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In Search of Lost Time: Proust 6-pack (Proust Complete)

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Depending on how you look at it, this seven-volume masterpiece is the most beautiful work on human consciousness, or the most overstated piece on time and memory. Jorge Luis Borges might have had Proust in mind when, horrified at the time and effort required to write long novels, he instead decided to write short reviews of imagined long novels. Whatever the energy expended in the production, the reading is strangely without ardous labor. One does not "plough" through Proust; I would never have ploughed through anything for 12 long months. Instead, I found myself pleasurably swept along by Proust's meandering stream. Of all great novelists, Proust to me was the easiest to read, easy in the sense that, for most of the year, I was unconscious of the effort of reading. When pressing matters intruded into my life, I would leave Proust aside for many weeks at a time, but only to return to him as one returns to wearing one's favourite shirt. Perhaps this weird sense of effortlessness and, at the same time, finding it absolutely indispensible, is a function of its main concern, which is Time and Memory. There are no plot devices to push the reader forward. Instead the Time-Narrative is filled with the inanities of the quotidian. A shaft of sunlight falling into the bedroom can take up many pages. A smell, a taste, can open up enormous floodgates of memory. Of Proust it may be said that he could turn an egg upside down and write a book about it. His persistance with a certain image or an object is astonishing. It reminds me of one those famous Impressionist paintings of haystacks seen under different lights.

Among the first things that struck me about this novel is its paradoxical nature: It is both intimate and epic at the same time. It is limited in its milieu and vast in its treatment of that milieu. It is minute, delicate brain-surgery done on a Tolstoyan scale.

At the centre is the narrator Marcel (though, in all the 4000 pages, he is named only once or twice). He wants to be a writer, but finds that he cannot sit down and write because he is unable to recapture the Time-Memory of his life. His writer's block lasts through seven volumes. His tenacity in trying to pin down his sensations has much to do with his artistic ambitions. but all his efforts are in vain. At one point he decides to give up altogether. When in the end he does regain "his time", it is only because of memories and sensations coming back to him quite accidentally, despite himself. He is finally able to write. The delight here, however, is ambivalent and bittersweet, for, as he says in a memorable line: "The true paradises are those that we have lost." Literature has its limits. In calling his magnum opus itself into question, Proust is thoroughly a modern writer.

The book has pleasures aplenty, the most surprising of which being its humour. Proust has created a vast portrait gallery of characters, each one vividly imagined, and it is the interactions amongst them that provide the work's funniest moments. Proust's world is a world of fading dukes and duchesses, counts and barons, princesses and kings. It is a sort of caste system, ameliorated by an imperceptible upward or downward social mobility. Whichever way they go, none of them can abandon their pretensions of noblesse oblige, the most ironic example of which is the denigration of the aristocracy wherein they are firmly ensconced, and the pleasures and privileges of which they would not want to eschew for anything in the world.

Proust's frank treatment of male homosexuality and lesbianism is something I have not encountered in any other great writer. One entire volume is titled SODOM AND GOMORRAH. Here these "inverts" behave like regular couples: they love, they get jealous, they break up. But they are not treated kindly. They seem another reflection of the decadence of the upper classes. Is this self-chastisement by Proust, who was himself a homosexual ? The characters who are later discovered to be homosexuals are portrayed as descending to death or degradation.

Great books seem somehow to attract great translators. This translation (Scott Moncrief, Terence Kilmartin) renders Proust's French into delightfully quaint, slightly archaic English. Proust's sentences are very long indeed, interlaced with subordinate clauses within clauses, which contributes to the breathless earnestness of the narrative. But it's all perfectly readable, once you get used to it, and positively addictive once you're well into it.

Need the novel have been this long ? Proust's mission is not so much to examine Time, but to look at how human beings change in relation to their past, how memory, reality, sensations all play upon human consciuosness. The reader, to appreciate Proust's super-sensibilities, ought to traverse the whole vast canvas that he has laid out. In this sense the novel's length is an invitation to us to invest a considerable part of our own Time to participate in this great Proustian odyssey, and in his quest to "regain" his own Time. The very act of reading, then, is part of the "story". There is only one other book that has given me a similar sensation: Thomas Mann's THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, which, interestingly enough, also deals with time. Time was great theme of the early 20th century (Einstein, Bergson), and so was the human consciousness(Freud, Jung). But it is best to appreciate Proust without the intrusions of any "isms", to love IN SEARCH for all its luminous qualities.

I've just finished reading The Search for Lost Time and I'd like to share a few thoughts.

First, commit to reading the whole thing, all seven volumes, all million+ words. However if the commitment frightens you (as it should) first read Swann's Love, the middle part of the first volume.

Second, if you commit don't be afraid to take a break and leave the book aside. I began reading it fifteen years ago, and read Swann's Love several times before finally getting a one volume omnibus and reading the whole thing. It took me eight months, during which I freely allowed myself to read other books.

Third, don't read Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life until you're reached the final volume. It's a wonderful book, but if you want to read the Search, then De Botton's little book is a "digestif" that will help you put Proust in perspective.

Fourth, you don't have to read Proust. No one does. If you don't enjoy reading the Search, leave it alone. Proust never liked the title "The Search for Lost Time" and I think he might have actually preferred the now discredited original English translation title "Remembrance of Things Past".* In French Lost Time (Temps Perdu) implies a waste of time, and Proust was very conscious of having wasted the first forty years of his life.

Lastly, I wouldn't worry too much about the translation. I read the Search in French and it struck me that translating Proust wouldn't be much harder than reading him. The essence of Proust's style is not dramatic rhetoric, it is patient and painstaking descriptions and explanations. He wants the reader to understand something very complex and subtle: his or her own self. You'll find the drama in his philosophy. His sentences are long, convoluted, dreamy, full of meandering turns, but Proust doesn't use French the way, for instance, La Fontaine or Hugo do. Most of Proust's meaning will survive the translation, very little will be lost.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

*I was wrong there, Proust hated the "Remembrance..." title. See the comments for details.

Vincent

This is a review by an amateur reader for amateur literati. I'm 71. I am not taking a college literature class (although I am college educated and have an M. D. degree, if that means anything); I'm not a professor, and I don't hang out in book clubs. Lately, after years of laziness and negligence, I've at last read about 50 "important" books to catch up on what I have missed, and, notably for me, at last, after fear of commitment, have recently finished Proust's magnum opus to see what the fuss was all about. I read it straight through over a 9 month period, in parcels of minutes to hours, usually in the quiet time before retiring. In an effort to give my straight unbiased comments I have not read any the reviews here.

The Modern Library 6 book cased edition by translators Moncrieff, Kilmartin, and Enright, turned out to be more than good; it was a delightful, easy style, not obscure or convoluted; you readily could appreciate Proust's incredibly detailed yet smooth, almost poetic style, with his superb attention to psychological detail in how one thinks, feels and reacts to events and memory. I will not go much into the plot or the literary stature of the book as I am sure it has all been covered elsewhere quite capably. I will say the main theme is the close critical observation of the social life of the era, the pretensions of the very rich and the competing social climbers, and more significantly, the conveying of one's life to such an extent that it almost takes over your own; you may well be lured into taking one reality for the other.

Did I get everything out of the book I could have? No. Why? Well, when you start, you don't know what is significant, which characters are going to be important later on, what is the importance of a certain view, a particular impression, a flower, a scene, a smell, a remembrance which will later be elaborated on by another remembrance. There are supposedly about 2000 characters, and the 3500 pages, or so. The characters may have strange names or similar names (Villeparisis, Verdurin, Vinteuil); they may change their names (Mme Guermantes aka Oriane then v Princess Guermantes now as taken over by Mme Verdurin). M. Guermantes is Basin. Charlus is Meme, and Palamede. If you have trouble with remembering names this tangled multi-personed story may not be for you.

When you get into the later volumes will you remember everything that went on in the earlier volumes? Will you remember all the names? Checking the synopsis and the alphabetical listing of characters and persons and places and themes in the Modern Library indices will help you along; but these sometimes are not too clarifying -- they mostly list the bare events and brief definitions, not analysis in depth.

For adjunctive help I suggest two books *about* the book, unless you just want to read it raw --a sensible procedure since, after all, a renowned author should be able to write clearly, better than anyone else. If otherwise, first I recommend a tiny well-illustrated booklet, "Marcel Proust" by Mary Ann Caws, 2005, a short biography with dozens of photos, color illustrations, thumbnails of paintings and a few snippets of music scores; this is a fetching companion which puts a little meat on the bones of the novel. For example, you get to see the famous Vermeer with the "little patch of yellow wall." There are photos of many of the characters in Proust's world: Colette; Sarah Berhardt, Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (I love that tongue twister. Curious?)

The second helper is "Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time - A Reader's Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past" by Patrick Alexander a 385 paperback that gives an extended summary (beyond what's in the backs of the novel itself) and a guide to the main characters, plus good references and bits about Paris, France and the author's life.

Take a deep breath and plunge into it unaided and see how it fits together at the end, when everyone is old and the story gels. If you followed everything, great! If there is a struggle, try the assistants. If you are puzzled, you get to read it again!

I finished Proust's magnum opus a couple of years ago. I read SWANN'S WAY, then got about a quarter of the way through WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE, before stopping and taking a year's hiatus. When I returned to it I read straight through the remaining 6 volumes. Proust became for me, not so much a duty, or even a quest, but an addiction. There is really not much to add other than the fact that these books affected me more than any other books I have read. Once you are drawn in there is no escape. What one encounters within are some of the most fascinating and frustrating people one can imagine, and some of the most profound ideas and greatest insights on human nature ever recorded.

There are a number of themes explored here, each in unique and incisive fashion..the nature of memory, fidelity, love, obsession, jealousy, homosexuality, and the nature of art. It has been designated as semi autobiographical, but maybe it is the greatest autobiography ever written, since it portrays in detail, the truest possible representation of the author's heart, mind, and soul. It is perhaps, the most important and influential literary work of the 20th century.

IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME occupied the last 13 years of Proust's life, the last 3 of which he was confined to a cork lined bedroom due to deteriorating health. Unfortunately, Proust died before he was able to make final revisions of the drafts and proofs of the last volumes. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME was the culmination of a lifetime spent critically observing his world, while absorbing important literary, artistic, philosophic, and cultural influences from the great minds of contemporaries and predecessors such as Henri Bergson, Schopenhauer, John Ruskin, Flaubert, Stendhal, Montaigne, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and George Eliot. Having processed all that information, through his genius Proust recreates in meticulous detail a late 19th century France where minds, hearts, and souls are at times lucid and painfully exposed, and at times hide perplexing mysteries, but always are as tangible as the architecture, landscapes, fashions, and diversions of an emerging bourgeoisie and a fading nobility.

Seven books, six volumes, 4300 pages--makes "war and peace" look like a short story. That's marcel proust's "in search of lost time". It is an excellent read and is highly recommended to the lover of quality literature.

Simply put, it is the story of the protagonist and how he became an author. although some feel its sense of time makes it a difficult book to read, that is not my perception. It starts somewhere near the end and then comes back to the beginning where it proceeds in a generally chronological order. It is therefore a fairly easy book to read but for the sometimes very long sentences and paragraphs. There is much more observation than conversation. It is an extremely insightful book that makes you look philosophically at almost all aspects of your life. It doesn't preach; it makes you think.

the novel covers a myriad of topics: maternal love, heterosexual love, homosexuality, time, memory, jealousy, social class, old age, death and many others. It does so beautifully, insightfully and humorously. To call the writing poetic is really to sell it short. These books have some of the most beautifully written segments that I have ever read. The best is the author's recollection of his waiting for his mother to come up and kiss him good night. ("swann's way", page 15). If you are ever in a book store, pick up the modern library version of the book and just read that paragraph. I guarantee that you will buy the book and bring it home.

I also particularly like the modern library 6 volume collection. What makes it so good are the references at the end of each volume and particular the references that cover all the volumes that are in the last book, "time regained". This section lets you look back at all the characters and themes that you have encountered in the book and go directly to the pages where they are referenced. With a story this long, this reference material is essential.

Don't think you have to read each book one after the other. They were written years apart, with the end written before many of the later books. I read 2-3 books between each of the volumes and had no difficulty picking up where I had left off.

I would also suggest that you read up on the dreyfus case as it plays a central role in the social interactions that take place in the story.

This is a great book that every lover of good literature should read.

Forget all those other translations of "A la recherche du temps perdu" that have appeared in recent years. The classic Moncrieff translation in this Modern Library "six-pack" edition--as revised in accordance with the definitive French edition--is the only Proust any English-language reader will ever need. C.K. Scott Moncrieff's English translation is so good, in fact, that it deserves to be considered a classic of ENGLISH literature. This is one of the most beautiful books you will ever read. Guaranteed. Check it out.

If someone one day I would want to read 4,000 pages of dense, hyperliterate ramblings, filled with labrynithian run-on sentences that sometimes go on for page, I would NEVER have believed them. Two years after reading all of it, I now find myself longing to spend afternoons immersed in this beautiful and majestic work. And while it's fair to say James Joyce's Ulysses deserves to be considered the best novel of the 20th century, I feel "In Search of Lost Time" is the greatest novel, not only of the 20th century, but of all time. It is worth the trouble, the maddening passages, and the frustration that seems to come along with reading it.

These books are a MUST read, but you totally overestimate my reading ability. Reading 6 "books" in a month is an accomplishment in itself; reading ONE Proust in a month, letting it settle and sit and read nothing else would deserve gold medal in my opinion.

For everyone who loves literature reading Proust and benefiting from his art is as important as breathing.

rkr

It is a nice collection, however, it is a pity the publisher didn't provide a thicker cover for each book and make the size a little larger. A collection of literature of this importance (and given the quantity of pages) should be more substantial in terms of the physical aspects of the books. It comes in a decorated cardboard case - but the money to produce this would be better spent in the books.

Proust's philosphical epic creates an aesthetic of time lost, of emotion's catalytic role in spiritual memory, of the fetish that is sexual jealousy, of the silliness of snobbery, and of the consoling beauty to be found from close observation to art and to life. And it is a seemingly infinite chain of self-referential patterns which spell out those themes. In brief, it's a perfect literary fractal.