Sunday, 6 September 2015

Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust





This was the last book of my collection of great 20th century novels. I kept it for last not because I wanted to save the best for a grand finale, but rather because I had the dreadfully mistaken idea of potentially reading the remaining books of In Search of Lost Time after this one.

Needless to say, after crawling my way through this thick endless flashback, I didn’t feel the need to immediately follow it up with more Proust. I still don’t, and I don’t think I ever will.

I wonder whether people praise Proust essentially just for the sheer scope and ambition of his work and nothing more, because I really couldn’t see much great literature in this pointless (yes, there I said it) book.

I want to meet someone who’s actually managed to read the whole of Proust (for real, no cheating) and actually explain to me why this is a great work. Call me boring, but I actually need to see something happening in order to like a book...

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