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Du côté de chez Swann / À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs / Le Côté de Guermantes
ELEGANT BOXED EDITION
" Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure " est sans doute l'incipit le plus célèbre de la littérature française ; il ouvre une uvre monumentale qui a marqué la littérature en inventant une narration romanesque nouvelle. Nul autant que Proust, dans cet ensemble labyrinthique, n'a su explorer l'âme humaine et ses méandres par de longues phrases parsemées d'incises et de dérivations et questionner la relation subtile entre les souvenirs et les émotions ; avec La Recherche, Marcel Proust a inventé le roman moderne.
" Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure " est sans doute l'incipit le plus célèbre de la littérature française ; il ouvre une uvre monumentale qui a marqué la littérature en inventant une narration romanesque nouvelle. Nul autant que Proust, dans cet ensemble labyrinthique, n'a su explorer l'âme humaine et ses méandres par de longues phrases parsemées d'incises et de dérivations et questionner la relation subtile entre les souvenirs et les émotions ; avec La Recherche, Marcel Proust a inventé le roman moderne.
1568 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2011
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About the author
Marcel Proust
2,147 books7,509 followersMarcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 29, 2025
Premier tome d’une longue série.
J’ai eu du mal à apprécier le style de Proust, de part son attention au détail, et les interminables phrases sur tel ou tel sujet « inintéressant » à mon goût.
Je pense aussi que la difficulté résidait dans le fait que le narrateur décrit son enfance, dans un cadre « spatio-temporel » différent du mien, qui ne renforçait pas mon envie de lire.
Des passages à mourir comme sur la tante Léonie, j’imagine volontairement affligeants pour illustrer le caractère de cette dame, comme des passages merveilleux comme la description d’une église (cf. page 120) qui m’avait transporté comme rarement par un texte littéraire.
Néanmoins, au fur et à mesure j’ai pris son style, la lecture s’est fluidifiée, et l’avancée de l’histoire couplée à son écriture me permettra (j’écris ceci après avoir fini le tome suivant) d’en profiter davantage.
J’ai eu du mal à apprécier le style de Proust, de part son attention au détail, et les interminables phrases sur tel ou tel sujet « inintéressant » à mon goût.
Je pense aussi que la difficulté résidait dans le fait que le narrateur décrit son enfance, dans un cadre « spatio-temporel » différent du mien, qui ne renforçait pas mon envie de lire.
Des passages à mourir comme sur la tante Léonie, j’imagine volontairement affligeants pour illustrer le caractère de cette dame, comme des passages merveilleux comme la description d’une église (cf. page 120) qui m’avait transporté comme rarement par un texte littéraire.
Néanmoins, au fur et à mesure j’ai pris son style, la lecture s’est fluidifiée, et l’avancée de l’histoire couplée à son écriture me permettra (j’écris ceci après avoir fini le tome suivant) d’en profiter davantage.
January 1, 2023
J'ai mis du temps mais ça valait le coup
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December 13, 2024" Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure"
January 26, 2026
A la recherche du temps perdu... à lire ce livre. Thank goodness I switched to audible half way through or I would be reading this book until 2068. I will never ever eat Madeleines again.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews