Time Regained

In this final volume I anticipated - and found - the narrator's examination of his writing skill, style and motivation to write this enormous biography. He begins to reflect again on writing, and how others' writing stirs him for being a reflection of what they see, a gift of having listened to and absorbed all, while previously he was making the error of dismissing and focusing too narrowly. He makes the argument however, that while he is unable to describe someone in vast physical detail (and we have actually seen that's not true, but ...), what he captures instead is an analysis of that person's inner being, and isn't that more important, more artistic? And I can't say he's wrong. These and other reflections bring his story show more full-circle, offering the key and solution to why he has been writing this way. He has some startlingly perceptive things to say about the true nature of inspiration and of art that really give me pause. And then his contemplation of the pressures of mortality, and whether enough time is allowed to finish his work (which is what Proust was up against), his views on a critique of his work, the novel's possible legacy, and then the closer about the vertigo of old age... wow.

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. show less

El último tomo de En busca del tiempo perdido contiene fácil algunas de las 100 páginas más hermosas que jamás haya leído. En la retrospectiva que hace ya no desde el intelecto sino desde la sensibilidad, te condena a re-explorar la obra, te dice "lamentablemente, si esto te gustó, vas a tener que volver a leerlo algún día", como si reinaugurase de alguna manera tu relación con la literatura. No ensalsándola, sino por el contrario quitándole peso, quitándole importancia, devolviéndole su naturaleza de arte telepático que trasciende el tiempo y el espacio pero cuya carga vital de todas maneras se agota. En sus propias páginas está la autoconsciencia de la finitud. Quienes vean en En busca del tiempo perdido un libro show more eterno, deberían terminar de leerlo. Porque no es eterno su contenido, sino la herramienta que pone en juego. El trabajo de recordar, de escribir, de reflexionar lo bello y lo doloroso sin achicarse. de recortar las experiencias para contarlas ya sea en el papel o en el doble juego de las apariencias que funciona en el circuito cerrado de los contadores de anécdotas y los ulteriores mitos urbanos que nacen de ellas. En todo caso, faltan dos años para que se cumplan los 100 que Proust da como fecha de vencimiento a la vida de los libros que alguien puede publicar. En medio parece haber ganado muchísimo en longevidad.

Probablemente vuelva a esta reseña varias veces, porque el final de la lectura me deja con una efervescencia rara, que no entiendo si es vacío o una especie de bardo primigenio repleto de posibilidades. show less

Time Regained opens with Marcel visiting Combray, the village of his childhood which figured prominently in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time. He has reconnected with his first love, Gilberte, who is now married to one of Marcel’s best friends. Soon, World War I is upon them and the narrative shifts to the impact of war on the village, on Paris, and on the society in which Marcel circulates. Much later (in the novel as well as in Marcel’s life), he attends a party and encounters many people he doesn’t recognize. This is not because he doesn’t know them, but because Marcel has been absent and everyone has aged considerably. And besides aging, some have fallen in the social hierarchy while others have made astonishing show more moves up the ladder.

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 show less

I had to roll my eyes when I saw Gilberte and Albertine's names as early as page two. Was this going to be another obsessive missive about these women? Had Albertine lived! That is the refrain. Not exactly. Time Regained, as the final installment of Remembrance of Things Past is exactly that - a circling back to remembering people, places, and experiences long since past. It is a mediation on society, aging, relationships, art, beauty, and truth. Proust even goes back to the first moments with his mother detailed in the first volume, Swann's Way. We all grow old and we all learn things along the way. I am not sure what message Proust is trying to make with the aging of his nameless protagonist. He never really learns anything profound show more except that relationships are precious. Gilberte and Albertine are two women he never should have taken for granted. show less

Well it took 5 years, but I finished them all, and what a finale. I loved this book the best of them all, it circled back to where we began and yet allowed us to become older and possibly wiser along the way. There was always more plot than I noticed. We have the return of the madeleine. The feel of the book is quite different to the others, possibly because it's post-humous and thus perhaps unfinished, also because it is set in the fragmentary, uncertain world of the Great War and post-war period. The big set piece of attending his first event after time in the sanatorium and seeing all his old set aged and grotesque felt like how I've aged during the reading of Proust.

It is as ever witty and entertaining and with Albertine gone there show more is less of the creepy controlling behaviour that made the previous few volumes so difficult in places. So it becomes more philosophical and profound and left me feeling both satisfied and relieved to have finished, but also like i needed to go back to the start and read it all again. I've bought the graphic novels to read as a reward.

I'd also recommend the Backlisted podcast which was the deadline I needed to push through the last 2 books relatively quickly, and was a brilliantly entertaining evening. https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/108-marcel-proust-la-recherche-du-temps-perdu show less

In Time Regained, Proust finds his way back to his initial brilliance after the weaker volumes 5 and 6. Time Regained is a beautiful summing up of this 4000 page book. The beginning of this volume takes place during WWI, though the narrator spends much of it at a sanatarium trying to recover his health. After the war, the narrator returns to Paris and attends a reception at the home of the Princesse de Guermantes. The surprise to the reader is that the title is not held by the Princesse we remember, but now by Mme Verdurin who has finally ascended to the Faubourg St. Germain set. Many of our old favorites are at this reception or remembered in detail by the narrator (even if dead or not present) at it: the Duchesse de Guermantes, show more Gilberte, Odette, Charlus, Robert Saint-Loup, Rachel, Albertine, grandmother, Francoise, all the artists, etc. At the reception, the narrator comes to the conclusion that he has a special talent for making connections and memory and seeing the whole picture of life and concludes that he must write a book describing it. Of course, death hangs over him and he worries that he won't have time to complete his work.

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. show less

Finally, finally, finally; after reading about 10 pages a day for an entire year, In Search of Lost Time is read. I will never, ever read it again but I am definitely glad I read it. I can now lift my head high in the company of others who have climbed Everest and been to the South Pole. Maybe slightly higher actually.

The final volume of the novel is both a reflection on life lived as well as a return to the 100-page musings on a single sliver of life that are characteristic of the earliest volumes.

In a departure from the others which are a continuous thread of time, the seventh installment dances through a few eras in the narrator’s life culminating with yet another dinner party at the Guermantes’ place. In arriving there, he slips show more on an uneven flagstone and the universe parts in homage as he reflects on this for what seems like an eternity. There are bits worth reading in there, but quite honestly, it’s all getting a bit tired. If at this point you are counting pages off like a prisoner marking the
walls of his cell, I don’t think you have anything at all to feel guilty about. And if you meet someone at a dinner party of your own and they baulk at your confession of this, you can take some comfort in the fact that, had Proust met this person, he no doubt would have parodied their elitism by using them as the basis for a character from the Guermantes’ set.

The entire novel is, quite obviously, a masterpiece written by a genius. It is loaded with perceptive observations of the world we inhabit and, more importantly, how we inhabit it and in terms of the sheer scale of its achievement it deserves a place on the podium of award-winning literature.

That said, it’s not going in the Arukiyomi hall of fame, and let me tell you why.

It’s bloody hard to read, that’s why. In parts (and those parts are hundreds, not tens, of pages long) it’s exceedingly boring. While Proust is able to turn a slip on a paving stone or the touch of a Madeleine to the tongue into the most mesmeric meditations, he seems unable to reign in a propensity for verbosity when it comes to relating conversations.

And the book is crammed full of conversations, particularly at meaningless parties or soirees at salons where the social elite get together and glance at the few only so slightly above them or, mostly, down on the masses below. These conversations are utterly futile and, if you are supposed to get the point that such social gatherings were, in themselves, utterly futile, you pick that up in the first ten pages. You don’t need thousands of pages to make that point. Either Proust does, or he thinks we do.

I can recall many memorable descriptions of things: cakes, flowers, the sea, hair, sleep, stones, sound, relationships. But I cannot recall one single conversation that any of the characters had in 3800 pages of writing. Every now and then, a character might say something pithy or worth noting. But “every now and then” in Proust means every 500 pages. Don’t hold your breath.

It seems such a shame that someone who is such a genius could not cobble together some great conversation in his literature. But then, if he had done, would we mere mortals have been able to reach the summit of what is, despite its faults, lofty literature? Probably not.

But there is something more problematic for me. One of the most famous quotes from the entire novel I can paraphrase as ‘it is not new places we need to see but to see with new eyes.’ But the problem with this philosophy as Proust applies it, quite literally at length, is that eyes that are new have not yet learned how to focus. Not only that, but new eyes have not yet gained the experience to allow them to see things in perspective. Thus, throughout this volume just as throughout the previous six, a flagstone and a world war are given fairly equal treatment.

So, it is with joy that I finish this review knowing that I have scaled the mountain, reached the summit and now find myself free to rest my aching limbs in the soft rolling verdant valleys of slimmer volumes. Whatever I read, it will not tax me to the same extent again. That’s a good feeling. Thanks for the workout Marcel. show less