Marcel Proust :Du côté de chez Swann et Un amour de Swann

by Marcel Proust

Du côté de chez Swann est le premier volume du roman de Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu. Un amour de Swann est la deuxième partie du roman Du côté de chez Swann, le premier tome d’À la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust. Se détachant de la narration à la première personne et de l’intrigue principale car ayant pour personnage principal Charles Swann, Un amour de Swann est aussi publié comme un roman qui peut être lu indépendamment du reste de l'œuvre. En 1950, ce roman fut inclus dans la liste du Grand prix des Meilleurs romans du demi-siècle.

873 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 18, 2022

About the author

Marcel 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.

Reviews

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un Amour de Swan by Marcel Proust




A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is for me the greatest book I came across. I was surprised to see that on the Le Monde list of best books it came only second, even if I love L’Etranger, which was placed at number one.



The first time I saw a book by Proust was in the house of a teacher. A math teacher. Starting to read Proust at 17 was a challenge, indeed- it still is. Apart from finding the book, the length of some phrases-extending over a few pages sometimes- a serious challenge- I got influenced by some of the views expressed by Proust on women, love, betrayal. Alain de Botton has a book: How Proust can change your life. I can say it changed mine.

Ever since I was 17, I‘ve read Proust. Not every week, not even every year. It has been on my mind and /or with me in odd places. Once, on a summer holiday, I remember reading from Proust in Herculane, in a green pasture, not far from the hotel. Later, in Rosenau, I had some audio book version, read by Trintignant, one of my favorite actors. I do not have that any more.
Recently, I have embarked on this challenging and rewarding journey. I only wish I could feel the same excitement, pleasure and bong with Joyce. Quite a number of critics say that Ulysses is the best book written, but I could not find the gumption, so far, to finish it. Started- Yes.

I also remember the shock of finding out that Proust was gay. How could he write so well about women? I think that he writes somewhere in A La Recherche that gay men are not really men, but women…No matter, he changed my perspectives on almost everything: I am in favor of gay marriage and appreciate (where in the past I was kind of appalled) gay special qualities, acute sensitiveness, different understanding...
In one place he writes about the happiness of finding out, in a work of a favorite author, one of his own opinions…I share this thought and the pleasure on …facebook and my blog.

[Poupin Raphaëlle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Combray l’enfer mais un amour de swann sympathique