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thebestmark's review
reflective
slow-paced
The central concern of this book, that there is an infinitely expansive landscape of memory in the mind of any given person which can be unleashed through the power of sense-memory, is such a profoundly evocative subject Proust explores to the tiniest detail that it totally overwhelms the actual content of this first chapter of In Search of Lost Time. As a reader with very little knowledge about Proust outside of vaguely understanding what the phrase 'Proustian reverie' indicates, I was surprised to learn that Swann's Way is, in fact, a deeply sympathetic portrait of a pathologically jealous man painted at three layers of remove from his actual lived experience. It is a book told from the perspective of an adult man, who is recalling, through the memory of his childhood, apprehending gossip about the romantic/sexual proclivities of some guy named Swann who fell in love with a sex worker and just could not keep his shit together. Piling onto that, the narrator is this weirdo of a kid with a diagnosable fixation on receiving kisses from his helicopter mom.
I don't mean to describe Swann's Way in such unflattering terms to denigrate it so much as to describe it and work through my feelings on it. The sort of unspoken aspect of Proust's project (unspoken to me, at least, who has only ever been exposed to Proust second-hand by reputation and parody) of tracing back sense-memories and immortalizing them is that there is a profound, unbidden psychological and psycho-sexual longing that dominates the work. In the pursuit of extracting the rawest and most perfect description of a life already-lived, the feelings that would seem the most inexpressible to the person experiencing them are the ones that reign over the rest of the narrative. Swann's Way is a story with a remarkable amount of historical and descriptive detail that nevertheless gives way to this kind of animalistic honesty that's so direct, so undisguised, that it's almost hard to read it written so plainly. It's the literary equivalent of being put into The Matrix to relive puberty but with all the power and language of a world-class modernist author.
And so, in spite of the fact that Swann's Way is so familiar in that it deals mostly in the big, broad feelings of childhood, it also feels unlike anything else I've read. But Proust's overwhelming concern with five-alarm fire-scale psychosexual repression must by necessity color over so much else about his life and relationships. It's like reading a book in which the sort of thematic or poetic framing of the topic at hand master the author, rather than the other way around. But Swann's Way is only the first part of a very long story, making any kind of definitive takeaway from having read only this part impossible.
I don't mean to describe Swann's Way in such unflattering terms to denigrate it so much as to describe it and work through my feelings on it. The sort of unspoken aspect of Proust's project (unspoken to me, at least, who has only ever been exposed to Proust second-hand by reputation and parody) of tracing back sense-memories and immortalizing them is that there is a profound, unbidden psychological and psycho-sexual longing that dominates the work. In the pursuit of extracting the rawest and most perfect description of a life already-lived, the feelings that would seem the most inexpressible to the person experiencing them are the ones that reign over the rest of the narrative. Swann's Way is a story with a remarkable amount of historical and descriptive detail that nevertheless gives way to this kind of animalistic honesty that's so direct, so undisguised, that it's almost hard to read it written so plainly. It's the literary equivalent of being put into The Matrix to relive puberty but with all the power and language of a world-class modernist author.
And so, in spite of the fact that Swann's Way is so familiar in that it deals mostly in the big, broad feelings of childhood, it also feels unlike anything else I've read. But Proust's overwhelming concern with five-alarm fire-scale psychosexual repression must by necessity color over so much else about his life and relationships. It's like reading a book in which the sort of thematic or poetic framing of the topic at hand master the author, rather than the other way around. But Swann's Way is only the first part of a very long story, making any kind of definitive takeaway from having read only this part impossible.
nadjasaric's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
preciousmist's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Will need to reread to fully appreciate but: Oh My God.
bookish_5280's review against another edition
5.0
First proust experience ever! Such a beautiful style :) but VERY attention-intensive lol
I really want to reach a level of French at which I can fully enjoy Proust--maybe in a few years, after I've read all of "In Search of Lost Time" in English, I can begin to attempt the original :). It would be so lovely to dedicate a few years to extracting personal meaning from the series.
I really want to reach a level of French at which I can fully enjoy Proust--maybe in a few years, after I've read all of "In Search of Lost Time" in English, I can begin to attempt the original :). It would be so lovely to dedicate a few years to extracting personal meaning from the series.
juliekreddy's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
sad76ersfan's review against another edition
5.0
The only book (until now) I’d ever give 5 stars. I read it 8 years ago, can’t remember what happened other than he was way too attached to his mom and then fell in love with a prossie. The book changed how I saw language, changed how I write.
The biggest thing was that before, I didn’t believe that whatever I had felt had already at some point in time been somebody else’s exact experience. It also had a massive impact on the kinds of books I later sought out, and got me into philosophy.
The biggest thing was that before, I didn’t believe that whatever I had felt had already at some point in time been somebody else’s exact experience. It also had a massive impact on the kinds of books I later sought out, and got me into philosophy.