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"Time Regained," the final volume of "In Search of Lost Time," begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war' s end, Proust' s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the raw material of literature-- his past life. This Modern Library edition also includes the indispensable "Guide to Proust," compiled by Terence Kilmartin and revised by Joanna Kilmartin. For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin' s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff' s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of "Á la recherché du temps perdu" (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothè que de la Plé iade in 1989).… (more)
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Analysis of society, and the motivations of individuals, is a central theme throughout the work. In this volume, Marcel also reflects on how memories of the same event can vary widely from person to person, and how decisions or actions that seem inconsequential can have long-term effects:
But the truth, even more, is that life is perpetually weaving fresh threads which link one individual and one event to another, and that these threads are crossed and recrossed, doubled and redoubled to thicken the web, so that between any slightest point of our past and all the others a rich network of memories gives us an almost infinite variety of communicating paths to choose from.
And finally, as Proust closes a circle by connecting back to the first pages of In Search of Lost Time, I began to grasp the genius of this work. I say “began” because I sense that more insight can be gained by re-reading Proust from time to time. Will I do so? Only time will tell. For now I am perfectly happy to have read it once
Despite reviews I have read that claim the translator of the final volume does not do as good a job as Moncrieff does on all the other ones, I found this volume refreshing in its different tone, though after half way through I ceased to notice any of the differences in style between the two that were apparent to begin with.
Why this book is called time regained escaped me until very near the end, as most of this volume is about the way time has fled Proust, who realises he has become old. Much of the book consists of his lamentations of departed youth; a more relevant title that suggested itself to me would simply be “Temps Disparu”, Time Disappeared, as his search for lost time throughout the book has ended in the lost time not in a reality being found, with the revelation that he has little time left. But, in some senses, he does find his lost time, in one way in his observation that time repeats itself, that situations occur again, are never annihilated for good, and in a second sense, that he finally manages to pin down his lost time by recording it all in his novel, which ends at the point that he begins to write it.
I was beginning to suspect, at some point nearing the end of the novel, that I would be disappointed with its conclusion, but after spending no time reflecting upon it, having only just finished it, it is quite clear that the ending is fitting to the work, and that it makes worth while the reading of the whole.
The shocking thing that you discover - or at least that I discovered - in this book is how
In passing he mentions having fought duels and his military service. These things don't jive with the picture of the narrator that I had in my mind, but that is because we cannot really know the narrator based on the brief - though lengthy in text - encounters that we've had with him. Each part of the larger work only really describes a moment or an afternoon or a summer in the entire life of the character.
I am sad that I am finished and have no more Proust to look forward to.
But even during the narrative, Marcel realized memory’s willfulness and the variation in hues, shapes, pitch and timbre between the actual object and its mental reconstruction. When he encountered an old friend, the facial features were so different from his recollection and reconstruction, for better or for worse pregnant with all the emotions, preoccupation, biases, that he could not match face with voice.
Because recollected sensation can never equate with the actual experience and time, like a patient thief, steals memories a morsel at a time until one day the owner would realize he was ruined, Marcel ultimately would fail to recapture and assemble stolen sensations and decayed seconds and in the end, must create new moments, new sensations and ultimately a new biography, through the synergy between past experiences and creative imagination. From those deceased hours and decayed memories sprouted In Search of Lost Time, not only Proust’s novel but also that of the narrator.
Whether we savor Marcel’s frailness, Swann’s infatuation, Charlus’s pompousness, Franscoise’s independent-mindedness, the sorties’ frivolousness or the social revelation of the Dreyfuss Affair, we can enjoy Proust’s classic without resorting to Marxist or Freudian or Feminist critique. And the sentences, like the serpentine Amazon, seemed to flow unceasingly into the distant horizon carrying with it the sparkling sunlight. Although ascending the novel’s three thousand pages appears precipitous, the effort will be well worth the while and, at the end of the adventure, the reader can rest on the crisp apex and savor time’s transience and memory’s playfulness as if they were alpine zephyrs.
Theory aside, this is one of the stronger volumes on its own terms- the war adds spice, there's no denying it, and, well, there's lots more BDSM.
I guess my final impression is that Proust's novel is undeniably an important one, a classic whose major flaws are ones of length and repetition. I don't agree with all those Proust "experts" who call it a comic masterpiece or one of the funniest books ever written. Yes, it has wit, but you aren't going to find any knee-slappers here. You don't find this book on any of those lists of funniest books. I tried to find some critics who had written about the book's flaws. Apparently there aren't any. There are only superlatives -- it's got everything, you know, and if you haven't realized that, then maybe you need to read the whole 3,300 pages a few more times. Sure thing...
In the final installment, our narrator attends a party after decades absence from the social scene to find with shock that they have all aged considerably, and hence so has he. He spends much of the novel trying to reconcile his vision of these people with the differing characters they are now.
Even though "In Search of Lost Time" was very challenging and slow going for me, I am so very glad to have read the series. It is certainly deserving of its reputation as one of the great modern novels.
That was my reaction on reaching the final line of Proust’s masterwork, and no doubt the reaction of most others.
The seventh and final volume has its own new developments, along with some revisiting of earlier episodes, such as M’s discussion with Gilberte about that day when they first saw each other in Combray.
There are some vivid scenes of wartime Paris in 1916, and wild sexual nightlife beyond anything hinted at earlier, involving, of course, Charlus.
Later, when M returns to Paris after the war, after a longer absence, he sees his old society friends - the ones that are still alive - and we get their updated status. The one misstep I see is the new marriage of Mme. Verduran - I just don’t buy it.
M himself, the narrator, does seem older in personality, somewhat wiser, more measured and more likeable.
The highlight of this volume is M’s flash of inspiration about the book he must write, inspired by additional incidents of “involuntary memory”, and reflections on the madeleine episode from the very first volume.
Proust more or less directly states the intention and themes of the book, although of course it is not something to be summed up in a sentence or two, or three; I will need to reread it to more fully understand. Yet it is great to hear Proust talk about what the book is going to be, and how it will be something that has never been done before.
And looking at the full seven-volume work, the themes of deep time, of memory (both voluntary and involuntary), of moving our consciousness in time and outside of time, and of art, are all there, deeply embedded in the narrator and all his thoughts, experiences, and the people he knows.
I still question Proust’s intentions on some of the other themes, and two in particular. First, the enormous amount of the work that is spent at dinner parties and similar society events, reciting the meaningless small talk and wry glances passed back and forth. Why does Proust spend so much time and energy on these scenes?
And secondly, the recurring theme of jealous, suspicious love, and specifically the love of men for younger, poorer and more vivacious women (sometimes men). The kind of love that makes the man suffer and lose sleep, distracts him from any other productive life. What is Proust trying to say by going into such psychological depth relating how these men experience such loves?
But the great distinction of Proust is the texture and flow of his sentences, those long rivers stuffed with subclause upon subclause. You have to be in the right mood, and correctly attuned to the rhythm of his prose, to really enter into the work. Some days my mind was flowing along with Proust’s sentences, like a raft handling every little bend in the river; on other days it was a struggle, and I had to reread every sentence multiple times before getting a partial understanding of what it was saying.
The most difficult part of the whole work, for me, was that first few pages of Swann’s Way. Pages with no plot, no clear characters, nothing that really happens, and full of difficult thoughts expressed in roundabout phrasings. But was that difficulty because of Proust’s writing there, because he hadn’t yet mastered his true style? Or was it me, because I was new to Proust, and new to the Moncrieffian prose of the English translation. Before I start delving into the secondary literature, I think I might just open Swann’s Way again, to check on this.
That was my reaction on reaching the final line of Proust’s masterwork, and no doubt the reaction of most others.
The seventh and final volume has its own new developments, along with some revisiting of earlier episodes, such as M’s discussion with Gilberte about that day when they first saw each other in Combray.
There are some vivid scenes of wartime Paris in 1916, and wild sexual nightlife beyond anything hinted at earlier, involving, of course, Charlus.
Later, when M returns to Paris after the war, after a longer absence, he sees his old society friends - the ones that are still alive - and we get their updated status. The one misstep I see is the new marriage of Mme. Verduran - I just don’t buy it.
M himself, the narrator, does seem older in personality, somewhat wiser, more measured and more likeable.
The highlight of this volume is M’s flash of inspiration about the book he must write, inspired by additional incidents of “involuntary memory”, and reflections on the madeleine episode from the very first volume.
Proust more or less directly states the intention and themes of the book, although of course it is not something to be summed up in a sentence or two, or three; I will need to reread it to more fully understand. Yet it is great to hear Proust talk about what the book is going to be, and how it will be something that has never been done before.
And looking at the full seven-volume work, the themes of deep time, of memory (both voluntary and involuntary), of moving our consciousness in time and outside of time, and of art, are all there, deeply embedded in the narrator and all his thoughts, experiences, and the people he knows.
I still question Proust’s intentions on some of the other themes, and two in particular. First, the enormous amount of the work that is spent at dinner parties and similar society events, reciting the meaningless small talk and wry glances passed back and forth. Why does Proust spend so much time and energy on these scenes?
And secondly, the recurring theme of jealous, suspicious love, and specifically the love of men for younger, poorer and more vivacious women (sometimes men). The kind of love that makes the man suffer and lose sleep, distracts him from any other productive life. What is Proust trying to say by going into such psychological depth relating how these men experience such loves?
But the great distinction of Proust is the texture and flow of his sentences, those long rivers stuffed with subclause upon subclause. You have to be in the right mood, and correctly attuned to the rhythm of his prose, to really enter into the work. Some days my mind was flowing along with Proust’s sentences, like a raft handling every little bend in the river; on other days it was a struggle, and I had to reread every sentence multiple times before getting a partial understanding of what it was saying.
The most difficult part of the whole work, for me, was that first few pages of Swann’s Way. Pages with no plot, no clear characters, nothing that really happens, and full of difficult thoughts expressed in roundabout phrasings. But was that difficulty because of Proust’s writing there, because he hadn’t yet mastered his true style? Or was it me, because I was new to Proust, and new to the Moncrieffian prose of the English translation. Before I start delving into the secondary literature, I think I might just open Swann’s Way again, to check on this.
This volume was an extremely satisfying and poignant conclusion to an unforgettable reading experience. I look forward to thumbing through all of the volumes to look at my notes and highlighted passages before writing and overall conclusion of this reading experience.
Before all of this, World War One enters the story in this volume. The narrator learns that Combray has become a torn-up battleground. The drawing-room salons have to reduce their grandeur in wartime, and high society takes an awkward line between ignoring and acknowledging the war in their behaviours and discussion. This is a part of the final volume's reflections upon change, upon the divergences that emerge between past and present that can never be reconciled except in memory. There's some measure here of reconciling Saint-Loupe's present and former selves which heals one of my gripes I had, and again ties into the theme. But nothing happens to smooth over the Albertine debacle. In fact the narrator just keeps doing the same horrible thing over and over, baldly stating that his memories of her now stir absolutely no feelings in him, and it made me angrier every time. It's disturbing how little he learned from the experience. When his future love is introduced to him I wanted to yell at her to run, run while she still can.
And now it's done. Hard to believe. "We accept the thought that in ten years we ourselves, in a hundred years our books, will have ceased to exist," he writes. It's now a hundred years later and this is still top of the heap.
I both love ISOLT and have a problem with it. My love stems from Proust's readiness to smell each and every rose along the path, without seeming to have the least concern for where the path is taking him or being in any rush to get there. He has minute observations on everything and anything. If you're reading for plot, it'll drive you mad. If you can remember being a child who found wonder in every cloud and blade of grass, maybe you'll be entranced by this adult who does the equivalent: stops to examine every emotion, every link to memory, every gesture, expression, etc. Nothing passes his notice or lies beneath it that he won't stop and study. The consequence is that again and again he makes observations about everyday things that ring absolutely true and yet I'd never stopped to consider them myself. And on the subject of love, the dominant topic, I've gathered more insights about it from Proust than from anyone else I can name. Some parts have even served as a kind of therapy for various regrets I've harboured, and I feel stronger for having taken this journey with him.
My problem with ISOLT is its narrator. He's an unknown entity for the first half or two thirds, then comes into focus as an overbearingly jealous lover who at the same time is a philanderer - a terrible kind of hypocrite, in other words, who becomes impossible to respect unless he can demonstrate remorse after he learns his lesson. Instead he does no such thing, blaming his victim and carrying on with his ironclad selfishness, discarding his obsessive love after the fact like it was nothing, the same love that almost literally destroyed her. For all of his brilliant observation skills, I can't possibly like this guy.
The only slack I'll give him is the acknowledgement that he is a heterosexual who finds himself surrounded by homosexuality (an inversion of Proust's personal state and thus a way for the author to more safely explore and share the scenario with his readers). He is surprised at every turn by those whose true pleasure is revealed to be their own sex. Under these circumstances, his paranoia is arguably more rational and it could reflect Proust's personal frustrations: "Is that man attracted to me, or am I only mistaking him for a homosexual? Is he my lover by actual inclination, or only experimenting?" That would be difficult, especially in a culture where homosexuality remained largely underground. ISOLT is not on its surface sympathetic to homosexuality, but scratch just beyond that and it's clearly otherwise.