Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1982-08-12
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: New. Book is Brand New, Gift condition. Free tracking # included! International buyers are welcome. We ship every business day. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! read more
Description: Very Good. Trade paperback. Very good condition; edges, corners, and covers of book show minor wear. No underlining; no highlighting; no internal markings. In sealed plastic protection. 1982. Trade paperback. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. book tight clean, bright pages, slight wrinkles front cover. Text in English, French. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 1056 p. Remembrance of Things Past (Vintage Books Paperback), 1. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: New. Text in English, French. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 1056 p. Remembrance of Things Past (Vintage Books Paperback), 1. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 1982-09-01
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780394711829. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1982-08-12
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: Very Good. Minor wear along the edges of book cover. A minor amount of hand-writing on the end pages. Minor amount of soiling to page edges. Other than that in excellent condition with tight binding and clean, unmarked pages that have no highlighting, underlining and/or hand-written notes on the rest of the book. We usually ship within 24 hours. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780394711829ISBN:0394711823
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Brand new & unread inside cover is very good. Text in English, French. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 1056 p. Remembrance of Things Past (Vintage Books Paperback), 1. Audience: General/trade. read more
"June 2002 I tried starting Proust's "Swann's Way"... it is really amazingly written but very slow going... it doesn't help that the first few pages describe waking up from a dream state and not really remembering where one is...
April 2003 I started reading Proust. It's really wonderful. Deborah gave me a tip which was very effective: she advised reading "Swann in Love", the second book, before reading Combray. It worked... after attempting to begin Combray (which is really exquisite, but at first read, a bit difficult) several times, I have managed to delve full on into Proust.
May 2003 let me just say: reading Swann in Love while actually feeling yourself falling in love is a beautiful thing.
Proust has this way of saying something rather obvious, and then breaking it down so granularly that at the end, you're amazed that he's actually tracked his emotional and psychological state to that fine of a degree. He really is dogged about pursuing a thought to the very last, no matter where it may take him or over what terrain he must traverse to get there.
Some lovely bits-o-proust that read like poetry:
- - -
"...stripes of its gaudy tartan..."
"...the unresisting submissiveness of light and lifeless matter."
"...the last peals of thunder growling among our lilac trees."
"...thick crumpled leaves..."
"...ruddy brilliance of ripe apples."
"...dense thatch of leaves..."
"...especially enamored of their imagined blue."
"...feeling bound to annotate with a malicious yet affectionate wink..."
"...the obsequious and reticent advances, the abrupt scruples and restraints..."
- - -
Proust says that love is impossible, or rather, that an essential component of love is the impossible. That is, if we see the impossible in another, it is attractive to us... that it offers us a clear screen to project a very intimate part of ourselves onto... it allows us to access an intimate part of ourselves which we would otherwise be barred from knowing. The love we project often has little to do with the actual reality of our beloved. In fact, much of love is about subjective pleasure. Love makes us happy because it exposes a kind of happiness within ourselves. The loss of love means that our intimacy with these parts of ourselves is also closed off forthwith."
"I loathe Proust and would never recommend his work to anyone. If only there were a way to give negative stars. I will tell you right now everything you need to know from this book. He eats a madeleine (shell shaped biscuit of sorts) dipped in tea and this sends him hurtling down memory lane. This scene probably gets referred to more than any other Proust moment so you can snobbishly refer to it and everyone will think you read the whole darn tome (since probably nobody else ever finished it either). How dare I be such a snot about a masterpiece? Oh well."
"I was first exposed to Marcel Proust in a world literature class in college. We had to read the Overture of Swann's Way, and I was hooked. While talking about the significance in literature of Proust tasting the Madeline cookie, I remained caught up in the drama. I wanted to know who this Swann character was and why exactly he'd be able to relate to the narrator's obsession for his mother and her bedtime kiss. My professor, perhaps in exasperation and perhaps because she thought I might actually enjoy it, told me Remembrance of Things Past read like a massive soap opera and maybe I was going to have to read the soap opera and find out for myself. Roughly two years later, that is exactly what I did.
It took me nearly six months to complete, and I had to have a dictionary handy most of the time. By the end of the six months and the end of the novel, I was sufficiently blown away as the final book came around full circle to meet the first. Now that I am reading Remembrance of Things Past for a second time, not only am I questioning my sanity a bit for taking on this mammoth of a tome yet again, but I'm also noticing themes and parallels that didn't jump out at me quite as readily the first time.
Obsession seems to be a major theme. In Swann's Way, Swann's obsession for Odette is framed beautifully by Proust's obsession for his mother's bedtime kiss at the beginning and his obsession with Swann's daughter Gilberte at the end. Within a Budding Grove continues with Proust's obsession for Gilberte during the first half and continues through the second as his obsession is transferred first to a friendship with Saint-Loup and then to his love for a group of girls on the shores of Balbec before finally resting on Albertine. Throughout the entire novel runs the thread of Proust's obsession with becoming a great writer, which, if memory serves, is realized in its final book.
As much as I am still blow away by Proust, I have to confess, his writing becomes tedious after a while. The man is positively neurotic and the king of digressions. It's not a novel to race through or to expect thrilling discoveries on every page; it's a novel to savor as Proust slowly reveals layer upon layer through its pages. Personally, my patience is not always up to the challenge Remembrance of Things Past presents, however, in the end, I feel greatly rewarded for my efforts regardless of how much I begrudged them in the interim."
"This is why I thought I loved Proust. The first 2 books are magnificent. After that, it got to be a chore. But I still have fond memories of young Marcel and the hawthorns. And that tease, Gilberte.
The Swann and Odette episodes were also absorbing, though painful at times."
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