Swann's Way
I have just read this first book of the Remembrance of Things Past. Therefore, this review can be riddled with misunderstanding.
No point in mentioning the obvious. Is he a good writer? He is great. Does he have a deep understanding of the clockwork of the human heart? He does. There can't be a great writer without this understanding and wit.
What I liked about this book is (which may be a fault as translators of this series have noted) the stylistic switch Proust did between lyrical, poetic moving text and prosaic, matter-of-fact but strong plot styles.
The successful usage of Involuntary Memory. There is, of course, the classic 'Madeleine Incident' which invoked a nostalgia for things happend decades ago. But I think the most powerful usage of involuntary memories can be found in the PART II - Swann in Love. The Vinteuil Sonata[1] invoked love in Swann, helped it to flourish, and at the end induced the epiphany that lead to a clearer understanding of his place in his relationship with Odette.
The first volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, in Lydia Davis's award-winning translation Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way. Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood: a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel "Swann in Love," an incomparable study of sexual jealousy that becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age—satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition—Swann's Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreated through memory.
Fictitious. Probably based on Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck ↩︎
I started reading this book with much scepticism on my part. The volume of the work (4200 pages) is in itself prohibitive since I get too little time to read, and I prefer non-fiction more. Now, my reading is often a public act; people regularly ask me what I am reading. That is easy to answer. However, some of them are readers themselves. Often, they follow up with a question to know what I am getting out of it/what this book is about.
One may say that it is not important for fiction. Well, that is not entirely true. At least, one must get the entertainment out of the most light readings. And when you read 4 thousand pages of fiction, you'd better get something more. I have learned more about anarchy from V for Vendetta than from all the works by Noam Chomsky I have read. Human failings in the political landscape are much more well explained in 1984 and Animal Farm than in many political treatises.
We can see what Proust thought about this book at the end of the last volume of this work as cited above. This is very true. Although events in this work happened in a time in society now virtually non-existent, the work itself is an internal monologue, a retrospective introspection.
Instead of giving us something, Proust involves us.
The word 'involvement' requires some qualifications. In great Russian novels, we find writers as omnipresent observers of events and explaining a deeper understanding of human affairs now and then; here we are in the driver's seat. Proust and his character are really mischievous map-readers trying to navigate us through the unknown alleys of our soul. Some of them are full of pettiness, some are dark. Some are evil, to say the least.
And that is not all. The involvement requires practice. The volume of this book will let you practice being Marcel. Marcel– who is vain and jealous but sincere regarding art. Marcel the tormentor and tormented. Marcel– who laments and is both dazzled and bored in society.
Among all those aforementioned things, boredom is the hardest thing to produce. It is risky, too. However, Proust used almost three of the seven volumes to produce a long monotony, inducing a sense of utter uselessness of 'society', just so one can understand Marcel's position better.