Product Description

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest, most enjoyable reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation. Each book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #156160 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

About the Author
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is now generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century.

Customer Reviews

Notes on the volumes of Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time'
If you have made it this far through 'In Search of Lost Time', Proust's rambling novel about wealthy Parisian society at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, then you will most likely already know if you are planning on reading the whole novel, which is often described as one of the greatest novels ever written.

But if you are new to Proust then it is essential that you begin with 'Swann's Way' not this volume, which was never intended to be a stand-alone novel. You really must read the original seven volumes, now sometimes rearranged into six, as one long book, and if you find Swann's Way hard going there's really no point in ploughing on, as it doesn't get any more 'exciting'. This isn't meant as a criticism however, just as a warning to anyone looking for a bit of light reading.

When you start reading Proust you embark on a long, slow but potentially very rewarding journey, full of superb writing and incredibly sensitive and humorous insights into human nature. There are several different translations of the work, each with its own merits. I won't go into those now, but I will stress that if you choose to read each volume separately you really must keep to the correct order, which is as follows: Swann's Way; Within a Budding Grove; The Guermantes Way; Sodom and Gomorrah; The Captive; The Fugitive; Time Regained.

It's definitely a journey worth making, if you can find the time.

The Pattinson Letters

Brian was a regular guy - or so he thought- living a more or less uneventful life with a decent job and a small detached house that he had built for himself just outside the village three years ago. Although his surname was Pattinson, people would repeatedly spell it 'Patterson'. When he decided to change his name to Patterson, to avoid further confusion, he started to receive a series of threatening letters - obviously intended to some other 'Brian Patterson'. Over several weeks, the letters become increasingly threatening and frequent, although they do not seem to explain why. Brian sought advice from the local police. However, there seemed no explanation for the letters and the police admitted that they were baffled. Eventually Brian changes his name back to 'Pattinson'.