Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #240857 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07-31
• Released on: 2000-06-08
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

Ah, the madeleine dipped in tea
For the longest time, I was too intimidated to read Proust. Then, one day, I dived into this first volume like jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool. My only regret is not having jumped in sooner.

This book is the beginning of one of the greatest novels ever written. The prose and imageries are breathtaking--not at all difficult to read if you take the time to savor each sentence. Proust, like all great writers, makes you read on his terms. But once you've surrendered to the style, what a treasure you find yourself floating in. The themes and characters are universal. It makes me wish I knew French to enjoy Proust untranslated. Swann's Way can be read as its own novel. But once you start, you would surely want to continue on.

The greatest novel ever written. Period.
Proust is one of the very few authors who meets the test of time. After one has absorbed the religious eccentricities of Tolstoy and Dostoevski, they lose some of their appeal. But in Proust there is nothing of the sort. Nothing in him is childish (unless, of course, he is actually describing a child) and nothing in him is pretentious. In fact, I really cherish this novel because it is simply the longest set of true statements which I have ever read. From beginning to end. Proust was obsessed with putting down the truth as he saw it, and in language which has moved many other major authors to tears of admiration and envy.

Watch out! The first two volumes (!) really function as an overture, and in volume 3 everything changes, as the novel becomes almost Dickensian. I don't think you will ever be able to forget the Baron de Charlus, or Mme de Guermantes, or Gilberte, or Albertine, or Saint-Loup, or any of the rest of the magnificent cast of characters.

Not for everyone, but, then again, TV is for everyone, and who wants that?

i am no literary scholar and....
...and i have not even finished even the first volume of this dauntingly sprawling work known as a la recherche du temps perdu, but i know what i like and i have just fallen in love with swann's way. yes, it would be silly to deny that proust does like to go on and on quite prodigiously but what a sumptuous journey! i feel almost wicked indulging in proust - and what is his writing if not supremely self-indulgent - but i find myself continually redeemed by his carefully and extensively detailed insights which unfold and arise so naturally, almost indiscernibly, from the complex interplay of memory, sensation and emotion. as i read, often i find myself either smiling with joy or on the verge of tears, moved by the beauty with which proust reveals simple, almost mundane, truths, which are all the more profound by virtue of their mundanity. in any case, i don't think it's fair to banish so bitterly all those for whom this book is a thing of joy and pleasure to the realm of the pretentious. besides, i prefer to think of myself as voluptuous, not pretentious (sniff, sniff) here's a tip: forget profundity if you must and just revel in the gorgeous details of his recollections, his attempts to recapture the past through memory. this is not a book to rush, you must let it's luxuriant and gauzy veil envelop you.