Okay, so Swann's Way blew my fuses (in a good way) when I read it a bit over a year ago, then i really struggled with A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs, which took me a really, really long time to read because I kept putting it down. If the Proust doesn't do it, that other stuff'll still be there for you to fall back on. So if you're casting around, please, at least think of giving this it a shot. Besides, reading Proust probably won't make you puke the first time, and it's not incompatible with an abiding love of homosexuality or Darwin's theory of evolution. But in the final analysis, the toll that recherching temps perdu will take on your functioning and personal relationships is considerably less than those associated with heroin addiction or Christian fundamentalism. You'll become completely obnoxious and will find yourself thinking and doing things you'd never have thought you would, now that this single force dominates your whole life. This is what's known in my business as a "harm reduction" approach: like addiction and religious conversion, hardcore Proust reading will suck up your time, alter your character, transform your life, and cause all your friends to hate you. If the cares of this world have grown far too painful and you're thinking of becoming a junkie or born-again Christian, I'd suggest that you take a less drastic step, and consider trying out Proust first, just to see how it grabs you. Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. Marcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu ( Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.īorn in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |