[.ca] In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1: Swann's Way (ISBN 0679600051)

The pleasure of reading Proust (Volume I).:
Having just finished reading SWANN'S WAY for the fourth time, it remains at the top of my short list of favorite novels. Influenced by John Ruskin, Henri Bergson, Wagner and the fiction of Anatole France, Proust (1871-1922), in his "universality and deep awareness of human nature," is considered by Harold Bloom to be "as primordial as Tolstoy," and "as wise as Shakespeare" (Bloom, GENIUS, p. 218). Most recently, I re-experienced SWANN'S WAY through the Modern Library's new, 2003 revision of the Montcrieff/Kilmartin translation of Proust's IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, Volumes I through VI. Through an illuminating series of what Walter Pater has called "privileged moments," or what James Joyce might call "epiphanies," the narrative in SWANN'S WAY tells a dual story of unrequited love. The taste of a madeleine pastry brings with it a flood of childhood memories from the narrator's youth spent in Combray and Paris, mostly relating to his infatuation with Charles Swann's daughter, Gilberte, and Swann's obsessive affair with a courtesan, Odette de Crecy. Although Swann realizes Odette is not his type (p. 543) and suspects she is a liar, his jealous love for her consumes him. Odette is unsophisticated, has lesbian tendencies, and is rumored to be a prostitute. Even after he acknowledges he has "wasted years of \ohis\c life" on Odette (p. 543), Swann is nevertheless powerless to end their turbulent relationship. For Proust, human love becomes synonymous with suffering, failure, exhaustion, ruin, and despair (p. xviii) except, that is, for the love between a mother and son (symbolized in SWANN'S WAY by a memorable goodnight kiss, which leaves the young narrarator longing to tell his mother, "Kiss me just once more")(p. 15). SWANN'S WAY is not a feel-good novel, to be sure; for Proust, there are no limits to human suffering. He believed that any intrusion upon one's solitude is damaging, that we can only understand our pain if we approach it from a distance, and that friendship is somewhere on a scale between fatigue and ennui (Bloom, GENIUS, p. 218). In the end, Volume I of Proust's IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is about the lost and wasted years of human existence, and it prefaces things to come in subsequent volumes. There is a satisfying intellectual profit to be derived from the narrative of SWANN'S WAY. Proust reveals through his use of small illuminations that one may find rewards beyond the worldly ways of the human condition. Serious readers will find uncommon pleasure in the experience of reading SWANN'S WAY. For me, reading SWANN'S WAY is the best example of what it means to read "a good book." G. Merritt

Duelling Translations:
Those of us who love Proust - either from long acquaintance, or from reading him for the very first time - can count ourselves fortunate in now having two very fine English translations to work from: the classic Moncrieff/Kilmartin rendition of the complete novel, and the new Lydia Davis translation of "Swann's Way." I've read and enjoyed both, because each brings something special and valuable to the work. Davis is a breath of fresh air, being more literal (while still literary!) in that she follows the original French syntax and meaning more closely. I liked her translation, and applaud it. Normally, such a fine translation would be my first choice. However - and I admit this is a very subjective judgement - I was long ago seduced by the sheer beauty of Moncrieff/Kilmartin, and therefore cannot love the Davis translation quite so much. Of all authors, Proust requires us to surrender to the beauty of his language. Davis' translation is, for me, more likeable than loveable. Really, it's an old (and impossible to resolve!) conflict between the more literal and the more "poetic" type of translation. I've dealt with this myself, in trying to translate Baudelaire, and there's no perfect answer. One thing I'd suggest (if you haven't read MK) is to get the MK translation of Swann's Way, now available in a very inexpensive paperback, along with Davis so that you can get a feel for both ways of appreciating Proust's great and magnificent work.

Rewarding, but not an easy undertaking:
Obviously, Swann's Way is a classic piece of literature, one of the most vital works of fiction of the 20th Century. The prose, whether in the original French or in the beautifully translated English, is lush, evocative and deliriously prolix--from the moment the narrator takes a bite of that famous pastry, the reader is swept up into a world so tangibly realized and, at the same time, so hallucinatory in its lushness that he or she cannot fail to be drawn in, quite despite the fact that there's not much of a "plot" to carry the thing along. Instead, we are given intimate access to the minds of Swann, Odette and Proust himself and they are unbelievably fascinating people--so complex, so "real" that one is actually quite sorry when the book ends. Which brings me to my main point: Don't stop here. If Swann's Way is the most famous volume in the monumental "In Search of Lost Time" series, it is not necessarily the best. It is, in fact, something of an extended prologue to the later books, gracefully and movingly setting the scene for the far more dramatic twists and turns that will culminate in the mind-blowing final volume "Time Regained." While Swann's Way is a most compelling and satisfying read on its own, you'll miss out on so much beauty, drama and passion if you don't follow up and read through the full series, rich as it is with intrigue, consuming love, staggering insights into the human mind and outright entertainment value. So, Swann's Way is a must read, but one has to come to it realizing that the end of the novel is only the beginning of Proust's enormous, all-consuming magnum opus. No one will tell you that committing to Proust's fictional world is a slight undertaking, but it is a deeply rewarding one and a required one for all serious readers.

Being devoid of inspiration, my title is "TITLE":
Many things have been said about Marcel Proust to myself as the sarrounding adults gushed over the fact that a teenager was reading literature. That said, many of these people confessed they had never finished Proust all the way through; one went all the way to say he had found it too "subjective." If you are reading literature to read literture STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK! If you want to read an incredible novel, then go ahead; you will not desecrate Proust's grave. Many times as I read this book, I found myself pausing, almost pained at the beauty of the language. I have read many authors, and have never read such beautiful words; his descriptions seem so divine, and yet he spends the first part of the book saying that he himself can't write! It's one of those moments where you want to shake the author with mental fists, but it's okay; it adds flavour. Proust is probably among the greatest novelists of history (probably one down after Dostoevsky). The title of the series "In Search of Lost Time," immediately gives you the clue of what the theme shall be; moments of wasted time, moments of bliss that you wish to recapture, memories long gone that you wish you could recapture. But, that is the essense of life.

Another classic disappointment...:
This is the "Seinfeld" of literature: a long, drawn-out narrative about *nothing*. There are, however, other infinitely more enjoyable books that deal with memories and non-linear time. In my opinion, if a person is going to write a 3,000+ page self-reflective epic, he better be an interesting person, and this narrator is simply not one. At least not on any page of this introductory volume. Maybe he becomes interesting in a subsequent volume, but this one does not inspire me to attempt to find this out. I can appreciate the fact that this work was revolutionary in Proust's time, but I submit that in ours, it is more of a cure for insomnia than the literary masterpience it is cracked up to be.