The Year of Reading Proust discussion

A thread to talk about Gérard Genette's Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method.

Link to an article that explores further Genette's ideas. It is in French.

http://www.ensani.ir/storage/Files/20...

I read this book late last year. The first thing I'd say about it is that it made apparent the extraordinary complexity of the handling of narrative time in the Recherche. Not just from book to book or section to section (eg the sudden swoop in time from reminiscence of Combray to third-person narration of the Swann and Odette) but sometimes several jumps within a single sentence. Similar techniques are also used to great effect in that strange and wonderful novella by Imre Kertész, Kaddish for an Unborn Child.

Another thought. I hadn't really thought it till now but, as a structuralist reading, it makes a nice contrast with Deleuze's Proust and Signs: The Complete Text. Not sure which one I got more out of (although I still haven't quite finished the Deleuze). Certainly as a writer, concerned with narrative technique, I find the Genette fascinating. But when I'm actually reading the Recherche, Deleuze comes more often to mind.

Thanks, Joshua, for the great summary. When I'm done with Budding Grove, I'll start on the Deleuze, then the Genette.

Will be good to get your thoughts, Aloha!

Has/is anyone else reading or planning to read this? I recall someone mentioning it on the aux chit chat thread...

I think Eugene was working on it? I have a copy too.

Joshua wrote: "Will be good to get your thoughts, Aloha!

Has/is anyone else reading or planning to read this? I recall someone mentioning it on the aux chit chat thread..."

May be later on.. I have about 5 Auxiliary books already and I am a first reader of La recherche. But I did look at the article linked above.

I've also had a look at the article Kalliope posted above yesterday - thanks yet again Kall for your wonderful dedication to Proust 2013.
The article is a study of 'point of view' in Proust and is based on Genette's "Essay". I was glad to see that, in the introduction, the author seemed to agree with our own conclusions here on goodreads about the masterly/magical handling of p. o. v. shifts between 'Combray' and 'Un Amour de Swann'.
However, the article reveals more about Odette and Swann than I want to know at present so I stopped reading and will go back to it later. (Even though I read two volumes of Proust about five years ago, I've forgotten the details of how Swann's love life evolved. I think that first reading was done purely with my eyes and my brain was hardly involved at all. This time Proust is giving my brain the most amazing workout!)