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Loading... Pleasures and Regrets (1896)| 419 | 4 | 59,905 | 
(3.65) | 4 | This was Proust's first published work, appearing when he was only twenty-five, and it consists of stories, sketches and thematic writings on a variety of subjects. The attitudes reflect many of the characteristics of the "fin de siecle," yet Proust illumined them with the unique shafts of observation and gift of analysis that he was later to perfect in "The Remembrance of Things Past." This book is a period piece of intricate delights and subtle flavours that will be relished by the author's many admirers… (more) |
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Why did he ask me to present his book to curious minds?  The ancient Greeks brought cakes, milk and wine for their dead. Seduced by a more refined illusion, if not by one that is any wiser, we offer them flowers and books. | |
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These examples did nothing to diminish the sudden amazement that his uncle's attitude had aroused in Alexis, but rather gave him a kindred feeling that, gradually spreading, turned into an immense stupefaction at the universal scandal of these existences, his own included, walking backwards into death with their gaze still fixed on life. But after a while, as his recovery continued to make progress, a persistent note of disquiet started to make itself heard beneath the joy that had already started to fade as he grew used to it. Sheltered from life's storms, in that propitious atmosphere of all-pervasive gentleness, enforced calm and untrammelled meditation, deep within him the seed of an obscure desire for death had started to grow. He was still far from suspecting its existence, and merely felt a vague panic at the thought of having to start living again, having to suffer the blows which he had lost the habit of enduring, and being forced to lose the caresses that had recently enfolded him. But he had not reckoned on a force which, if it is at first fed by vanity, vanquishes weariness, contempt, and even boredom: the force of habit. Finally she cursed her powers of thought, in their divinest aspects - thought, the greatest gift ever granted her; thought, which people have called by every name without ever finding the right one; the poet's intuition, the believer's ecstasy, the profound sense for nature and music Nothing can cure her. If she loved M. de Laleande for his good looks or his wit, we could find some wittier or more handsome young man to take her mind off him. If it were his kindness or his love for her that had bound her to him, another man might try to love her with even greater fidelity. But M. de Laleande is neither handsome nor intelligent. He has no opportunity to prove to her whether he is affectionate or hard-hearted, forgetful or faithful. So it must be he whom she loves, and not certain merits or charms that might be found to an equally high degree in others; it must be he whom she loves, for all his imperfections, all his lack of distinction He had neglected the only feature they all shared, or rather the same collective madness, the same prevalent epidemic by which they were all affected: snobbery. True, this snobbery assumed very different shapes in accordance with their very different natures, and there was a world of difference between the imaginative and poetic snobbery of Mme Lenoir and the all-conquering snobbery of Mme de Torreno, who was as avid as a civil servant desperate to reach the highest positions. We have certain memories that are, as it were, the Dutch paintings of our memory, genre pictures in which the characters are often of the middling sort, taken at a perfectly ordinary moment in their lives, without any solemn events, sometimes without any events at all, in a setting that is in no way extraordinary and quite lacking in grandeur. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions This was Proust's first published work, appearing when he was only twenty-five, and it consists of stories, sketches and thematic writings on a variety of subjects. The attitudes reflect many of the characteristics of the "fin de siecle," yet Proust illumined them with the unique shafts of observation and gift of analysis that he was later to perfect in "The Remembrance of Things Past." This book is a period piece of intricate delights and subtle flavours that will be relished by the author's many admirers ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
Current DiscussionsNone Google Books — Loading... |
Cultural_Attache | Aug 1, 2018 | 
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But the real question this book raises: why aren't there more collections published like this? A few stories, a couple poems, some nice essays, a chapter of aphorisms. Variation's a good thing, peoples! (