Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 1 - Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust's lengthy ruminations on memory, also known as In Search of Lost Time, was published between 1913 and 1927 in seven volumes, and is here replicated in an English translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff in just three volumes. Volume 1 is made up of 'Swann's Way' and 'Within a Budding Grove', constituting roughly one third of the complete work. I bought the entire collection with the intention of reading them all in sequence, but considering it took me half a year just to finish the first book, I may well be throwing the towel in. Remembrance of Things Past is not the kind of book one would want to read in long sittings, nor is it something that should be taken up for light reading. Its rambling nature, meandering anecdotes and digressions, philosophical musings, and thoroughly unlikable, sickly, overly sensitive narrator require the strictest commitment on the part of the reader. This may be one of the most tedious books I ever read.

'Swann's Way' is about the early memories of the protagonist, presumably Proust himself, and his life in the provincial French town of Combray. Proust reveals himself to be an insufferable bore and a snob to boot. We then follow the character of M. Swann, a man of fashion who develops an obsession with a loose woman called Odette. The one-sided, Parisian love affair is a real chore to read. The book returns to Proust as an adolescent who falls in love with Swann's daughter Gilberte. 'Within a Budding Grove' continues Proust's friendship with Gilberte, and then moves onto the seaside resort of Balbec which he visits with his aunt for health purposes. There, he loiters around the hotel, sits on the beach, and falls under the spell of a group of young girls. That's about all that happens and it did not fill me with a burning desire to read the next instalment. To give the book some credit, some of Proust's insights are what could be considered profound, but there are simply too many of them and display the mental dalliances of a man who lived with his mind only.

Rating: 1/5