when I tackle the second volume that is already beckoning me, patiently waiting on my bookshelf I would like to read them all with my current mind-set , that unexplored and exciting land in my hands, hoping to find again the same delightful and amusing prose that captivated me for so long.

But, when nothing subsists of an old past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, alone, frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, upon the ruins of all the rest, bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.

He apologized for his fear of new friendships, for what he had called, out of politeness, his fear of being unhappy. The reality I had known no longer existed. Words involving goodbyes when love becomes agony. Existence attached to impossibility. Childhood made of beloved places and reminiscences of diverse textures and flavors. An everlasting waiting that will remain so when facing unwavering reluctance.

A purpose in life. A wretched alchemist grasping love and art, cutting through their shells in the hope of finding a droplet of essence: The beauty around us. The scent of freshly brewed coffee. A pile of books. The contradiction of my emotions on paper. Staccato lines, disjointed thoughts, scribblings without any light. The sun seeping through the cracks in the blinds. The fragrance of jasmines. A nonexistent immutability which involves not only blissful times but, fortunately, ages of sorrow. Memories, madeleines; lazy Sundays in my hometown.

A sonata echoing through the years. The art of appreciation in a single dewdrop, before everything withers away. View all 79 comments. Okay, well, I really screwed up my schedule this weekend, so now it's the latening am and nothing's happening for me in the sleep department. Honestly I can't think of a more appropriate time to review this book, which begins with insomnia.

Granted, it's not for everyone, but nor is it the rarified hothouse orchid cultured specifically and exclusively for an elite audience of fancy-pants dandies with endless supplies of Ritalin and time. I adored it, though I'm a little worried about singing its praises too loudly, since my low expectations might've played a role in my love for it. There are two main parts to this book. The first half is the narrator's first-person reminiscences of being a sensitive little rich boy in the French countryside and, at the end, in Paris.

This portion contained probably the most incredible writing on the subject of memory and nostalgia that I have ever read in my life. When I was a kid myself, I, like the boy in this book, read a lot. This had the result that somewhere around first through third grade, I had an unending stream of first-person narrative running through my head at all times, describing all my actions and thoughts in the past tense, just as they happened: Not only could I never remember all the mundane details of my life and thoughts, but this book, were it somehow to be written, would be impossibly long!

What I thought while reading Swann's Way is that Marcel Proust probably had a similar experience of a novel in his head, only he was a far more interesting child than I was and, much more importantly, he actually did the impossible and managed to remember all this stuff, and then, somehow, to write it all down. Proust's descriptions of the way he experienced and thought of the world as a boy are astonishing.

He is not writing from a child's perspective, but from that of an adult remembering his childhood in spectacular detail, and the effect is incredible. I don't know much about brain science, really, but the vague rumors I've heard on the street on how they're now saying memory works could not be more clearly or gorgeously illustrated than they are in this book.

If you're not fascinated by the processes of memory, sensation, aesthetics, identity, social relationships, and desire, this book will bore you out of your skull, unless you're really interested in fancy Belle Epoque French people, in which case, my friend, you are in for a real treat. The second part of the book recounts a love affair between the little boy's adult neighbor, M.

Swann, and the woman of dubious reputation with whom Swann becomes infatuated. Maybe there is nothing especially new here -- it's almost years old, what do you want? If you're not madly in love right now and are feeling any regrets about that, reading this book will clear that right up, and you'll feel the relief of a clean bill of health after testing for a particularly gruesome disease.

This "Swann in Love" portion of the book also is very immersive, in the sense I think Natalie meant in her comment below, in that if you've never had any idea what it might be like to wear a monocle and have a bazillion francs and footmen and a carriage with horses that takes you around to fashionable Parisian parties where you hang out with princesses and a bunch of other rich French guys also wearing monocles, this book will get you so much closer to that experience than you are likely ever to get, even if you do happen to be insanely wealthy and live in Paris, because as Proust observes -- I won't quote him here, ya gotta read it yourself -- the time described in this book is lost, and it is impossible now to return to it.

This book did strange things to me, actually. It made me crave what I didn't know I had the capacity to want; for example, it made me yearn to be outrageously wealthy, preferably in France. And unlimited access to money. And it would be good if it could be the nineteenth century, and I were super hot-looking. And helpful also if I could actually speak some French Anyway, a visit to the Frick, or the Met, or wherever I can look at some paintings of these ladies who never interested me so much until I heard what they were really up to, is definitely in order. But anyway, well, I'd say I'm digressing, but in discussing this particular book I suppose there is no such animal.

Were parts of this slow? Parts of this book were reminiscent of the principles of Buddhist mindfulness practice, which is to say, they could be pretty awesome but not necessarily lively, and at times a thoroughly painful bitch to slog through. Yes, I cannot tell a lie: This book does require some patience, and it's not a cover-to-cover thrillfest, no, okay, fine, it isn't. I see plenty of valid reasons why someone would not get into this book, but if you have any interest in this type of stuff, don't be scared off by discouraging things you might've heard.

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Yeah, you might not like it, but you might also be pleasantly surprised. I get bored very easily, and I have a hard time sticking with a lot of books, but this one sucked me right in, and was fascinating and satisfying on so many levels. The salacious sensory-candy-munching Jessica who loves Valley of the Dolls had a lot to savor here, as did the slightly brainier one who enjoys thinking about the mechanics of time and memory, and there was besides those things more more more, enough going on here for many of my multiple warring and confused personalities.

So yeah, in closing, I guess I should address the inevitable part-versus-whole question: Swann's Way is a satisfying novel by itself, only not really.

Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

It did have a very lovely ending and could stand up on its own, except for the fact that I'm hooked now, and want more. I'm not going to begin the next episode anytime soon, because I've got a bunch of other stuff I'd like to read and it can't just be Proust Proust Proust all the time, but I'm definitely planning to return to this famously overlong novel at some point in the not-too-distant future If anyone knows a hopelessly wealthy, balding Parisian gentleman who is easily led by boorish, uncouth, immoral women, please feel free to provide me with an introduction at your next salon!

This is one of those books I'd never really heard of and definitely never thought about until I joined Bookface. I mean, I'd heard the name "Proust" and the word "madeleines," but I'd never thought too much about all that, and I think I'd always sort of gotten Proust mixed up with Borges different, different, yeah, I know as a guy I'd never read with a name I wasn't sure how to pronounce.

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More recently, though this novel's acquired a kind of mystique in my mind based on people's reviews on here of it. Last night I noticed that my roommate happened to have a copy on her bookshelf, and out of some idly morbid curiosity picked it up, to see if it could possibly be half as dreadful as I imagined. But actually, so far it's incredible.

Reading the first few pages was like doing yoga, except some kind of turn-of-the-last-century Frenchish kind of style, which of course is vastly preferable to the normal way. Beginning this book is also like inhabiting somebody else's half-awakened mind. Maybe the problem with it isn't really this book so much as the idea that it's supposed to be the beginning of a million and a quarter page novel, which is a pretty unappealing thought. On its own, though, so far this particular installment seems surprisingly awesome.

Though, let's be honest here, I am not renowned for my patience, especially in affairs of the page, so let's see how long this infatuation lasts. Anyway, though, v promising beginning. View all 61 comments. Readers of quality literature. Reality takes shape in the memory alone.

I do not claim a decent knowledge of world literature, being as I still am no more than half a decade old in my English-language readings, so my acquaintance with A-class writers remains, at best, sketchy; but I feel no hesitation in claiming that there are two writers - Marcel Proust and Vladimir Nabokov - who make all wannabes look like silly dilettantes, whose artistic range, sheer eloquence and fierce intelligence have such a deleterious effect on so m Reality takes shape in the memory alone. This might be due to the inability of English to accommodate the original French.

Even if it is not, as I read I discovered an easy solution to this mathematical construction of Proust's prose: But this happened rarely. Proust for the most remains very accessible despite the sheer intricacies of his calligraphic writing, whose prose at first glance gives an impression of labyrinthine ruins of an excavated settlement from ancient times whose topography you're at great pains to decipher but, without much effort, you find yourself unraveling the hidden secret of the relic that once was a living, breathing place with souls in flesh and bones walking about the business of life, whose soft footfalls you hear in the dead of night as your eyes glide on the text, whose breath you feel on the nape of your neck as you scratch it with the tip of the lead pencil, whose cries of pain and desire spin your heart into an orbital motion around a simple question turned into a tangle of answers, and whose mental universes come alive in quantum-level struggle against the perennial questions of existence on the surface of the skeletal remains of temples and forgotten pleasure-houses that once were.

By the time I finished the first installment I understood very well that Marcel Proust is most certainly and most undoubtedly one of the finest artists known to us, a prose stylist like none other. I'd take this opportunity to sing a paean to French writers; the more I read French and their British counterparts of the 19th century the more I'm convinced of the artistic superiority of the former over the latter.

Call it my bias, and so be it. Yes, Dickens is great, Mary Ann Evans too, and a few others, but if you only read British classics and nothing else. Scott Moncrieff's hide spoiler ]. I realise I haven't said anything on "themes" and "content" of the novel. But does it matter? For me, nope, it doesn't. For me, it is the writing that suggests the themes and ideas not the other way round; and the ideas this piece of literature suggests resist any attempt at paraphrasing All you can do is select moments of brilliance to discuss, and there are plenty of them at hand.

If pressed, what would I say? First half is a recounting of the story of a perspicacious and insecure adolescent who tells us about his holidays with his immediate family at his aunt's country place in Combray and the second part involves a man called Swann on whom love has inflicted its violence despite his pretentious aloofness. Yes, nothing to be excited about if you're looking for a formulaic story that caters to mass market tastes with its three-stepped start-middle-end sort construction held up by the myth of rounded characters and told with a minimal tweaking of the convention which is no more than a dull rehash of the popular novel.

View all 93 comments.

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Dec 05, Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing Shelves: There is no way to do justice to it, or to even be sure of what one is prattling on about. So seasoned readers, please do excuse any over-eager generalizations or over-enthusiastic missteps. Poetry in Proust There is an atmosphere of grandness that is felt as one reads this initial book, everything is charged with a sense of premonition, as if these are all musical notes that are being played for us now in a subdued key, and exquisite as they are, they are all going to reappear in grander forms later.

There is a sense throughout of stage being set, themes being set forth and of being invited to an extremely long composition that could last a lifetime if the reader is engaged enough. On the other hand, every paragraph I read seemed to me self-contained, like understated poetry; like a leaf so brilliantly illuminated that it outshines the whole tree, until you move your gaze to the next, when the same magic is repeated again.

Proust as Teacher There is greatness in this work and it is beyond the obvious literary value or aesthetic pleasure that it provides. Proust also liberates literature in a way, in being so unapologetically, irrepressibly romantic about everything in life! Thus the narrative runs on with undisguised romanticism and wide eyed enthusiasm for every detail of life. There is no attempt to tone anything down. There is none of that tendency for manly acceptance of the drollness life or of a skeptical indifference to its inevitable ugliness.

Everything is lived to its fullest and described as it should be lived. Until we realize that that is exactly how rich inner lives always are, if we only surrender to the sense of wonder that drives our lives. If only we could recapture the color and the poetry. Proust teaches us how to live. Some of the notes as in musical notes that struck a chord with me the most, and which I know will leave a lasting impact no matter how they are modified or reinforced in the later chapters books are: The reading itself serves that function.

And as we recreate thus our internal world, Proust also teaches us how we created the external world around us: Just as the world is constructed after dreaming, the whole structure of society is created anew from birth for each child. We all reinvent it and then propagate it. Understanding now how we might have been indoctrinated unconsciously… We come with freedom and then the ties slowly bind us — constraining us, showing us already defined paths. This crystallization of our future path is what we later call our life, the path we travelled.

By which we define ourselves. How we created and defined and imbibed social relations, including superiors and equals, in an intensely solipsistic fashion. Just as when Marcel meets an aristocrat, first sees her as an ordinary person, had expected to be more, is seen to be not, and is then recreated based on the expectations — invented in short. One example by Proust is enough to call up a hundred more of our own. Aesthetic Oneness with Proust Thus, you find yourself drawn into the world Proust is sketching. The involvement deepens to an immersion where the ordinary, everyday world dims and fades from the center of attention, you begin to understand and even share the feelings of the characters on the page — under ideal conditions you might reach a stage where you begin to participate in some strange way in the love being evoked.

Now, if at that moment you were to ask yourself: It cannot be your own love, for you cannot love a fictional character. Could it be memories evoked? Could it be that both Marcel and Gilberte exist no longer in what you feel as love as you read about them? Could it be that the emotion exists at another plane of existence now? In any case, it is a peculiar, almost abstract love without immediate referent or context — left to you, the reader, to actualize and bring to life.

You yourself, reading it again next month, under the same circumstances, might experience nothing. It is, moreover, something that cannot be adequately explained on analytic terms, the only proof for its existence is its direct, personal experience. The evocation of this intense personal experience is the highest function of art.

But there is one more aim that art can have — to not only evoke it but also make you aware of how it is done. This rarified level of achievement is what Proust reaches.

Swann’s Way

Proust allows us to not only experience sublime art but also its very creation. Proust as Meditation There is a breathlessness for the reader in everything in Proust, as we try to squeeze out meaning from every word and expression, every chance direct address by the narrator. These meanings and themes we might squeeze out are charged with special gravity in Proust — since we know that we have to remember them, we have to take them along with us in the long journey that awaits us. We cannot afford to be careless in this first sojourn. If we miss any key now, we might encounter a beautiful door that will refuse to yield later.

This effect does not depend on truth, it does not matter whether what we get out of this early reading will be valuable in reality later or not. The possibility is enough to invest a special sort of magic into the reading. A stillness of expectation, of anticipation is created.

That atmosphere can be stifling or it can be as expansive as a zen garden. One might feel lost in it or one might feel oneself in the presence of a literary holy grail. For me, I could not even tolerate the disturbance rendered by my own breathing when I read. I wanted total stillness. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. It was precisely after the conclusion of my study-hour one evening, during which my father shared this quote with me, that I was struck by the uniqueness of such an expansive statement.

For some fabulous reason, it stayed with me. As I grew up and began gaining the "There are only two ways to live your life. As I grew up and began gaining the privilege of reading world literature, I was bestowed with eyes that scanned not just a patch of land at one time but a universal landscape of mind-boggling ramifications across multiple filters of historical, social, cultural, political and emotional tints. And slowly, but firmly, I realized how true, how very true, is that quote of Sir Einstein. Perhaps now, today, if someone asks me to prove this thought, I would, without blinking, thrust this book into their hands and say, 'here lies the proof'.

Everything magnifies under the lens of retrospection. Proust cast the net of his observation across the turbulent sea of nostalgia and patiently collected the shimmering philosophical pearls in small urns of beauteous expressions. Embroidering the urns with souvenirs from the French bourgeoisie society and sewing them delicately with the indigenous threads, he set a benchmark for all wannabe explorers to aim for. In this momentous work that resembled a sparse theatre bearing a lonely child and a compassionate lover, he provided priority seats to every prop and every emotion.

The transition of inanimate props into lyrical jewels happens in such natural, noiseless rhythm that as a spectator, one is forced to don a momentary mask of surprise, followed by a considerable bout of awe. In the reluctance of a room from shedding its nocturnal skin and in the reticence of a bud from espousing its youth, in the insistence of trees to accompany a running carriage and in the persistence of rain to block a springy day, hordes of artistic voices croon, at once, their hearts out, bequeathing us with a palpable slice of life.

Possession of this mesmerizing, identical chord seals their reactions to negligence and rebuttal, indulgence and dismissal. Both love without remorse, offering their heart to be plucked like a harp till it broke; both avow to blissful solitude, surrendering their memories to dissolve in its vicious depth.

Both live to compose panegyric for memories and perhaps both would volunteer to drown into them. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

He also promises me that the ingredients of life can, at the most, be discoloured but not toxic if tended with an eye pouring beauty and forgiveness. Like an artist, who imparts contentment to his soul by creating a painting justifying his notion and not by subjecting it to an external validation, we should, too, scrap at the rough edges of life should they turn up, without besieging attendance of an audience, and unleash our net at the first sight of beauty.

He was a man who discovered beauty in everything , and who delightfully dwindled under the intoxication of drinking this elixir from every tap of life. How odd that is, when I go about seeking nothing else, and would give my soul to find it! View all 94 comments. Jul 27, BlackOxford rated it it was amazing Shelves: Childhood Expectations The Delphic maxim Nosce te ipsum , Know thyself, is the motivating force not only of Western philosophy and Christian theology but of much of Western literature.

All of the volumes of In Search of Lost Time are an experiment in self-understanding, an experiment which incorporates something that is left out of much of modern science, particularly psychological science, namely the concept of purposefulness. Purposefulness is the capacity to consider purpose rather than the ado Childhood Expectations The Delphic maxim Nosce te ipsum , Know thyself, is the motivating force not only of Western philosophy and Christian theology but of much of Western literature. Purposefulness is the capacity to consider purpose rather than the adoption of any specific purpose.

It is a concept which is difficult to grasp, and to live with, since it easily deteriorates into some specific purpose through the sheer frustration with the unsettlement it provokes. About 20 years ago I was asked to give a speech at a meeting of the Italian Bankers Association. At the dinner afterwards I was seated next to the chairman of the Banco Agricultura, a charming man of approximately seventy, who, as many Italian businessmen, had a very different social manner than most Northern Europeans. Instead of spending ten minutes on pleasantries leading to a more serious business conversation, the chairman reversed conventional priorities: I believe that we all make fundamental decisions about ourselves that we try to live up to for the rest of our lives.

Clearly only the very rare, and probably incipiently psychotic, child would be able to take a such a decision about himself - to become a banker! This programme followed the lives of a dozen or so Britons beginning at age seven at subsequent intervals of seven years to my uncertain knowledge the next instalment should capture them at age In the early years the children are clearly both inexperienced and inarticulate, as would be expected. Yet they make statements which are also clearly reflective of their later more experienced and more articulate selves.

The association between most childhood statements and life-outcomes are far more subtle than this, but almost all correlate to such a degree that one can match young to old merely on the basis of what the children and adults say and do rather than their physical states. The ITV programme is obviously anecdotal rather than scientific but I nevertheless I find it compelling. Alfred Whitehead observed that we are all born either Platonists or Aristotelians.

In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

As with religious faith, we cannot verify either position except by adopting it. Confirming evidence flows from the choice not vice versa. The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them; they can inflict on them continual blows of contradictions and disproof without weakening them; and an avalanche of miseries and maladies succeeding one another without interruption in the bosom of a family will not make it lose its faith in either the clemency of its God or the capacity of its physician.

So where do these beliefs, not just Platonic and Aristotelian but all important beliefs, particularly about purpose, come from? Is anyone really driving the bus at all? His intense romantic self-consciousness, the drive to understand oneself through feelings, leads to something unexpected and very post-modern: The realm of the particular and individual, those parts of the world with proper names like cities and people, can't be pinned down. We can't be sure where things begin and end, including ourselves.

Our inability to distinguish the particular Kantian thing in itself from what we think of it can even make us ill as Marcel discovers in the book's final part. Even more profoundly, the Self, our consciousness combined with this reality, is indistinguishable from God.

Every feeling is traced through memory until memory merely points further without a material reference. When memory stops at objects without recognising the transcendent reality, Marcel finds himself in error: No doubt, by virtue of having permanently and indissolubly united so many different impressions in my mind, simply because they made me experience them at the same time, the Meseglise and Guermantes ways left me exposed, in later life, to much disillusionment and even to many mistakes.

For often I have wished to see a person again without realising that it was simply because that person recalled to me a hedge of hawthorne in blossom. This is also the eponymous Swann's fate. In attaching the 'signs' of an emotionally moving, indeed transformative, musical phrase authored, significantly, by a resident not of Swann's Way but the other path, the Guermantes Way, in Combray and a female figure in a Botticelli painting Botticelli shared with Swann an ambivalence about commitment in relationship to the person of Odette, Swann creates a false reality.

The music indicates a distant ideal. His compulsion to fill the void between these aesthetic ideals, which he recognises as divine, and his concrete situation with whatever is at hand is overpowering. The result is an apparently disastrous confusion and self-imposed delusion. Swann emerges in Proust's text as an avatar of Saint Augustine, knowing that he is over-valuing the object of his desire, yet unwilling to cease digging the spiritual pit in which he finds himself.

The second half of the book, which is entirely third-party narrative, uses this tale of destruction as a sort of case study of the theory developed in the first, which is entirely introspective and associative. There are constant reminders throughout that the map which indicates the direction toward the ideal is not its territory. On a short coach trip during childhood with the local doctor, for example, Marcel recalls the comforting sight of three village church steeples.

Why are they comforting? The scene is pastoral, at sunset, but minutely crafted analysis gives no clear reason for either the importance of the memory or the intensity of the feeling. Nevertheless there is something there, just out of sight, obscurely attractive just beyond the steeples.

It is what lies beyond, behind this image that is the source of its power. His imagery of women is similarly and explicitly archetypal: Sometimes in the afternoon sky the moon would creep up, white as a cloud, furtive, lustreless, suggesting an ancient actress who does not have to come on for a while, and watches the rest of the company for a moment from the auditorium in her ordinary clothes, keeping in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself.

Often he presents the naked image, leaving it without comment except that he considers it significant enough to write about. The evocation simply echoes in this example: Here and there in the distance, in a landscape which in the failing light and saturated atmosphere resembled a seascape rather, a few solitary houses clinging to the lower slopes of a hill plunged in watery darkness shone out like little boats which have folded their sails and ride at anchor all night upon the sea. In describing a meadow by the River Vivonne in Combray: The sheer length and complexity of the sentence, combined with the ambiguity of the referents of many of the pronouns, and the allusions to a mysterious Asian past, are components of his monumental experiment to express that which is just beyond the reach of expression.

Its density is poetic, but it is not poetry. It is a new genre. In it Proust makes the search for the Platonic ideal visible by subverting literary habits but no so much as to make the text incomprehensible. Life then for Marcel is a search in which habits may provide comfort, security, and facile communication, peace even, but inhibit discovery of what one is.

By simply accepting our habitual responses to events as obvious or inevitable, we short-circuit the investigation of why and how they should be as they are. In particular this applies to habits of thought, methods, if you will, our ways of dealing with the emotional world. There is no essential method, not just for psychology but for thought in general.

But like the chairman and unlike Freud, Proust appreciated this as a positive necessity. For him human beings are creative idealists who become oriented to a certain configuration of not just how the world is but how it ought to be. Appreciating the source of this phenomenon is what he is about. His intention is to further articulate and explore what the ideals might be, indeed what we might be behind the veil of appearances.

The ideals created in childhood are, after all, as the chairman said, what we actually are. But the ITV children suggest, contrary to the chairman's opinion, that these ideals are not deterministic. There are any number, perhaps an infinite number, of ways through which ideals may be interpreted and approached. Only afterwards can the creativity of the individual be discerned. This is the domain of choice and learning.

Nosce te ipsum does not imply, therefore, an analytic understanding of one's desires. But without some sort of reflective assessment, these desires, feelings, aversions remain unappreciated, as does consequently the Self in which they occur and which they constitute. These desires are created in youth not as specific neurotic fixations but as memories and responses to a vague, inarticulate presence, essence perhaps, which is just behind, just beyond what we perceive and what we can express.

This knowledge is essential because without it we are liable to pursue ineffective paths; but it is also useless because it will bring us no closer to the real content of the ideal. Neither the past nor the Self can ever be found or recovered - " For Proust, as for Augustine, each of us, is a Citizen Kane, pursuing an ideal we can know only faintly, often through inappropriate means.

The Rosebud is our unique possession — or more properly a sign to its hidden meaning - and it is the only possession we need. In his publication of The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes makes an intentional mistranslation of Nosce te ipsum. When we read, we are forced to interpret, to bring ourselves into the text.

When our interpretation becomes a text, which it must if it is articulated, that too is subject to interpretation. And so on ad infinitum. As the philosopher Richard Rorty famously quipped: There is no terminal point of truth in a text, nor is there a true Self, just as there is no foundation in terms of first principles for thought. The post-modern position reckons our job as one of permanent interpretation, an un-ending search for the truth — about the world as well as ourselves.

Hobbes had the insight that we are texts to be read and interpreted. Proust demonstrates how this is done. The fact that the horizon recedes at the same pace as it is approached doesn't invalidate the task. Goal-orientation, according to psychologists, therapists, and management consultants, is a desirable human trait. This is demonstrably false. Goal-orientation is a neurosis involving the fixation of purpose regardless of consequences. It implies a wilful rejection of the possibility of learning through experience.

The most vital experience is not about learning how to do something, technique; but learning about what is important to do, value. Loyalty to purpose is a betrayal of purposefulness, of what constitutes being human. This is a prevailing poison in modern society.

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Proust understood this toxin, and, without even giving it a name, formulated the cure. This, for me, is the real value of Swann's Way. View all 43 comments. View all 21 comments. I have removed my initial three star rating for this and settled with a blank rating. This is because I cannot in any way say what I want to say about this book with goodreads stars. I had given it three stars because of my indecision, it seemed like a good idea to just stick my rating somewhere in the middle when I couldn't make my mind up. The problem is that on goodreads three stars means "I liked it", which, unfortunately, I didn't.

Two stars means "it was ok", but that's not an accurate des I have removed my initial three star rating for this and settled with a blank rating. Two stars means "it was ok", but that's not an accurate description of the genius taken to write this either. Frankly, Proust is a genius. It doesn't matter whether you enjoy this book, or think it adds up to what makes a novel "good" or "enjoyable", I challenge anyone to argue with the idea that Proust's work takes the mind of someone with a deep-set gift for writing.

I personally think that football or soccer is one of the most boring things on the planet, but I also appreciate the skill and hard work of the players. Here I read the Montcrieff translation and translations are often a somewhat simplified version of the original work - but if that is true here, I pity and admire anyone who has braved the original. Montcrieff, himself, deserves a medal for so perfectly taking Proust's deep complexity across languages. And I want to point out that my dislike for this book isn't just because it's a challenge - I've read many challenging books and come through at the other side with satisfaction and the desire to recommend it to others.

I would hesitate before recommending this. As I said in a comment below, Tolstoy wrote a lengthy book because he had a long and epic story to tell and it is one that kept me hooked throughout Proust has written a seven volume novel with over pages and the reason it's so long is because he feels the need to describe every little speck of dust in intricate detail.

That may be an exaggeration, but only slightly. In Swann's Way we are told how the furniture smells , things and objects that are completely irrelevant to the story get a page of description. I can't see a good reason. He also has that habit of waxing poetic about every simple little everyday action, and I understand why some readers will love this beautiful exploration of the simplest things I care so little about these things he is talking about that I suddenly realise I've read a few pages without really taking in a single word of it.

Which means you have to go back and start again, reigniting your headache. These volumes are a challenge that people who prefer writing over story should make their way towards. Readers who appreciate the quality of writing, the literary technique, they are the ones who will devour Proust. I like a story, and I don't like stories that drown in a sea of prose and over-descriptiveness, if you're like me then you will probably feel the same weird mixture of admiration at Proust's ability, and disappointment that one of the often stated "greatest novels of all time" didn't do it for you.

View all 16 comments. Mario Camacho And here I thought I was the only one having this exact difficulty with this book, I tried to like this book, I really did, but I found reading page a And here I thought I was the only one having this exact difficulty with this book, I tried to like this book, I really did, but I found reading page after page of nothingness, just dull descriptions of trivial things, like getting inside the mind of someone who is bored and is describing everything he sees just for the sake of it. Thank you for putting into words what I feel about this book.

Steven I think Moncrieff adds at least as much complexity as he takes away. Dec 16, I realised that what I had done so far was simply to wander through the first few carriages of thi Easter I realised that what I had done so far was simply to wander through the first few carriages of this train where I met with some intriguing passengers and overheard some curious conversations. I admired the different decor in each carriage while recognising the common elements that recurred from one to the next.

I encountered some of the passengers more than once as they moved about from one section of the train to another, backwards and forwards as they pleased. I gazed from the windows of each carriage and spotted familiar landmarks, now on the left, now on the right. I noticed that the landscape seemed unchanging at times and yet the passengers sometimes wore different clothing.

At other times, it was the scenery that was different while the preoccupations and conversations remained the same. I found myself wondering if the train were not on some hugely complex orbit around a central point, passing over and back, revolving in both space and time, because, although Proust loved the precision of railway timetables, the chronology of this narrative is very, very mobile. During the many Easters of the narrative, the weather is remarkably consistent even though it may be March in one and April in another. Proust returns frequently to the types of flowers which bloom around Easter, and refers often to the miracle of the renewal of nature.

Boules de neige or viburnum are mentioned too for their parallel with Easter weather when snow showers can occur as easily as sunshine. In this way, we are reminded that Easter has more than religious significance, that plants too are influenced by the equinox, that the earth has its own renewal calendar, and that Proust time is cosmic time. Now, having finished Swann's Way: This novel is preoccupied with all the details that surround time, desire, love, memory, happiness, life, truth, names and relationships.

It is vivid, detailed and reminds the reader to look, feel, grab, smell, think, confess, and take big risks to grow that one perfect blossom of love. Proust's prose is beautiful, his imagery is brilliant and he seems to swing for the fence on every page. This is not a book one reads, but one inhabits and floats through. But first one must find and dip your own Madeleine. Having read Proust now, I can see his gentle fingerprints everywhere.

It is hard to pin down what it is exactly about his prose that is so transfixing, but like a dance or tune that just seems to float, Proust words and style aren't easy to contain in just his books. The edges bleed, the scent lingers. View all 7 comments. Jan 13, Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing Shelves: PART I Spoilers For reasons that will become apparent, my review focuses not on the plot of the novel, but on its style and themes.

If you want to develop your own relationship with these aspects of the novel, then it might be better to turn away now. This is partly why I paid little attention to the excellent discussion group at Proust , before writing my review. I wanted my reading experience to be intimate and personal, not shared and social. Sorry that I had to spoil the surprise. Anyway, this is my warning to the spoiler-sensitive. Apprehended by the Suspect I have to confess that, before I actually bought the book and opened it, I regarded Proust with greater apprehension than any other novelist.

I felt that my apprehension had cheated me of pleasure. This time, I was determined not to be put off, so I just dived in when the reading schedule was announced. In retrospect, I think this is the only way to do it. Sentenced to Life The source of my apprehension was the length of sentences and paragraphs. People who know me know that I write one sentence paragraphs. No matter what you think of my sentences or paragraphs, nobody has ever had to turn over a few pages to see when they ended. When I was in secondary school, I acquired a large vocabulary and a love of etymology which helps.

We were taught that good writing involved a display of our vocabulary, hopefully correctly used. I turned my back on this practice, as soon as I was exposed to lecturers with different views at university. Later, newspaper editors drummed single sentence paragraphs into me. In the meantime, I read a lot of Dickens and Hardy, and towards the end of school I became obsessed with Henry James, which resulted in my unfulfilled ambition to become a diplomat and work in nineteenth century Europe.

His sentences encapsulate a single, complete thought, like mine attempt, only my thoughts are parish churches and his are cathedrals. I just want you to nod or shake, disagree and argue when you read one of my sentences. Proust forces your eyes and your mind to follow a sentence as it aspires upwards to, yes, the spire of his vision. His sentences are not just vehicles of communication, they are architectural constructs that inspire awe and wonder. They take life and love and build a monument to them that will last through the ages, like architects before him built monuments to the belief in God.

Proust mounted the most concerted campaign to take the ephemeral and make it perpetual. Previously, this task was attempted by painters. Only now, when you inspect the damage done to some of the artworks housed in the Louvre, do you you realise the foresight of his choice of creative vehicle. People will read Proust until, at least, the temperature reaches Fahrenheit So much so that Genet could witness it and remark: First, he rocked me, then he lulled me.

Ultimately, he sang me a lullaby. Proust engendered tranquility in me. How would I, a male, of sorts, react to a novel that apparently lacked a hero, that lacked action, that lacked a battle and a victory, that lacked a seduction and a conquest? His apparent insight into the feminine and oversight of the masculine? Or that the sex life of many men might not even have added up to minutes during their entire lifetime? To that extent, Proust understands love and sex like only a woman can. Observations of a Man's Lady If I am correct in this interpretation, then Proust deserves a large audience of women.

I hope none of my friends guess. Do they, like me, identify with Swann? Or do they identify with Odette? Is there an antagonism between the genders? Does Proust call upon us to take sides? Or does he take the side of love? Is the gender of each lover irrelevant, as long as there is love on the agenda? Must our perspective on love have a gender? I wanted want to know what women think. Is that so unreasonable? Or is it too reasonable? Over the last couple of years, there have been a few books, the most obvious being Murakami's "1Q84", where I started to use the term "helmet cam" to describe the narrative.

Although it was presumably constructed and edited by an author, it still gave the impression that a helmet cam was seeing everything in front of it, without any editorial cutting or rearrangement. It saw everything, it recorded everything, it passed on everything to us. Normally, a helmet cam cannot see the face of the person wearing it. Thus, it sees everything that the person sees from their own perspective. In "Swann's Way", the verbal description is so vivid and precise that we see the narrator himself.

The Subject is also the Object. The Subject is its own Object. At least until he discovers M. Up until then, the narrator is like a juvenile crustacean, slowly constructing a shell, but not quite there yet. He is sensitive, even over-sensitive, soft, fleshy, pink, much to the masculine disgust of his father and the embarrassment of his mother. Yet the helmet cam hones in on every element of sensitivity and emerging sensibility. He is almost too sensitive for this world, yet he is imminently sensitive to its charms.

He does nothing but observe, imagine, remember, write. Like a helmet cam, however, he gives the impression that neither he nor anybody else has edited him. This is the narrator's mind recording time and place with nobody pressing the pause button.