Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood: a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel Swann in Love, an incomparable study of sexual jealousy that becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age--satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition--Swann's Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreated through memory.
Embark on a literary journey of unparalleled depth and beauty with Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time.' Across seven mesmerizing volumes, Proust intricately weaves together memory, love, and the passage of time into a tapestry of human experience. Delve into the captivating prose and immerse yourself in a world where the smallest moments hold profound significance. A true masterpiece that explores the essence of life itself.
Marcel Proust's genius for illuminating pain is on spectacular display in this recently discovered trove of his correspondence, Letters to His Neighbor. Already suffering from noise within his cork-lined walls, Proust's poor soul was not ready for the fresh hell of his new upstairs neighbor, Dr. Williams, a dentist with a thriving practice directly above his head.
Chiefly to Mme Williams, these ever-polite letters (often accompanied by flowers, books, or compliments) are frequently hilarious--Proust couches his pained frustration in gracious eloquence. In Lydia Davis's hands, the digressive brilliance of his sentences shines: Don't speak of annoying neighbors, but of neighbors so charming (an association of words contradictory in principle since Montesquiou claims that most horrible of all are 1: neighbors and 2: the smell of post offices) that they leave the constant tantalizing regret that one cannot take advantage of their neighborliness. Richly illustrated with facsimile letters and photographs, Letters to His Neighbor is catnip for lovers of Proust.
The second volume of In Search of Lost Time, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century
James Grieve's acclaimed new translation of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower will introduce a new century of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. As the second volume in the superb edition of In Search of Lost Time--the first completely new translation of Proust's novel since the 1920s--it brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is Proust's spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence, charged with the narrator's memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lie his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family. As a meditation on different forms of love, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower has no equal. Here, Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions, from the magnificently dull Monsieur de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator's life--the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine.Embark on a literary journey of unparalleled depth and beauty with Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time.' Across seven mesmerizing volumes, Proust intricately weaves together memory, love, and the passage of time into a tapestry of human experience. Delve into the captivating prose and immerse yourself in a world where the smallest moments hold profound significance. A true masterpiece that explores the essence of life itself.
Take a memorable literary voyage with Marcel Proust's masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Part 1 introduces readers to the enchanting world of Volume 1 to 3, a mesmerizing exploration of memory, love, and the passage of time. Through lyrical prose and intricate character portraits, Proust weaves a tapestry of emotions and experiences that captivates the heart and mind. Immerse yourself in the first installment of this monumental work, where the seeds of introspection are sown, and then eagerly await Part 2 to complete the enthralling tale. In Search of Lost Time is a timeless odyssey that beckons you to delve deeper into its pages and discover the intricate layers of human existence.
In what renowned translator Arthur Goldhammer called a piano reduction of an orchestral score, the first volume of Stéphane Heuet's adaptation of In Search of Lost Time electrified the graphic community like no other--re-presenting the novel for anyone who has always dreamed of reading Proust but was put off by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. Whereas the first volume described the narrator's childhood in the pastoral town of Combray, the second volume portrays the narrator's foray into adolescence, set in the opulent seaside resort of Balbec. Preserving Proust's original dissection of the spontaneity of youth, translator Laura Marris captures the narrator's infatuation with his playmates--his memories of their intoxicating afternoons together unfolding as if in a dream. Featuring some of Proust's most memorable characters--from mysterious Charlus to beguiling young Albertine--this second volume becomes a necessary companion piece for any lover of modern literature.
With its sweeping digressions into the past and reflections on the nature of memory, Proust's oceanic novel In Search of Lost Time looms over twentieth-century literature as one of the greatest, yet most endlessly challenging, literary experiences. Influencing writers like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, and even anticipating Albert Einstein in its philosophical explorations of space and time, In Search of Lost Time is a monumental achievement and reading it is a rite of passage for any serious lover of literature.
Now, in what renowned translator Arthur Goldhammer says might be likened to a piano reduction of an orchestral score, the French illustrator Stéphane Heuet re-presents Proust in graphic form for anyone who has always dreamed of reading him but was put off by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. This New York Times best-selling graphic adaptation reveals the fundamental architecture of Proust's work while displaying a remarkable fidelity to his language as well as the novel's themes of time, art, and the elusiveness of memory. As Goldhammer writes in his introduction, The reader new to Proust must attend closely, even in this compressed rendering, to the novel's circling rhythms and abrupt cross-cuts between different places and times. But this necessary attentiveness is abetted and facilitated by the compactness of the graphic format.
In this first volume, Swann's Way, the narrator Marcel, an aspiring writer, recalls his childhood when--in a now-immortal moment in literature--the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea unleashes a torrent of memories about his family's country home in the town of Combray. Here, Heuet and Goldhammer use Proust's own famously rich and labyrinthine sentences and discerning observations to render Combray like never before. From the water lilies of the Vivonne to the steeple and stained glass of the town church, Proust's language provides the blueprint for Heuet's illustrations. Heuet and Goldhammer also capture Proust's humor, wit, and sometimes scathing portrayals of Combray's many memorable inhabitants, like the lovelorn Charles Swann and the object of his affection and torment, Odette de Crécy; Swann's daughter, Gilberte; local aristocrat the Duchesse de Guermantes; the narrator's uncle Adolphe; and the hypochondriac Aunt Léonie.
Including a Proust family tree, a glossary of terms, and a map of Paris, this graphic adaptation is a surprising and useful companion piece to Proust's masterpiece for both the initiated and those seeking an introduction.