for those who have read all of "In Search of Lost Time"

First of all, I'm new here and my name is Jordan. Hello!

I stumbled upon this forum looking for a good place to ask a question about "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust.

I'm close to finishing my first reading of Swann's Way and I have mixed feelings.

The prose and the sentiments are incredibly beautiful and make me want to keep reading. I love the way that it's written. It flows while also being unpredictable. I can relate to how the narrator *sees* and thinks.

But my problem is that other than the narrator, and the narrator's grandmother (the one who always goes to the garden when it rains), are all dreadfully unlikable characters that i feel a physical distaste for. by part two of the book, where the narrator is no longer a character but is talking about Swan and his friends and lifestyle..... by goddess are all these people so awful! I get mixed feelings reading it because i read a beautiful or humorous passage that makes me want to immerse myself in reading it, but then i find myself spending time with all these uptight, repressed, passive-agressive, self-important freaks who can't communicate and i simply cannot relate to a single one of them.

So here's my question -- do the characters in later books in the series become more likable and relatable? I relate to narrator and the narrator's grandmother but i cannot relate to anyone else in the book, and for me to get desirably immersed in a novel the characters have to be people that I enjoy being around. I'd really like to keep reading Proust because there's something that attracts me to his writing, but if he only writes about ****ty people then I will not continue the series. Please tell me there's better characters further into the series !!

I can't tell you what the book is like. I haven't started it yet, but I will in a week or two, when I finish the novel I'm currently reading. But I would suggest that your equating of 'unpleasant' characters with 'bad' characters represents a false dichotomy. A 'good' character is one who seems real and living. That is all. Whether they are cruel, benevolent, friendly, boring, stuck-up, or artistic is beside the point.

I would suggest that examining the lives of people whom you cannot sympathize with is part and parcel of the art of reading. If Proust is really such a good writer as you say (I can't comment directly, though I know his reputation is fantastic) then it seems improbable that his characters are thin and simplistic.

I'm barely into the third volume so I hope I'm qualified to help. I'm pretty sure your referring to the Verdurins yes there awful but trust me when I say every other person you meet is miles above them.


Funnily enough there painter M. Biche comes back later as probably my favorite character. He and proust so far seem to have a pretty good friendship. Besides that in volume 2 he starts hanging out with a bunch of girls that seem nice enough and even kinda starts dating one.

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Originally Posted by Lykren

I can't tell you what the book is like. I haven't started it yet, but I will in a week or two, when I finish the novel I'm currently reading. But I would suggest that your equating of 'unpleasant' characters with 'bad' characters represents a false dichotomy. A 'good' character is one who seems real and living. That is all. Whether they are cruel, benevolent, friendly, boring, stuck-up, or artistic is beside the point.

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I'm not a man of objective opinion. Yes, the characters are realistic, which might make them seem admirable in a critical sense, but I'm not a critic. I'm a reader. I never said they were badly written characters; I said that they were unpleasant and difficult to relate to. I don't read to establish some detached intellect which can understand without feeling, I read for pleasure and companionship.

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I would suggest that examining the lives of people whom you cannot sympathize with is part and parcel of the art of reading.

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I think we just have a genuine difference in approach, or we gain understanding in different ways, because I can see how your suggestion could be relevant to way some people's minds work, but I think I have more an immersive rather than detached temperament. I might reflect back at you and say that making one feel sympathetic for characters one normally wouldn't feel sympathy for is part of the art of writing.

I suppose I choose my reading the same way I choose friends. Why spend time with someone you don't connect with at all? They might be authentic, 'real' people but there might be no connection. To find that connection that feels real and, in some senses, personal -- to me that's what all art is about. Whether it's a painting or a piece of music or a novel, it doesn't matter to me if it's objectively brilliant, what matters to me is that it speaks to me.

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Originally Posted by romeoindespair

I'm barely into the third volume so I hope I'm qualified to help. I'm pretty sure your referring to the Verdurins yes there awful but trust me when I say every other person you meet is miles above them.


Funnily enough there painter M. Biche comes back later as probably my favorite character. He and proust so far seem to have a pretty good friendship. Besides that in volume 2 he starts hanging out with a bunch of girls that seem nice enough and even kinda starts dating one.

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That's all I needed to know really. yeah getting through all the stuff with the Verdurins' and Swann and Odette is just painful... but you've made me more optimistic.

i would suggest a different perspective. the book is about life and ones perception of life. the charcters are tools to portray different aspects of life. they are imperfect and rather thin. they are part of the retrospection of the protagonist. his understanding of them and rection to them are what makes him who he is.

stick with the book. it is amazing. it is about life and not about people.

I want to take this opportunity to ask about the English translations of In Search of Lost Time.

Which translation do you think is the best? Terence Kilmartin or Lydia Davis? Is there any other?

Marbles, just FYI, the 'Lydia Davis' translation is actually a group translation for which a different author did each volume, all under the auspices of editor Christopher Prendergast.

As for the others, there is only really one, the Moncrieff, but that has been revised twice, first by Kilmartin, and then by Enright, this last to keep up with the changes made in the French edition.

I'm reading the Enright revision (of the Kilmartin revision of the Moncrieff) of Swann's Way right now, and it is wonderful, but unfortunately I haven't read Prendergast's, so I don't know how they compare.

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Originally Posted by Lykren

Marbles, just FYI, the 'Lydia Davis' translation is actually a group translation for which a different author did each volume, all under the auspices of editor Christopher Prendergast.

As for the others, there is only really one, the Moncrieff, but that has been revised twice, first by Kilmartin, and then by Enright, this last to keep up with the changes made in the French edition.

I'm reading the Enright revision (of the Kilmartin revision of the Moncrieff) of Swann's Way right now, and it is wonderful, but unfortunately I haven't read Prendergast's, so I don't know how they compare.

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Thanks Lykren. I looked up Swann's Way and it was Lydia Davis's translation and I assumed, incorrectly, that she had translated all volumes. So I understand that there are are two sets of translations to choose from.