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Summary: What is the best translation of this????
Review: My bookstore offer 5 different translations, each one claiming to be 'radically new'. If you read Zola, you'll see how truly horrible these translations can be (full of British terms like 'he was keen to go'). The brits have ruined many French novels. Which version do you all recommend??
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Summary: The Ne Plus Ultra Of Literature
Review: I tend on the whole to be quite skeptical of the notion that one may with confidence posit any single creative work as the "greatest" of its genre, but with Proust's novel I am forced to make an exception; "Remembrance" is not simply the greatest achievement of 20th century French literature, but is, in my opinion, THE greatest literary work of all time, period. Yes, Mann is a master of irony, and yes, I grant that Musil's "Man Without Qualities" is a work of genius, but no work that I am aware of - not The Magic Mountain, not Doctor Faustus, not Moby Dick, not The Brothers Karamazov - can match Proust's novel for readability, for its' sheer richness of imagery, for the profound understanding of human nature, with all its weaknesses and contradictions, displayed in the pages of the book, for the beauty of its' prose (a beauty that comes across quite clearly even in translation), and for the vast terrain of ideas covered in the course of those 3,000+ pages of text. That Proust is so little read today (supposedly, only 15,000 copies of "Swann's Way" were sold last year in France, of all places) speaks poorly of our age, and it is impossible to take any living American writer (not excepting Thomas Pynchon) seriously after experiencing (for "reading" is not the appropriate term to use here) this masterpiece.
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Summary: A work of art
Review: I read Proust's masterwork over a period of several years and only now, in my thirties, do I understand what he was on about. His work is a profound examination into the human condition and man's contigency with the world. In recreating his life through memory, Proust has in magnificent prose, tried to understand what confronted all great writers: what is truth, what is reality, what is illusion. The only writer/thinker to surpass Proust in this was Nietzsche. His idea of eternal recurrence is the corollary of Proust's recreated world via remembering and deja vu. Simply wondrous!
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Summary: The Everest of Novels
Review: This book is unlike anything I have ever read. Proust's basic premise is that we do not fully appreciate an experience when it happens because we are hampered and distracted at the time by the experience itself. It is only when we remember and relive an event that we are truly able to extract the most from it and thus, in remembrance, experience it more vividly than we ever could at the time it happened. So Proust, a sickly asthmatic ex-socialite locked in a cork lined room, remembers and relives his entire life, and the seven volumes of Remembrance are the result. And his remembered and relived life is rich indeed, perhaps unsurprisingly, even more so than his actual life was. This is total recall with enhancement. But the book is much more than that. It is paragraph after paragraph and page after page of the most perfect prose and Proust the perfectionist is also the funniest and wickedest writer that ever lived. His characters: the pompous bores, self righteous clergymen, overrated diplomats and talentless but currently fashionable artists, the dandies, hypocrites, proud servants and relentless social climbers are all stripped bare by his subtle observations and unbelievably brilliant dialogue. And then there are his justifiably famous descriptions; of landscape, flowers, gardens, and of course, insomnia. All drawn so beautifully that you can almost see and taste and smell and feel everything he writes about. Indeed it's enough to make you want to curl up in a cork lined room and spend the rest of your life living vicariously through Proust's remembrances. Good writing alters your perceptions and the better the writing the more lasting the affect. Proust, with his incredibly detailed analyses of love and desire, self delusion and human emotion will change the way you think for ever. Remembrance of Things Past is better than therapy. There's just one small problem: the sheer volume of writing and the weight of the thing. But do not despair, even if you never finish all seven volumes, and few ! have, you will at least have some idea of the monumental scale of this masterpiece, and if you are very determined there is, supposedly, a support group to give you any encouragement you might need to complete the task. Once you have completed the books of course, you can impress others forever. And if you need even further challenges you can read the entire thing in French and that should keep you busy for a while. So while you may never climb Mount Everest, and might not even make the summit of this book, I would still urge everybody to try to read at least a little of Remembrance of Things Past.
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Summary: The masterpiece -"period".
Review: I read "A la recherche du temps perdu" in its original language and I took about one year to finish it. It's a very difficult book ( 8 volumes) to read. It is not a autobiography nor a representation of reality, nor a interpretation of the world, but it's a book about us, human beings, about our innerselves, about time and space and the relationship we all have with those two realities. And all this in the most beautifull and perfect literary form. Proust writes about life like a microscope looks at reality: tiny little details we all experience but are not realy aware.This book is a masterpiece about us.
Rating: 
Summary: thanks
Review: I must say, that though I've been dead for quite some time, and long the time has been for me lying lonely in my grave, my imagination has found its way to the web, and I read with pleasure such honorable and pleasing reviews of my book. Love to you all! MP
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Summary: Turn off your computer and start reading, NOW.
Review: It takes stamina, endurance, guts even, to finish the whole thing (3300 pages), but in the end, it's worth it so much. I read the first book (Combray) three times before going beyond it, but again, it's worth persevering. All characters are unforgettable, we'll never know the truth, it's X-files squared, but much, much better.
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Summary: J'aime A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu!
Review: I am trapped somewhere in the first half of this chef d'ouevre and I don't think I'll live another book quite the same way. It took a few hundred pages to get into the paragraph-long sentences about flowers, but presently I am smelling hawthornes, chrysanthemums, and the notorious *cattleyas*. I am also marking my pages with flower petals, it is truly like a waltz of garden, this book! Another added feature of this edition is the addendum and synopsis at the end of each volume, which allows you to find your location in Proust's frequently dense folliage. The translation is also good; I anticipate reading the French version, and this makes good practice. There are no words worthy of describing Proust, except the million and a half in this text.
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Summary: Remembrance of Books Past
Review: Twenty some years ago I read these books from beginning to end over a year's time. Proust reveals his characters' personalities, as well as
the fictional world around them, at a depth I never thought
possible. Ever since that time I have been searching for a reading experience as enjoyable and
magical as this one and have yet to find it. It takes a book or so to get into the rhythm of Proust's glacial pace and metaphorically dense style. But in the end, life is long, and
"Remembrance," believe it or not, too short. By the way, I much prefer the loosely translated but poetic "Remembrance of Things Past" to the more accurate but mundane "In Search of Lost Time." Sorry but the latter sounds like a Jules Verne novel!
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Summary: One of man's greatest artistic achievements.
Review: Sometimes when you read a book, one, possible two sublime or heightened emotional reactions are created in response to a passage or image produced by the author's words. Journey into Marcel Proust's, Remembrance of Things Past and experience this excitement every other page
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