#ClassicsCommunity 2021 Reading Challenge discussion

Hello my fellow readers, anyone joining me for this lovely book, I'm thinking January 1st? What do you think? It has 7 seven volumes in total, so I feel that it's best to start early. In this discussion, we can talk about our progress, what we think of it, and some literary analysis is more than welcome. :)

Hi Paperback, I'm French and I've never read Marcel Proust, much to my shame, so I'd love to join :)

Hi Paperback, I would definitely love to join in. I have read Proust before but not completely and I think the books benefit from reading in order. January sounds great as a starting point.

Hi, I’ll join in. I’ve read Swann’s Way twice and the rest of the books once, but it seems like a good time for a reread.

Thank you all for joining me!!! So, is everyone alright with January? If so, how does one volume each month sound to you? We should be finished by July.

Sounds good to me.

One volume a month should be doable. I get kind of giddy when people want to read Proust!

Hii!!! Since there are only four parts and about 500 pages, how about we all start reading at least 20 pages every day? It should take us till 25th or less to finish the whole book.

I'm sorry, my mistake. Let's go with our own pace then. Whatever works with you.

That's a great idea. I think we're all settled.

what translation are you all reading? I'm considering the Lydia Davis version.

I have the Davis translation and that’s what I’ll be reading. I’ve read it twice before and highly recommend it.

@regina, thank you! I saw that the first volume is available at my library so I'm going to pick it up later today! I'm so glad to be reading this with a group! This and The Iliad are my two major book challenges for the year!

BookishBoricua wrote: "what translation are you all reading? I'm considering the Lydia Davis version."

I will be reading the C.K Scott Moncrief translation, edited and annotated by William C. Carter.

Looking forward to our discussion at the end of the month.

How is everyone doing with this? I have decided to only read 20 min. a day because I find much more than that and my mind starts to wander. I find the reading challenging but gratifying. There are a lot of mundane passages, but then he will have a sentence or phrase or paragraph that is so insightful or beautiful. Obviously I won't finish in the same timeline as you all, but I would love to read your thoughts on the book so far.

Oh my, I just started reading this first book and I definitely want to be in this buddy read now. I'm new to Proust (and classics in general) and, wow, this is just SO good! Thank you, Paperback, for starting this buddy read because without it I would still not know Proust.

it's okay, Israa. You're free to leave.

BookishBoricua wrote: "How is everyone doing with this? I have decided to only read 20 min. a day because I find much more than that and my mind starts to wander. I find the reading challenging but gratifying. There are ..."

I feel the same. As for the review, I am sorry to say but I couldn’t finish the book. Not that I don’t like it, I just think that a month is too short.

First, for personal reasons, I’m a slow reader. I like to grasp each line before I move on. In that way, it sort of helps me analyze what works or what doesn’t. For Proust, when everything is well-crafted, 25 pages a day would be too much (especially, when I read several books at the same time). It would take me over an hour or so before I get bored with all the details.

Second, prose over plot. I don’t do well with books that lean too much on either spectrum. While I appreciate what Proust offered, I just didn’t see a reason why he needed to describe everything, how this or that taste, smell, feel, and sound that had nothing to do with the story. It felt a little redundant.

Overall, Swann’s Way may not be for everyone, but it is a great piece of art that deserves the attention it gets. It's beautiful, vivid, emotional, it just needs a little more time.

Anyway, what do you guys think of it?

I’m running a little behind too on Swann’s Way. I’m about 30% through and will probably finish it in a couple of weeks, rather than next week.

I don't think we should rush it I'm way. behind as well. I feel like this is a book that's meant to be read slowly and thoughtfully. I am enjoying it though!

BookishBoricua wrote: "I don't think we should rush it I'm way. behind as well. I feel like this is a book that's meant to be read slowly and thoughtfully. I am enjoying it though!"

Couldn't agree more. All in all, just go at your own pace. There's no shame in that.

I just found this thread. I was looking for buddies to read and discuss this book, so however late....I am in for the whole series.

Nidhi wrote: "I just found this thread. I was looking for buddies to read and discuss this book, so however late....I am in for the whole series."

Hey, welcome! It's never too late! :)

I notice this thread has gone dark.
I finished Swann's Way on February 23, but haven't posted my review yet, and haven't started on Within A Budding Grove yet.
I'll post my review soon, but probably not start the next book until toward the end of the month.

I had tried to read Swann's Way a couple of times before, but got distracted or confused. The most recent time was about 6 years ago, when my wife and I were in Paris and I was not feeling well. I got kind of confused by the segue to Swann In Love.
This time I paid more attention to the narrator. The narrator is, in Vonnegut's phrase, unstuck in time. One needs to pay close attention to what time he is talking about. He says so in the text, but temporal transitions are sometimes easy to miss if one is not paying close attention. For most of the first part it is clear that the narrator is in later life, calling up memories from his early youth, sometimes prompted by occurrences in his current life.
What becomes confusing when we get to Swann In Love is that he is describing events that happened well before he was born. There does not seem to be any explanation for how the narrator knows about these events, particularly when he delves into the interior monologues of multiple characters in various scenes. Even in Swann In Love, the narrator occasionally refers to himself in his current time (later life). We just have to accept his omniscience about events and people's motivations from a time before he was born, paying close attention to the ever shifting timeline. Perhaps this will be explained in later books.
After Swann In Love, the timeline shifts are easier to track, being to different points in his life.

I have also been reading Patrick Alexander's Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time, which is sort of a reader's guide to the series, and which I have found helpful. These are not really plot driven books, so I'm not at all worried about spoilers. I'm more worried about losing the thread of what's going on when reading some of Proust's multiple page sentences. I find them easier to track when I have a clear view from the 10,000 foot level.

The world has changed a lot since the last post on this thread. I hope everyone is staying safe and that you and all your loved ones are healthy.

Well, this thread appears thoroughly dark by now, but, for whatever it is worth, I finished In Search of Lost Time just before Christmas. A little later than predicted, but I've been reading other stuff too.
I really liked it, but I can see that it will not appeal to everyone. The entire subject of the book is memory, and how Proust dissects memory and how it defines our life is remarkable. This subject will likely have much more appeal for an older audience. Proust's narrator, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, is somewhat unstuck in time. Waking up in his room, he relives waking up in all the other rooms in his life. Each action calls up memories, a linked chain of memories, where many moments in time exist all at once. This works better when you're older and the chains of memories are longer.

How interesting that this thread got revived. I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to read this last year, but I just started it with a different group yesterday! So far it’s a smooth read, so I’m waiting to get into the confusing parts. Haha!

Ashley wrote: "How interesting that this thread got revived. I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to read this last year, but I just started it with a different group yesterday! So far it’s a smooth read, so I’m wa..."

So glad to see somebody still reading this thread. I haven't posted since June, 2020 because it looked like I was whispering in the dark.
Proust can be confusing. He requires a lot of attention in parts. Sometimes I would run out of air when I found myself on the second or third page of a long sentence. I would have to surface for air, find the beginning of it again, and start all over knowing I had to be prepared for 12 digressions and 8 levels of subordinate clauses. I thought it nearly a cubist writing style. Think of Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase. Now imagine that instead of seeing an abstraction of the nude at successive moments in time, we see many different people, each descending different staircases at widely separated moments of time. Frequently that's how Proust sees and wants us to see.
Again, I recommend Patrick Alexander's book as an excellent companion read. I read the introduction and then the rest as I read Proust, reading his summaries of each volume before I read that volume. (Don't worry about spoilers! It's not that kind of book.) Just before the last volume, I read Alexander's last synopsis of that volume and the rest of his book (with the review of characters, etc.). There are a lot of balls in the air. It can help to track them.
If you're not familiar with French history, it would be a good idea to read the appropriate Wikipedia articles as needed covering the history of France from the Revolution through WWI, including, especially, the Dreyfus Affair.
Enjoy!

Barry wrote: "Ashley wrote: "How interesting that this thread got revived. I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to read this last year, but I just started it with a different group yesterday! So far it’s a smooth ..."


"The entire subject of the book is memory, and how Proust dissects memory and how it defines our life is remarkable." Great comment! I have read the first 3 books. Your point about memory is so accurate. The whole idea of reading a summary before diving into the labryinth of words is excellent.

Barry wrote: "Ashley wrote: "How interesting that this thread got revived. I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to read this last year, but I just started it with a different group yesterday! So far it’s a smooth ..."

Yes, thanks Barry that’s helpful and insightful.

I just received the first book of the series and plan to start after I finish Anna Karenina. I’m am looking forward to it, and was inspired by the late comedian Norm Macdonald. He was a very big classic literature reader and has said many times that this work by Proust is his favorite of all time. Look him up on YouTube talking about literature, he was a genius!

I too have started it with the above mentioned group, The moderater has scheduled the first book for two months, the slow reading has made the book more enjoyable and introspective.