Customer Reviews

Proust and Signs: The Complete Text

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Proust is usually examined in terms of the themes of time and memory. He is, indeed, one of the few writers who has genuinely interesting philosphical insights into these phenomenon. Deleuze, however, prefers to concentrate on the circulation of signs within Proust's work. The apprenticeship of Marcel as a writer is conceived of as an exploration of different kinds of sign: the signs of love, the signs of bourgious life, the signs of art. Marcel is a decoder and producer of these different signs. He passes through the signs given in experience to arrive at the (superior) signs of art.
As someone interested in both Deleuze and Proust, I found this book consistently stimulating. What i think is especially refreshing (and philosophically valuable) in Deleuze is his ability to generate concepts from the literary text he is reading - rather then imposing prefashioned categories onto the work. His book on Kafka is particularly rewarding in this respect.

A short and rewarding study, more remarkable as a defense of Art than an analysis of Proust, per se. While Deleuze has many knowing admirers,I have generally found his work difficult and conceptually self-indulgent, despite having some background in post-modernist Fr. thought. This book I found very "approachable" since the Proustian theme grounds Deleuze's discourse. There were still things I didn't understand but for all that, a fascinating commentary on aspects of Proust that is, moreover, perhaps , an excellent introduction to Deleuze. Now I must go back and again try his -- you name it. Not to mention a return to Proust.

I am doing a research on Proust which is very difficult but at the same time satisfactory to read. Deleuze makes an excellent reading of Proust and the meaning behind his text by referring to the certain linguistic signs. It says a lot about the reasons or the motives of the author behind the text; in other words, the truth behind the masks of words. You must read it definitely if you really like Proust or are working on his worldview. It says a lot about the age too, the Belle Epoque.

A somewhat peculiar but readable book by Deleuze. Deleuze examines Proust's massive epic in order to look for understandings of love, time, and art. He concludes that art is the only way we really have to understand truth, all other truths denying the interpretation we are always making of the world, even its seemingly most basic parts.