Marcel Proust’s masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past, or In
Search of Lost Time, is renowned for both its size (3500 pages) and it’s
seemingly effortless prose. I began part one, entitled Swann’s Way, this week with very little information about the
author, and indeed the novel itself, and was pleasantly surprised from the
first page. The vocabulary is exquisite and the prose itself is perhaps the
most diligent and fastidious I have ever encountered, in the sense that it is
difficult but ever-so rewarding.
Within the first one hundred pages the reader is
encapsulated and in awe with the novel. The ‘episode of the Madeleine’, a sequence
that I read unaware of its salient notoriety, was quite frankly astonishing. So
astonishing in fact, that upon reading these two or three pages, I had made
several notes, destroyed the page with ink, and quickly told one or two
interested literary partisans about this rather brief passage.
This may seem slightly hyperbolic, but it really is
marvellous. And while I am evidently drawing particular attention to these few
pages, I certainly have no criticisms of the rest of the book, as it follows,
more or less, in the same fashion.
What is so wonderful about the book is that the plot is
noticeably ordinary. There is little action, very few likeable characters and
the technique of ‘involuntary memory’ which is employed, doesn’t offer the
reader intense emotion or collective tragedy, but this in itself is irrelevant.
In fact, all this stands as a testament to the beauty of Proust’s work. From an
outside perspective, to describe what the book is about, all 500 pages of this
first part, would surely defer readers, as very little actually happens, but
this certainly should not be the case. Proust is a superb author, and the mildness
and vapidity of the text actually complements the brilliant writing. It is
slow, and at times difficult, but all this serves to highlight the sheer virtuosity of Proust’s work.It is exceptionally colourful and descriptive, and for such
a seemingly ordinary storyline it has a way of truly encapsulating its readership.
This book is quite distinctive. If anything, it reminds me
slightly of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls,
the comparison being that Gogol’s plot was seemingly ordinary yet still truly captivating,
only Proust’s work is missing the element of intrigue that was so evident in
Gogol’s magnum opus. These comparisons are small, Proust's work is undoubtedly unique.
After 500 pretty laborious pages, I have bought the second
part of this 7 part classic, and quite look forward to reading it in due course.
I would advise anyone to read this book; it is, quite simply, remarkable.
