Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) in Never too Late to Read Classics

Sep 02, 2014 Chrissie rated it it was ok

Shelves: classics, 2015-read, france, humor, relationships

For me this book was merely OK. That is not to say it doesn't have exceptional writing. You must like the style of writing to like the book. For me it was too wordy. The language employed is descriptive. It is like looking through a magnifying glass where all the descriptive words make the enlargement. People, clothes, hairstyles, facial expressions, rooms, objects, relationships, behavior - all are described with meticulous exactitude. I admire the author's ability to do this, but it is hard to ...more

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Oct 16, 2009 Laura rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio-books, fiction-20th-century, french-literature, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, read-2009, read-2013

Starting to read with my dear friend Lee.

Chapter I - Combray

Single facts, such as the feeling of insomnia of a patient in a hospital, a kiss of good-bye to his parents, the reading of Georges Sand's books and the famous description of eating a piece of "madeleine" with tee, give free rein to fancy of the main character.

I am loving to reading this book and I don't understand how I waited for such a long time to do it. Once we start to read it, we immerse into the story, the details give us the jo ...more

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Aug 07, 2020 Brenda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: proust-and-related-books

What to say.... This was not at all what I expected, I'll begin with that.

Proust seemed to bring around a whirl of emotions while reading. Fascination at some of the most beautiful descriptions, recognition in many of the feelings and thoughts surrounding love, lust, the wrong person, etc.., irritation at the snobbery and rudeness of many of the characters, dislike of Odette and her cunning behavior, the desire to slap Swann senseless and tell him to just make a run for it...

I had to edit my r What to say.... This was not at all what I expected, I'll begin with that.

Proust seemed to bring around a whirl of emotions while reading. Fascination at some of the most beautiful descriptions, recognition in many of the feelings and thoughts surrounding love, lust, the wrong person, etc.., irritation at the snobbery and rudeness of many of the characters, dislike of Odette and her cunning behavior, the desire to slap Swann senseless and tell him to just make a run for it...

I had to edit my review, as I realized I stopped reading before the end. I entirely missed "Place-Names..." to my detriment, as this really was a wonderful section. I loved the beginning with Prousts details on the city, it was a nice change of pace from towers and flowers. ; ) Then I was rather horrified, as now little Marcel is falling into the same trap that Swann was in regard to Gilberte. Ughhhhh. I thought finally that drudgery was over as the fool married that woman, but no...now Marcel is in love with the girl. And, the ad nauseam will probably continue. As Gilberte really seems an "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree" type of gal, and rather too much like her mother.

The ending was beautiful and brilliant however, and wrapped it up and left me with such warm fuzzies, that I can't not move on to the next book.

Sometimes I struggled reading this, and actually switched to audio toward the end to move things along (this is the first book of 7, so I needed to keep it moving). It can be wordy, and Proust is very descriptive. At times it can seem like overkill, but at times it can so perfectly describe something; a moment, a thought, a feeling, an object, that I was left in awe.

All in all, I liked the book. Perhaps when I retire and I'm a "lady of leisure" I'll have more time to revisit the book, and read it giving it the proper time and attention it deserves. In the back of my mind this is my plan - to eventually reread the tome. Although I still have 6 more volumes to go now, so perhaps that's ambitious thinking before I've barely made a dent in this session.

At any rate...I'm on to

Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2) by Marcel Proust

...more

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Jan 31, 2016 Karen added it · review of another edition

Once I read past the first section of Swann's Way, the book became more interesting, but at the end of the day, this was a very slow moving book. ...more

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