In Search Of Lost Time, Vol 3
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"As close to being a definitive English version of the great novel as we are likely to get. This new edition will serve to introduce new generations of readers to what Somerset Maugham rightly described as the greatest novel of our century." -- Allan Massie, "Scotsman"
"The best reading version yet." -- "The Times"
"The best reading version yet." -- "The Times"
Book Description
The definitive translation of the greatest French novel of the twentieth century
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is part-three of 'In Search of Lost Time', Proust's semi-autobiographical novel about love, desire and what it means to be human. This volume is particularly focused on Marcel's love for (or obsession with) the Duchesse de Guermantes, one of whose grand apartments in Paris his family have just moved into.
This study of wealthy Parisian society at the beginning of the twentieth century is not my favourite episode of the whole work as it rambles a bit too much at times. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the point where some readers give up the journey. But if you want to read the whole thing (around 3,500 pages in all) obviously you will need to plow through this part, though there's no point in reading this volume if you haven't already read the previous two - 'Swann's Way' and 'In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower' (original English title 'Within a Budding Grove').
Which translation to go for? This relatively recent edition by Mark Treharne is not so very different from the original Scott Moncrieff version (which is still available) just updated into more modern prose, a little easier to read perhaps. It is the beauty of the writing that makes Proust special, and that certainly comes across here.
This study of wealthy Parisian society at the beginning of the twentieth century is not my favourite episode of the whole work as it rambles a bit too much at times. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the point where some readers give up the journey. But if you want to read the whole thing (around 3,500 pages in all) obviously you will need to plow through this part, though there's no point in reading this volume if you haven't already read the previous two - 'Swann's Way' and 'In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower' (original English title 'Within a Budding Grove').
Which translation to go for? This relatively recent edition by Mark Treharne is not so very different from the original Scott Moncrieff version (which is still available) just updated into more modern prose, a little easier to read perhaps. It is the beauty of the writing that makes Proust special, and that certainly comes across here.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This third book in Proust's epic cycle of quiet remembrance sees Marcel entering fully into adult life, and we are privileged once more with the opportunity to browse the strange aquarium of the existence he attempts to inhabit, insofar as his uniquely critical eye will allow him. Becoming once more immersed in the fabulously detailed observations, psychological and aesthetic, of his world, I've allowed myself to spend some few months reading this, taking time out for the odd diversion with less totally absorptive reading matter. With so little plot I have found that such excursions do not interrupt the pleasure to be had from these book. It seems I have learned now how best to approach them so as to maximally savour the near-baroque intricacies of the writing, reading much of it aloud, in the bath, as I would with poetry, just a very few pages at a time. As ever, little really happens. Various infatuations expire into detached disappointments. With the passing of his beloved grandmother we see less and less of the family, and the ever entertaining servant, Francoise, as Marcel becomes progressively absorbed into the vacuously aristocratic circle of the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes, his family's landlords and immediate neighbours. As other reviewers say, the book becomes a tough plod, specifically in its last two hundred pages, which subjects us to the most exhaustive possible account of a singularly excruciating dinner party. I am still wondering just what Proust intended at this point in his narrative. Is this full-fledged satire? He dissects, with abject cruelty, the many layers of hypocrisy that characterise a selection of people from a class who are portrayed as entirely parasitic, and who are at this point in history an archaic vestige of a modernising society. None of these odious lives have any bedrock of genuine meaning beneath the snobbery and philistinism by which they sustain the illusion of the centrality of their relevance. Indeed, at the end of the book Marcel himself seems in danger of turning into one of these people, having analysed both love and friendship to the very brink of extinction. It is easy to dismiss these people as anachronistic dinosaurs, mercifully extinct, or at least properly marginalised, and to take comfort in the belief that we ordinary folk are, for the most part, better, more genuine than that. But then something reminds us that all of us have something in common with these wretches. We all to some extent must create the meaning of our lives by insisting that much of what we do and are is for more important than it actually is. And we are all obliged to protect those meanings by banishing a host of uncomfortable truths to the backs of our minds, behind a wall of semi-truths and carefully managed ignorance. This last part of the book is indeed rather gruelling, and I found myself pushing through it in a few days, having relished what went before over a matter of months, just to get it done with. One wonders if it might have had a more immediate appeal, and been more obviously amusing to the readers of his day. However, this has in no way dented my enthusiasm for the grand project of completing the cycle, although I am most relieved to have finally escaped at last from the most suffocating dinner party I have ever been obliged to attend.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After finish the first 2 books I was keen to get started on the third but I have to admit that it took me twice as long to finish this one than any of the others in the series. As the previous reviewer commented I think this book may be the barrier to people reading the whole of 'In Search of Lost Time'.
The main problem was the endless parties and dinners which I found hard to wade through and generally a bit dull. I also have to confess that I couldn't exactly understand why the narrator was invited to these rarified salons as, and forgive me if I've missed something, he's neither particularly artistic or aristocratic. Also the conversations about pro/anti Dreyfusism were lost on me until I did some research into the Dreyfus affair.
All in all I didn't like this book as much as the ones before and you definately have to work harder to read it but it wasn't all bad. Unless your fascinated by the intimate workings of the Parisien salon you will probably find parts of it a slog but keep in mind that the next book is better and I don't really think you can miss this one out if you're going to read the whole series
The main problem was the endless parties and dinners which I found hard to wade through and generally a bit dull. I also have to confess that I couldn't exactly understand why the narrator was invited to these rarified salons as, and forgive me if I've missed something, he's neither particularly artistic or aristocratic. Also the conversations about pro/anti Dreyfusism were lost on me until I did some research into the Dreyfus affair.
All in all I didn't like this book as much as the ones before and you definately have to work harder to read it but it wasn't all bad. Unless your fascinated by the intimate workings of the Parisien salon you will probably find parts of it a slog but keep in mind that the next book is better and I don't really think you can miss this one out if you're going to read the whole series
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