Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: Of course for something so revered you have to read it. The same reverence that made me read it also made me extremely uneasy reading it, as it does with many other things (it especially makes me hesistant to see supposedly "good" movies, driving me to the insipid).Obviously I don't want anyone else to experience the same hesitation, so read Remembrance of Things Past asap, and don't allow its status and other reviews to give you expectations for it. You may hate it, but you might also love it. I've loved it (have only read the first volume- Swann's Way and Within a Budding Groove... eagerly approaching the rest). I would sing the praises of Proust's prose, but, of course, I'm reading a translation. But, the translation ovbiously communicates enough for me to love it. For all its absurdly dense sentence strucutres and five page paragraphs, it took me a while to get used to, reading 5 pages at a time and taking half an hour for just that. I loved the 5 pages, but couldn't read much more without getting a migrane, but, after a couple months of hatcheting my way through it, I managed to discard the spectre of its reputation and slowly move my way through increasingly elegant tools, eventually consuming dozens of pages at a time. You have to read Remembrance of Things Past... for me it's taken loads of patience... so I'll recommend the same course for any other fairly inexperienced reader - even if it's slow at first, keep on reading, and don't allow your expectations or its reputation to drive you too much - it's better to honestly dislike something and retry it later than to allow reputation to ruin enjoyment and enslave you into finishing it (conversely, it might be reputation that drives you on until you begin to enjoy it... which is what kept me reading for the first 50 pages, but also drove me into not reading it for a month).
Rating:
Summary: The brain under a microscope
Review: They say that DJ Enright's retouching of Kilmartin's translation is the superior volume, but it hadn't come out when I read the book. However, I'm grateful for the older, gray 3-volume set. Had I bought only the first volume, I very well may have stopped after "Swann's Way". With the older set, it was just a matter of turning the page and starting "Within a Budding Grove." It grabbed me immediately, and less than halfway through it, I was already intent on finishing the whole damn thing. As for the world laid out within the pages, it gave me, if nothing else, the most complete reading experience I can imagine. If there are boring passages in Proust (and there are), it is precisely because there are boring passages in life. Its length is great, but it is in direct proportion to its ambition. It may have been even greater had Proust not died before it was completed. Its notorious difficulties are textual. Some sentences are extremely long, with many clauses and digressions, and this makes re-reading passages a necessity for most. But it can also be a great pleasure. The depth of observation is superhuman, and the characterizations are equally astonishing. After reading the novel I finally understood what Emerson means when he writes that "in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts--they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." The quote seemed pompous at first, but I find it humbling now. Proust is so detailed about psychological processes that, reading him, you re-evaluate your thinking. It's that depth of detail that gives you deja vu, as though you're remembering the act of ignoring certain thoughts. But this is getting vague...
Every reader, as with any book, is touched in a different way. Each brings him or herself to the text, and so there are a million texts for a million readers. Suffice to say that "Remembrance of Things Past" was the first book I read that actually ended up reading me.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I'm going to take some words from Proust himself/his translator...I knew that my brain was like a mountain landscape rich in minerals, wherein lay vast and varied ores of great price. But should I have time exploit them? ...from near the end of TIME REGAINED Get this series or long book whatever you want to call it. Dig into that mountain landscape.
Rating:
Summary: Monumental French Masterpiece
Review: If you are like me and you like all things French, Marcel Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past" is the zenith of French literature. Proust wrote about the relationship between characters and their experiences with memory. The entire novel is itself written memories, linked together by precise narrative and lush detail. Marcel Proust worked on this monumental epic in the late 19th century, and finished the work in the early 1920's. Think of all the events that shaped the emerging twentieth century. The Edwardian Era in England was ending, in France the Belle Epoque was ending, and World War I destroyed much of Europe. Proust wrote about the Belle Epoque, the decadent society and its morals, its stuffy and fastidious etiquette, its innocence and its corruption. Like those long novels we used to hate in English class "War and Peace" and anything by Dostovyesky, "Remembrance" is a challenging, overdone work of historid fiction. It's length, however, is worth reading because of its great themes. Swann is of course, Marcel Proust himself. He is portrayed here as a disabled man (he has very little respect from French society because he is an imsomniac and slow), but he goes through adventures in reality. Walking the streets of Paris at night, he encounters upon a mysterious, self-absorbed and fascinating courtesan named Odette. She becomes his muse, his true love, eventhough Odette is a free woman without any desire for the deeper bonds of love. The descriptions of France, both its ambiance in Paris and in the countryside of Provence, is very exceptional. The book is a time capsule. Generations from now, French novels will continue to be part of our tradition. It is something that never really goes away. If you think about it, the influence of French Impressionism and writers writing about epic events still hold strong today. They fuel romance novelists, historic fiction writers, period pieces or costume dramas in the movies, and even musicals. Moulin Rouge has definately the elements of a cliche 19th century melodrama. Remembrance Of Things Past is the greatest work of French literature, right up there with Gone With The Wind for Americans.
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Summary: Simplistic yet evocative full-color art
Review: Remembrance Of Things Past Part Two: Within A Budding Grove is the second novel of an English-language, graphic novel adaptation and illustrated by Stephane Heuet of Marcel Proust's classic work of European literature. The simplistic yet evocative full-color art and the delicate lettering bring the formal style of the nineteenth-century era to life in this enchanting and attention engaging presentation. Highly Recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: A monument to one man's egomania
Review: _Remembrance of Things Past_ by Marcel Proust became a year long obsession for me. Although I had some mixed emotions about it in retrospect, any book that could be so engrossing and fascinating to keep me reading through nearly 3,000 pages had to have been pretty good. And most of the volumes within this 7-novel / 3-volume work were more than just pretty good; they were quite simply some of the most beautiful, thought-provoking, and philosophical ficticious works ever written. Keep in mind that I am not even a huge fan of fiction - almost everything I read these days is either nonfiction philosophy, theology, or
psychology. Yet these books remain high atop my best-ever list, and even when I unfairly hold them up against potent nonfiction philosophy from the same time period, they can hold their own as profound psychological commentaries on the universal condition of mankind.
_Remembrance of Things Past_ is the ultimate psychological realist novel ever written. Russian realist novels by authors such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky seem almost elementary compared to Proust. British Victorian novels come across as meaningless fluff in comparison. If you are coming from a background of reading Russian realist novels, or something like Thomas Mann, reading Proust is definately the next logical step for you to take in your reading regimen. Proust is somewhat difficult, but if you are in college and have read at least 15 - 20 good literary novels, you are probably prepared to read this.
The only reason I gave _Remembrance of Things Past_ only four stars instead of five is because of the weakness of two of the novels in the series. The fourth novel, _Sodom and Gommorrah_ (AKA Cities of the Plain) is a boring and somewhat disgusting account of the demise of a high society figure, Mr. DeCharlus. Although DeCharlus is a memorable and very realistically drawn character, it becomes tedious reading about his slow, painful mutation into a pathetic, perverted old man. This goes on for some 600 pages. Equally boring is the fifth installation in the series, known as _The Captive_. I will not bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that it is a 600 page book about the follies of a love struck fool; it is a don't-let-this-happen-to-you tale about a man who allows a woman to completely ruin his life, and is some of the most boring 600 pages of literature ever written.
That said, the first three volumes of the series and the last volume represent some of the finest prose ever put into print. The first volume, _Swann's Way_, and the last, _Time Regained_, are easily five star books and alone are worth the price of this set. The second and third volumes are also five-star, compulsive reading. Buy the set - just skip volumes 4 and 5.
Rating:
Summary: Slow down. Notice more. Read Proust.
Review: A friend of mine had a teacher who died recently. Before the man died, he made a list of "things to do before you die" for his students. One of the things on the list was "Take the Time to Read Proust." So I started doing so, finishing the first of seven volumes just recently. It does take time, but there's nothing like it that I've read. Many of the reviews I read before actually diving in to "Swann's Way" mentioned something along the lines of "get past the first 30 pages and you'll be off and running." This is largely true. I was a tad infuriated by the endless rambling of the opening section, which is about a boy attempting to fall asleep despite the insomnia which troubles him when his mother hasn't given him a good-night kiss. But after I weathered this section, I started to get accustomed to the style, and even began thinking how beautiful it was to recreate so many tiny mental details about an experience, or an object such as a church, a country lane, and yes, a flower (there are many flowers in Proust). When we leave Combray (the boy's summer abode) under Proust's guidance and see through Swann's eyes in Paris, the book becomes difficult to put down. Musical phrases overheard at Paris salons become "divine captives" that we hold hostage unto death, and death in their company is "somehow less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less probable." There are many such beautiful and unique descriptions. If you believe you have the patience to slow down enough to absorb and fathom the tiny, wonderful details of life that Proust brings to light, buy the whole set and read it over the years.
Rating:
Summary: Providing a new and absorbing perspective
Review: Remembrance Of Things Past, Volume One: Within A Budding Grove is the first in what will be a 12-14 volume English-language graphic novel adaptation of the introspective French literary work by Marcel Proust. The simple, full-color artwork of Stephane Heuet paints the characters in a style reminiscent of Tintin, bringing to life the world and thoughts housed in Proust's immortal pages. Remembrance Of Things Past: With A Budding Grove is very highly recommended as providing a new and absorbing perspective on a worthy literary classic.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic work, but not for everyone
Review: This work can, if you're a certain type of person, become a central part of your internal world. And to Proust, the internal world was more intensely real and important than the external world. You might say that he thought the internal world was the only one that mattered. But this book is not for the type of person who likes an exciting plot, who wants to find out "what happens next" or witness thrilling plot twists, unsolved murders, missing treasure, or be told that the good guys win and the wicked are punished. This is about the nature of human consciousness, and about our capacity (if any) to really connect with other human beings. If you've ever been described as "overly" introspective or melancholy, if you've felt that you have trouble connecting with other people, and you like to read, this book may become an important part of your life. Proust has changed (or perhaps fleshed out) the way I think about love, relationships, perception, human nature, the life of reflection, and most other things that really matter. I haven't finished the work yet, because I keep starting over. While there are supposedly 7 volumes (or 6, depending on the translation and edition) in reality it is just one work, over 3000 pages long. It does seem to drag at times, so I'll find myself skimming, only to realize a hundred pages later that I missed some incredible insight he had been developing the whole time. After I do this a few times, I think "what the heck, I'll just start this volume again, to see what I missed" and it's WORTH IT. I see more every time, and what I see is worth the effort several times over. So when I do finish (eventually) I'll just start over again with Swann's Way. Proust's work, along with that of Dostoevsky, has assumed a significance in my life similar to the importance the Bible has for devout Christians. I'm not referring to the quoting of chapter and verse, but to the depth of understanding (and perhaps even a type of revalation) that is developed with successive, careful readings. This book is wonderful.
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Summary: Read all the reviews here-they're all right on!!
Review: I read this entire opus in the summer of 1975, while lounging around the local pool and tennis courts, as a young seeker of wisdom and truth. I had read Mann (MAGIC MOUNTAIN),Musil (MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES), WAS AMAZED, GAVE THIS ONE A SHOT. A lot is very slow going,but it's true this is a book that really makes you appreciate beauty, and frankly be glad that you (I) have eyes and ears. Most people, it seems, go thru life without really bothering to appreciate the everyday beauties that are all around us,corny as that seems. Walk around your neighborhood some evening.How many people will be strolling outside enchanted at the the stars/heavens? For every one,there are probably a thousand watching an obnoxious sit-com with canned laughter. You see, a great artist like Proust makes us look at the world in this way. Walk into even a do-it-yourself clothing shop,and notice all the patterns. Most of us barely pay attention. Proust' ways of seeing,and describing are like any great painter. He often invokes Vermeer, a fair comparison.He is awed by cathedrals,landscapes,you name it. And his discussions of the Great War, including some admiration for German soldiers, are a surprise. Yes, it goes on and on,and I could not make the effort now,except to browse thru it. BTW, I prefer Mann and Musil, who seem to have a better story line,and stringer narrative. Marcel's mother complex,and all the super-long interrelationships and descriptions may put you off, for good reason,but even just browsing thru this shows you this fellow had phenomenal powers of observation,even forgetting all the rest of the greatness of this wondrous, if boring at times, work of art.
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