First of all, I would like to state that Proust has important things to say. His work inspired the way certain psychoanalytical currents examine remembering and forgetting- in Remembering Things of the Past, Proust unravels memory as spontaneous and intertwined. His work also describes the hubris of the aristocracy that was dying out while he wrote about the period with criticism and nostalgia.
However, 100 pages or so in, Swann’s way, the first volume, just like its opening paragraph, took that ‘peculiar turn’ of absorbing me into the writing. I didn’t care who the characters were and what they said. I began to feel as if Proust was perpetually administering microdoses of a drug that pulled me into a blank space in which only his gorgeous prose could be experienced. Every sentence, though maximilist, felt soft and transporting.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
by EnvironmentalBad505
3 Comments
Yes, when I took drugs.
Yes, it’s my favorite book for this reason.
Very true. Proust’s masterpiece is truly unique and his prose is so precisely considered. I would honestly learn French simply to read the book in its intended language. Imagine the feeling of drug euphoria you would experience reading the words how he put them down.