Du côté de chez Swann

Par Marcel Proust

Une édition de référence de Du côté de chez Swann de Marcel Proust, spécialement conçue pour la lecture sur les supports numériques.
« Mais à l’âge déjà un peu désabusé dont approchait Swann, et où l’on sait se contenter d’être amoureux pour le plaisir de l’être sans trop exiger de réciprocité, ce rapprochement des cœurs, s’il n’est plus comme dans la première jeunesse le but vers lequel tend nécessairement l’amour, lui reste uni en revanche par une association d’idées si forte, qu’il peut en devenir la cause, s’il se présente avant lui. Autrefois on rêvait de posséder le cœur de la femme dont on était amoureux ; plus tard sentir qu’on possède le cœur d’une femme peut suffire à vous en rendre amoureux. Ainsi, à l’âge où il semblerait, comme on cherche surtout dans l’amour un plaisir subjectif, que la part du goût pour la beauté d’une femme devrait y être la plus grande, l’amour peut naître – l’amour le plus physique – sans qu’il y ait eu, à sa base, un désir préalable. » (Extrait de la deuxième partie.)

• Langue: Français
• Éditeur: Primento Digital
• Date de sortie: 1 janv. 2012
• ISBN: 9782806232021

Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a French novelist. Born in Auteuil, France at the beginning of the Third Republic, he was raised by Adrien Proust, a successful epidemiologist, and Jeanne Clémence, an educated woman from a wealthy Jewish Alsatian family. At nine, Proust suffered his first asthma attack and was sent to the village of Illiers, where much of his work is based. He experienced poor health throughout his time as a pupil at the Lycée Condorcet and then as a member of the French army in Orléans. Living in Paris, Proust managed to make connections with prominent social and literary circles that would enrich his writing as well as help him find publication later in life. In 1896, with the help of acclaimed poet and novelist Anatole France, Proust published his debut book Les plaisirs et les jours, a collection of prose poems and novellas. As his health deteriorated, Proust confined himself to his bedroom at his parents’ apartment, where he slept during the day and worked all night on his magnum opus In Search of Lost Time, a seven-part novel published between 1913 and 1927. Beginning with Swann’s Way (1913) and ending with Time Regained (1927), In Search of Lost Time is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction in which Proust explores the nature of memory, the decline of the French aristocracy, and aspects of his personal identity, including his homosexuality. Considered a masterpiece of Modernist literature, Proust’s novel has inspired and mystified generations of readers, including Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, and Somerset Maugham.

Avis sur Du côté de chez Swann

[cinders54-1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

The only way I can truly describe this book is by analogy. You know when you have a really sore spot on your gum, and it hurts, and you are compelled to press on it, which doesn't relieve the pain but changes the sensation to something strangely enjoyable (or at least less painful), then you remove the pressure and the pain returns? That is reading this book. It has been lauded as a masterpiece, so I tried to get it, but all I came away with was a very original, sometimes sublimely written, self-indulgent piece of inner vision. It makes sense to me it was written by a guy in a room lined by cork. Short on story and action, long on self-consciousness. The breathtaking prose is oddly compelling, but I often felt cheated. Unlike others, I will not be reading the other volumes. I saw the beautiful movie, "Time Regained", and that satisfied my need to find out what happens/doesn't happen in the opus, but I'm not so masochistic that I'll actually read page after page of description of a leaf. I'll just accept my philistine status when it comes to Proust.

[meditationesmartini · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Second time around, I have no idea why I was so focused on Proust's weird bougieness the first time. He's lovely, and this book is lovely, and I found it the most comforting thing I could imagine.

[hopeevey · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I've been listening to this book on and off for quite a while. I've listened to some parts over again. It's beautifully written, with lyrical, lush depictions of people and places and the feelings of the narrator and other characters.

I still have no idea how to describe this book. I totally, though, want to read or listen to the next two volumes.

[bookomaniac-1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Eerste deel van 7. Heerlijke scenes (het wakker worden, de madeleine-ervaring, ....). Trage, spiraliserende zinnen. Ogenschijnlijk niet spectaculair, maar Proust blijft ook lang na de lectuur door je hoofd spoken.

[albertgoldfain · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Sentimental, vivid, and intricate in its management of interior memory / external plot. Finally getting to Proust after all these years.

[jbarringer-2 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

OMG. Sure, 'omg' is a very modern slang word, but it applies to this novel. Swann is a melodramatic dude who falls in love with a rather modern woman named Odette. Swann pursues her for years, being odiously possessive, dishonest, and manipulative with her all along, swearing he loves her and that his love is why he acts the way he does about her. He does end up married to her, but by the end of the account of his years 'courting' her, I was a bit surprised that she would accept him. For all the narrator's insistence that Odette was not intelligent, she seemed smart enough to see through Swann and find someone more trustworthy to marry. The narrator seems bipolar, throughout the book, though I was a bit confused as to who the narrator is from one section to the next. In the last chapter Swann is old, married to Odette, and has a daughter named Gilberte, who the narrator falls in love with, and the narrator in this section is a boy still living with his parents, so he can't be the same narrator as the one telling about Swann's romantic obsession. I was not really impressed with Proust's storytelling so far, with his narrators being so unsatisfactorily introduced, and so many pages devoted to drivel.

[beezle176 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

amazing writing...

[selfcallednowhere · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Not gonna lie, this wasn't exactly the easiest book to get through. I started reading it because my beloved John Linnell said he had read the whole series, and he added that it took him fourteen years. I can kind of understand why.It was just *incredibly* dense, and required a lot of concentration. There were parts I liked a lot, particularly the third section, but a lot of the second (and longest) section just didn't really hold my attention. But overall I did enjoy it, and I am planning to read the others.One issue I had with this particular translation was the footnotes. I love footnotes because I'm a nerd like that, but I didn't really get very much information out of the ones here. They were almost all about references Proust was making to art, contemporary French culture, etc, and the footnotes would just say "oh this is a painting by this one guy" etc rather than explaining exactly how that painting etc related to the story. So that was frustrating.

[maxernst11 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Eerste deel van 7. Heerlijke scenes (het wakker worden, de madeleine-ervaring, ....). Trage, spiraliserende zinnen. Ogenschijnlijk niet spectaculair, maar Proust blijft ook lang na de lectuur door je hoofd spoken.

[helenliz_1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

I'm not sure what to make of this. At one level, nothing much happens - the first 20 odd pages are about him struggling to go to sleep and how is mind wanders when it does. It wanders back to his childhood and his relationship with his mother and father. this then moves on to where he spent childhood holidays, and the village. It introduces Swann, who is then the topic of the second section, which retells a love affair in his life. The third section is back with the narrator, and feels to be later than the first section. In the book not a lot actually happens. It does, however, do not a lot it in very languid and descriptive prose. It almost seduces you.

[stef7sa-1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

I read the first part, Combray, which was reasonably enjoyable. But then the part about Swanns love became more and more annoying and I gave up, restarting at the last part which unfortunately continued with the endless philosophies about love, this time as experienced by the young author. Reading the afterword in the Dutch translation tells you more or less what you may learn from the novel, but then in a few pages only! If you love the authors style, you may enjoy entire 500 pages. For me, the authors style doesn't really add to the content of the story. I prefer Flaubert.

[jwhenderson_1 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

The opening book of In Search of Lost Time is Swann's Way. It in turn is divided into three sections, the first being Combray. We enter the world of the narrator as a young boy when he is trying to sleep while being interrupted by his thoughts. It is these thoughts, described as "reflections on what I had just read" that engage us on the first page of this first section of the first of many volumes. The young boy gradually returns to sleep only to find himself dreaming of the origins of woman from the rib of the first man. It may be that this is one way to view the beginnings of Proust's long tale as the origin of the story of one man's life from the imagination of our narrator as he remembers the events of his life as a young boy at the village of Combray in the house of his Aunt Leonie with his parents. Why is it that reading generates in the imagination of the young boy such strong reflections that they interrupt his sleep? One way to answer this is to look first at the mind from which the imagination emanates. It is a mind described thusly,"And wasn't my mind also like another crib in the depths of which I felt I remained ensconced . . . When I saw an external object, my awareness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it, lining it with a thin spiritual border that prevented me from ever directly touching its substance; it would volatize in some way before I could make contact with it, just as an incandescent body brought near a wet object never touches its moisture because it is always preceded by a zone of evaporation." (p 85)Marcel's mind (for Marcel is his name) is invigorated by his reading "from inside to outside, toward the discovery of the truth," reading that aroused his emotions as he experienced the dramatic events in the book. It is these emotions that bring with them an intensity that makes Marcel feel more alive than any other activity. He relates,"And once the novelist has put us in that state, in which, as in all purely internal states, every emotion is multiplied tenfold, in which his book will disturb us as might a dream but a dream more lucid than those we have while sleeping and whose memory will last longer, then see how he provokes us within one hour all possible happiness and all possible unhappiness just a few of which we would spend years of our lives coming to know and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slowness with which they occur prevents us from perceiving them" (p 87)It is not only reading that defines young Marcel, but also his relationships with people around him, not only his mother and aunt, but others including the faithful servant Francoise, the wealthy Jewish neighbor Swann, also Legrandin and Bloch who are introduced to him at Combray. Bloch is interesting in part because he introduces Marcel to the writing of Bergotte. It is Bergotte who above all others entrances the young boy."In the first few days, like a melody with which one will become infatuated but which one cannot yet make out, what I was to love so much in his style was not apparent to me. I could no put down the novel of his that I was reading, but thought I was interested only in the subject, as during that first period of love when you go to meet a woman every day at some gathering, some entertainment, thinking you are drawn to it by its pleasures. Then I noticed the rare, almost archaic expressions he liked to use at certain moments, when a hidden wave of harmony, an inner prelude, would heighten his style; and it was also at theses moments that he would speak of the "vain dream of life," the "inexhaustible torrent of beautiful appearance," the "moving effigies that forever ennoble the venerable and charming facades of our cathedrals," that he expressed an entire philosophy, new to me, through marvelous images" (pp 95-96)Reading Bergotte yields a "joy" within Marcel that allowed him to experience "a deeper, vaster, more unified region" of himself. It is through such experiences of reading and the resulting flights of imagination that the reader is introduced to the book that to be read and understood must yield similar emotions for the reader. Yet it is not only reading that thrills Marcel in Proust's story but also, as can be seen from the description of Bergotte's novel, music and its even stronger impact on his imagination.

[thatotter-1 · Évaluation : 2 sur 5 étoiles]

Was this ever a slow, difficult read! Though I typically become very absorbed in novels (even lousy or trashy ones), I never managed to truly get into this. I love Lydia Davis's other work, so I don't think the problem is the translation.

I'm generally a very fast reader, but this was impossible to take at anything but a glacial pace--the sentences are so long and ponderous that it's easy to lose the thread of meaning unless you focus intensely. The payoff was not always equal to the effort expended.

I will say that there were many staggeringly beautiful descriptions, especially of flowers.

On top of all that, at times I was frustrated and disappointed by both the narrator and Swann. I just wanted them to build a bridge and get over their issues.

[ursula_2 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I'm conflicted. I started off thinking that the writing was lovely and evocative, although the young narrator perhaps provides detail that one might politely call "a little excessive" about such things as bedtime routines and the importance of the narrator receiving a goodnight kiss from his mother. Within a few percentage points (I read this on the kindle, so instead of seeing the pages of the book move from the "unread" side to the "read" side, I only had the agonizingly slow movement of the percentages as feedback - flip, no change, flip, flip, flip, no change, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip ... ah, finally!), where was I? Oh right, within a few percentage points I was hoping to never hear about the layout of the French town of Combray, church spires, walks, weather, hawthorn bushes, or the narrator's damned mother again. I was moderately enlivened for a while by the story of his great-aunt Leonie's invalid behavior. She entertainingly always managed to be too ill to do the things she didn't want to, but healthy enough to manage the things she did.We've been introduced to M. Swann through his interactions with the narrator's family, although Swann's wife and daughter are off-limits as the wife is not one to be introduced to polite company, and therefore neither is the daughter. Eventually we start into the meat of it, talking about M. Swann. And we are with him for what seems like a million years as he is enchanted by Odette, a woman of dubious moral character. Much is made of who is associating with whom, who is going to the theater, the opera, riding home in carriages together, having dinner at whose house, etc. We are spared no detail of Swann's thoughts about Odette and how he spends seemingly every waking moment. The last section returns to our child narrator and his love for (or really, fixation on) Gilberte Swann. Once I discovered that Gilberte had red hair, I couldn't stop thinking of the narrator as a Parisian Charlie Brown, obsessed with his little red-haired girl. Definitely not the mood Proust was going for. I will say, though, that as frustrated as I was with this book at times (and boy was I - telling myself "I'll read 2 percent of this thing today if it kills me"), I'm glad I made it through. The last page threw the whole thing into a more positive light and gave me more to think about, as well as the motivation to continue on with the next volume. I just wish that change in perspective had taken place a little earlier.Recommended for: fans of Ingmar Bergman, Francophiles, people who like to be honest when they say, "I read that."Quote: "I do feel that it's really absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself be made to suffer by a creature of that kind, who isn't even interesting, for they tell me, she's an absolute idiot!" she concluded with the wisdom invariably shewn by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man ought to be unhappy only about such persons as are worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the common bacillus."

[amerynth · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

"Swann's Way," the first book in Marcel Proust's epic "In Search of Lost Time" is definitely a challenging read. But I got so much out of it and enjoyed it so thoroughly, I really didn't mind.Plotwise, there are essentially two different stories here. Our faithful narrator famously dips a cake known as a madeliene into tea and is flooded with memories from his childhood. Branching off into a tangential story about a figure from the narrator's childhood, the book also tells the story of Swann and his love affair with the unworthy and promiscuous Odette. The book's prose is just astoundingly beautiful and filled with eye-opening ideas and philosophical points. This is definitely a book that I would get more out of reading it again.Looking forward to reading the remaining six volumes of this series as the year progresses.

[dbsovereign · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Okay, I only read the first book. It smells good.

[rmagahiz · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

The last time I read this was in the early 1980s and so it is with a nearly empty set of preconceptions that I am returning to it now to begin this centennial Year of Reading Proust. I do remember the sensation of the words just washing over me, not being quite sure what they were describing (now I can see that the book has virtually no plot and just enough action to keep the prose stirred up a little), and no clear impression of where the rest of the series would go, except certainly later in the life of the Narrator. Proust writes as if he can divide up perception into its constituent atoms and chart the way their paths evolve over time, assembling these bits into a portrait fixed at a particular time and place only if it suits his purposes of depicting a certain character or spotlighting some aspect of his theme. Thus, it is very easy to get disoriented, especially a century after it came out.

I'm boosting my rating a star now over what I had previously. Swann's Way really does belong among the first rank of novels ever written.

It is fascinating to see how certain motifs are woven in and out: music, flowers, social convention, and the advent of the modern world. I am looking forward to watching how these develop over the remaining volumes. If the effect of reading this work is really as life-changing as some have claimed, I am still uncertain, or rather I cannot tell whether it is more so than any other monumental work of literature to which one has been exposed.

[stillatim · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

My summer of re-reading Proust got off to a great start; it turns out that I hadn't forgotten everything about Swann's Way (which I read about 10 years ago), but that I was also much better equipped to deal with it now. It's really not that hard, it's a lot funnier than I'd realized as an undergrad, and I no longer feel the need to take all the essayistic interludes as gospel truth. This translation is beautiful, whatever it demerits when it comes to literal meaning; Proust really is an extraordinary observer of mental habits, and this volume has enough variation that you won't get bored slogging through too much of the same sort of stuff.

But that variation comes at a price: there is no obvious reason for 'Swann in Love,' which is the central third of the novel (and, let's be honest, a free standing novel), to be there at all. The narrator can't possibly know much more of the story than 'Swann fell in love with a hussy, and eventually married her,' but the tale itself is narrated by an omniscient observer. It's great, and I'd much rather read it a third or fourth time than tackle the Albertine novels (Fugitive/Prisoner) again. But it makes Swann's Way very disjointed. Yes, Swann in Love raises many of the issues that A la Recherche will tackle for the next however many thousand pages (jealousy and homosexuality as types of the difficulty of knowing others from their actions, or the difficulty of properly predicting our own behavior or that of others etc etc...). But I can't help thinking it would have made more sense to publish it separately, and then mix the rest of Swann's Way (including the famous cake and tea scene) into the next volume. That said, I am not Proust, and what the hell do I know? I know that this is well worth reading, and re-read. And I can't wait to get onto 'Within a Budding Grove.'

[rubyscarlett-1 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

This is a book you very much have to be in the mood for. You can't rush it and you need to be in the position when you can honestly read as if you had all the time in the world. It's a contemplative book, the kind that reads like a long poem. Not to say that there is no plot, that would be unfair - the plot is there and the characters are well fleshed out, but Proust takes the time to really analyse every single feeling and emotion and you shut this book looking at the world differently. It's an experience in itself and I'm changed for having read this. I know that I'll appreciate the complexity of every moment more.
Proust isn't an elitist writer, anyone can read this. His writing isn't obscure or prone to pedantism, it's honest and beautiful and very often funny, the out loud kind. I loved this so much. My favourite part was the first as I think Proust really shines when he talks about his own direct experience and his memories of Combray had me completely fall in love with his writing and with little Marcel. I'll reread this for sure.

[arubabookwoman · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Wouldn't you love to walk the Mesiglisse Way, see and smell the blooming hawthornes in Swann's alley, watch the street scene in Combray with Aunt Leonie, eat a meal prepared by Francoise, and meet Swann, poor Swann with his tragic obsession with Odette. "To think that I have wasted years of my life, that I have longed for death, that the greatest love I have ever known has been a woman who did not please me, who was not in my style." And to experience young Marcel's first love, an obsession almost parallel to Swann's, his yearning for Swann's daughter Gilberte.I liked this much more the second time around. There's everything to love about the lush language of course, but I made a lot more connections on this reading, and picked up on many details I don't remember, or maybe didn't grasp the first time I read it.Highly recommended.5 stars

[therebelprince · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

For a long time I would go to bed early.

With those words, one of the greatest achievements of Western literature begins. Despite being a lit major, classicist and language-lover, I have somehow lived 28 years without ever committing myself to read Proust. In retrospect, I'm not sad about that, as I feel my heart, soul, and mind are more open to understanding the Frenchman's great 20th century tome with every passing year of my life.

In the opening volume, Du côté de chez Swann (Swann's Way, perhaps better translated as The Way By Swann's), the Scott Moncrieff-twice-updated-by-Kilmartin-and-Enright translation depicts the narrator's youth at Combray, his first crushes, and his elderly reminiscences of a world now gone by. Meanwhile, piecing together a tale that occurred before his youth, the narrator tells us of Charles Swann and his love for Odette de Crecy, in the fractured world of Paris society. It's a portrait filled with endearing and frustrating characters, precise observations about all kinds of humanity, always painful or poignant, hilarious or sly, erudite and insightful. I am eager to read the second volume, and excited for the journey I will take with Proust for the rest of my life.

Oh, marvellous independence of the human gaze, tied to the human face by a cord so loose, so long, so elastic that it can stray alone as far as it may choose!

Of course, it's no surprise that most people of my generation would never dream of reading these books, and many who start won't finish. Proust (or, perhaps, his narrator) is absorbed by description and detail. Pick any 20 pages and it's unlikely that much will happen - although I believe that's partly because this is the opening book in the series, and there is still much setup. Yet, for me, I've rarely been so delighted by a novel in all my life. Even when little plot moves (for instance, the sequence in which Swann grows increasingly jealous of Odette takes a good 100 pages), there is so much dense character development, growth of the novel's world, and immense understanding of human nature. After all, unlike what today's soap operas would tell us - or, indeed, what the 19th century romances before Proust would either - the story of love and human connection is not told in big revelations. It is told in those tiny moments, those repetitions, those instances. And they are so ably captured here. I've been reading an intelligent (if tragically brief) blog as I go, "182 Days of Proust", and have thus learned that many of the characters and places here will go on to develop later in the seven-volume sequence. This was something that, of course, Proust's contemporaries could not have known, which explains why some found the novel meandering. Everything has a place in this great study of memory; it's just a case of waiting for when.

"I love Odette with all my heart, but to construct aesthetic theories for her benefit, you'd really have to be quite an imbecile."

The country idylls at Combray present comedies of manners, in which the narrator gradually develops his psyche while a part of larger situations, some of which he cannot comprehend, even though he is often frustratingly aware that there is something he cannot comprehend. This contrasts with the middle-class character portraits of the Verdurin couple and their house parties, and the somewhat off-putting, satirised lives of the aristocracy. At this point, as a reader, I'm not yet sure how Proust felt about the class system, or where this great story is heading, but I'm quite excited for the experience. Admittedly, many of the references and social mores are now challenging for someone of my age to understand. As with any book focused on relations between people, there are parts that will always ring true, and parts that fade quickly as eras change. Yet, a little background reading and open-mindedness will cure you of that problem. Proust's lengthy sentences - and I mean lengthy, these babies can go on for a page when he feels like it - are also fascinating to us, and not always in a good way. For me, I adore the untangling of his wit. They are as luxurious as any older person's memories can be. The actor Neville Jason, who recently recorded 153 hours of the unabridged complete "In Search of Lost Time" for Naxos, said that these sentences are like music: one must find the way to phrase them, the way to link up each scattered segment. When one does, joy awaits.

I asked nothing more from life in such moments than that it should consist always of a series of joyous afternoons.

All of which is to say, starting "In Search of Lost Time" is a big commitment. Like any great work of art from a previous generation, it requires some willingness on the part of the reader to be patient, to absorb themselves in the world. Yet it will reward in spades, and is often not as hard as one might think. So many of the social jests still ring true, and certainly all of the giddiness and confusion of the young narrator - and the complexities of Odette and Swann's relationship - haunt me so. Perhaps I will find the later novels harder, as I have not yet lived through some of the experiences, but when it comes to young love and development of artistic and social temperament, it's delightful (or, occasionally, sorrowful) to feel one's own past experiences so represented in print. Particularly when the book's entire discussion is on what we have lost, and whether or not we can ever regain it.

What we suppose to be our love our our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral...

(A note on translations - the new Viking editions, each by a different translator, are apparently quite good in bringing a more modern taste to the works. For me, I'm very happy thus far with the current Modern Library/Vintage edition. The original English translation, by Charles Scott Moncrieff, has been regarded as a classic for more than 90 years. However, it had notable Victorian traces that obscured some of the greatness of Proust, and has now been updated twice, first by Terence Kilmartin in the 1980s, and more recently by DJ Enright. One day, I will certainly read the Vikings, however I am currently enjoying the connection to the past. Scott Moncrieff lived in Proust's era; to have his works complete with expert emendations seems fitting, particularly for someone like myself interested just as much in the academic conversation around the books which, for many years in the Western world, used Scott Moncrieff as the foundation stone.)

A.E. Housman said, "This is the land of lost content". Over the course of this first volume, the narrator - and, as I'm sure will be confirmed once I read my first Proust biography - the author himself desperately attempts to return to this land, taking us all with him, reminding us all of how much we have lost with each passing year. The question becomes whether we let ourselves drift back, desperately, to that land, or whether we attempt to fashion a life out of what remains. I trust Marcel Proust to take me further on this journey, aided by the skilful English translators, and I have no doubt that the "Search" will prove to be the masterpiece of the Western canon that as so many great minds before me have discovered.

The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

[proustitutes · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Proust blew me away. Some of the smoothest, most comforting writing I've ever read. Externally, not much develops in terms of plot. But Proust manages to capture, in stunningly beautiful writing, the nuanced emotional depths that define our thoughts and, by extension, the whole of ourselves.

Really just beautiful..

As a codicil- comforting to see your most critical thoughts (the ones that flicker by you every moment one way then the next) captured. Thoughts that you have trouble expressing, that perhaps you deemed draining, overwhelming, abnormal in some way. Proust catches it all. Though not written with a reassuring tone it nevertheless is comforting.

[bpagano_5 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

I was shocked by how good this was. This first volume had a good pace to it and managed that (almost sublime) blend of plot development and poetic nostalgia. The parallels between Swann's life and the narrator's life were deftly handled and really added emotional punch to the final chapter.

I am looking forward to reading the second volume.

[jwarren42 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

To try to review a masterwork like this would be silly, so instead I will simply say (as I did for Crime and Punishment) that this novel is difficult for contemporary American readers--approach with lots of time on your hands. Where my note here differs from my note re: Crime and Punishment is that with this book I say "do approach!" There is a powerful, multi-generational story, here, and it's heartbreaking and lovely. WELL worth your time.

[chaosmogony · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I finally finished this after I made myself avoid other more entertaining books and buckled down for the ride.

Proust is not easy reading, and to this day I'm only marginally aware of what actually happened in this book. That said, there is a plot to it if you can pay attention and make it through the stream-of-consciousness meanderings. The way he plays with words makes it worth the price of entry, mind you; but this is not for plot and action junkies. In fact I'm not even sure you'll care much for the characters. Near as I can tell, it's about a kid remembering a rich guy he knew as a kid, who fell in love with a slutty chick and married her despite not liking her, and then the kid falls for the rich guy's daughter.

The worst part? I kinda miss the style and voice, and feel compelled to keep reading the remaining five books in the series. Help me.

[jmoncton_1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

I have a love-hate relationship with this book, or more accurately, a 'occastionally like - often hate' relationship. The prose is lyrical with amazing word selection. Listening to this in audio felt like I was hearing poetry. Much of the story describes Swann falling in love with his mistress who has several affairs with other men. The feelings of jealousy and frustration were so incredibly written and described. But several things drove me absolutely crazy about this book. First, the structure. The sentences are long making it difficult to parse and follow a thought. I read along with this on my Nook and many sentences took more than a screen so that I had to flip back and forth just to capture the entire thought. Much of the story is stream of consciousness musings about memory and the past making it hard to completely grasp. But my biggest complaint is that the two major characters, Swann and the narrator Marcel (Proust as a young boy perhaps?) were over the top as far as expressing their emotions. Marcel, a young boy, is devastated when his mother does not kiss him good night and when he leaves Combray, he weeps over the fact that he won't see the beautiful hawthorns. Swann's angst over his cheating lover was genuine and well described but the emotions associated with it were way too intense. This is only the first book of seven in this very LONG series. I'll definitely wait before picking up the next one.

[flydodofly · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Swann's Way is an opening of this life work and serves to present all kinds of ideas, and all the characters, too. I must admit that I found the book to be much "smaller" and "larger" at the same time. Some passages lead into a great unknkown realm of new ideas and are very philosophical, too, wheras other seem to busy themselves with stuff one could consider to be gossip. It was difficult for me to decide what to think, really, because the ideas I liked were sometimes buried under the rambling of the society. I suppose this is exactly how Proust felt himself most of the time and just shows his genious, but it made reading somewhat laborious. As many readers before me, I also wished I were able to read it in French, because somehow I am not sure whether English does Proust justice. I also compared it with a German translation and I almost think this works better.

[snash_44 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

All at once both spectacular and a slog which I suppose would make perfect sense to Proust. A sensuous florid exploration of memory, love, jealousy, desire, melancholy and the gyrations of the mind. There were descriptions of scenes that almost took your breath away, they were so novel and correct.

[m.belljackson · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Okay, you read Proust's first paragraphs and may have thought "Well, Proust isn't so difficult at all...."Then, up pops "metempychosis" to send many of us to a dictionary where we still may be puzzled,notably contrasting it with reincarnation. (Poe would hav loved this!)Next, one may be lulled back in until there's a "kaleidoscope of darkness...."Maybe back to read those first two pages again since light is usually a kaleidoscope factor.

[msf59 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

"To think that I've wasted years of my life, that I've longed to die, that I've experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn't appeal to me, who wasn't even my type." “The comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation” I have now read Proust. That would earn a quizzical, somewhat bemused look from my non-reading colleagues but it does hold a certain cache in literary circles. This is the first volume in his acclaimed In Search of Lost Time series. It is a novel about childhood, memory, and love, both genuine and imagined. It is also quite a challenge to get through despite the beautiful writing. The interminable mid-section dealing with Swann and Odette is particularly eye-glazing but I am glad I stuck with it. It did conclude in a satisfying way. If you have a desire to read this, after my somewhat lukewarm endorsement, please read the Lydia Davis translation. It was excellent and probably one of the main reasons I finished it.