Alla ricerca del tempo perduto

When you read Proust, and learn to appreciate his extraordinary, dreamy, hypnotic, truly inimitable style (this review is a mere shadow on the wall of a Platonic cave), which succeeds in making the syntax of language, usually as invisible as air, into a tangible element, so that, like literary yogis Leggi tutto

Why did Proust have to write a 4000 page novel, especially when there is not any discernable, coherent plot? Was it really necessary to have those extended society scenes, some of which lasted for 150 pages or so? Couldn’t the whole thing have been tightened up a little and cut down to 1000 pages or Leggi tutto

I took today off work because I need to put everything I own into boxes so I can move tomorrow, but obviously I can't begin doing that until I get some of these obsessive thoughts about Proust out of my system. I mean, can I? Nope. I can't! After all, this house is where I read Proust -- wait, I rea Leggi tutto

Después de casi dos años en su compañía, unos días atrás me despedí de Marcel… y ya lo echo de menos. No es que llegáramos a hacernos grandes amigos, ni por asomo. Me pareció un tipo bastante repelente, y él, con absoluta seguridad, no renunciaría ni a un segundo de su trabajo por levantar sus ojos Leggi tutto

In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have perceived in himself. I struggled with Proust, on and off

Celebrity Death Match Special: In Search of Lost Time versus Harry Potter The francophone world was stunned by today's release of papers, sealed by Proust for 100 years after publication of the initial volume of his famous series, which finally reveal his original draft manuscripts. In the rest of th Leggi tutto

In another LIST book ( 1Q84 ) it was said that unless you have the opportunity to be in jail or have to hide out for a long time, you can't read the whole of In Search of Lost Time . Volume 1. Swann’s Way (★★★★☆) Volume 2. Within a Budding Grove (★★★☆☆) Volume 3. The Guermantes Way (★★☆☆☆) Volume 4. Ci Leggi tutto

Lo so che sei un lettore compulsivo e a star bloccato su un libro per 6 mesi non ce la fai. Sì, perché è un libro unico e le 7 parti devono andare in binge reading. Lo so che mi dirai: è inattuale, roba polverosa di un secolo fa. E poi: ci sono queste frasi infinite e tra un inciso e una subordinata Leggi tutto

“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem no Leggi tutto

I read the whole damn thing, for which I feel like demanding a medal. A famous quote about this work goes, "I may be thicker skinned than most, but I just can't understand why anyone should take thirty pages to describe how he tosses about in bed because he can't get to sleep. I clutched my head." I Leggi tutto