This is a post by Ambrosia Boussweau, European Correspondent of The Reading Life
"True life, life finally discovered and illuminated, is literature; that life which, in a sense, at every moment inhabits all men as well as the artist." Marcel Proust
In Seach of Lost Time by Marcel Proust is one of the very greatest literary works of all time. My uncle Ruffington Boussweau was a close friend of the great translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff. The most prevalent myth about Proust is that he was prissy and effeminate. In Search of Lost Time is, among many things, one of the greatest books about the reading life. Mel u regards the reading of this work as one of his very peak lifetime reading experiences. He plans another read through once he has completed Balzac's Comedie Humaine.
The biggest hurdle In Search of Lost Time presents is the length of over 3000 pages. It is not a difficult book in the way Ulysses or The Sound and the Fury might be. You can certainly just pick it up and read it on your own, maybe reading a few online articles on Proust for background. To those who wish to learn a lot about the life and work of Proust, Mel u highly recommends William Carter's biography. That being said, it is a great of art, complex in structure and narrative meaning with multifarious things to tell us about life.
Read Proust first otherwise you will be experiencing this transcendent work of art through someone else's eyes. Shattuck helped me to gain an overview of the novel, how the various elements work together. It is a very good lesson in close reading. He also talks a bit about War and Peace and I found his remarks very perceptive and illuminating.
When I first read these lines, "True life, life finally discovered and illuminated, is literature; that life which, in a sense, at every moment inhabits all men as well as the artist." Marcel Proust I knew I thought I agreed but I was not sure how to understand them. Literature and Art and Opera all play important roles in Proust. Shattuck helped, I think, deepen my understanding of Proust's view of the arts.
He also talks about why the book became so long. He repudiates biographical readings of Proust and discusses the merits of various translations. I have no ability to judge this but I do have a very high regard for C. K. Scott Moncreiff. His book was published before the new translation's of volume one by Lydia Davis and a revision of the book one by Moncreiff done by William Carter.
New York Times Obituary of Roger Shattuck
In Search of Lost Time is one of the supreme artistic achievements of humanity. Shattuck's book helped me understand it better.
Ambrosia Boussweau
European Correspondent, The Reading Life
3 comments:
The Reading Life is definitely spreading, now a European Correspondent.
After reading your post it made me feel bad that I have not read “À la recherche du temps perdu” yet but I have an excuse. I want to read it in French and every time I go to Paris I get a second-hand book, Poche paperback, and I think it comes in 4 or 5 volumes and I only have found 3 so far. But when I have all of them I’ll read it. It’s not easy to find second-hand French books here because most of them were bought by people who are studying French and there are many underlined, etc., and also they tend to always offer the same titles and authors like Saint-Exupéry and such.
Vagabonds- thanks for your comment and visit. I wish could read Proust and countless other authors in their native French.
Post a Comment