Proust, In Search of Lost Time

[Anonymous]

Thinking of making the effort this year. I read War and Peace two years ago and I think it was a masterpiece and all it was cracked up to be (interestingly enjoyed the war parts more than the peace parts and actually *enjoyed* his second epilogue on free will and theories of history; when I was younger it probably would have been the "peace" parts that I preferred). I would give it 6 stars on Goodreads if I could, the only novel I would give such a ranking to.

However there's another much bigger great big book, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, over 7 volumes. I'd like to tackle it. Some say it's the greatest ever novel. I'm curious to hear if anyone has read it or attempted to, how long it took, at what pace and any other advice. Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

[Anonymous]

It’s been on my TBR list for…ten years now. I hope to tackle it one day.

[Anonymous]

We should do a DCUM book club virtual meeting or something for this book. I've been meaning to read it as well.

[Anonymous]

I read it the year I turned 40 and it was an amazing experience. I read it over an entire year with lots of books in between. It takes a while to get into the flow. I found that I needed to sit and read a large chunk and then take a break for a few days. Or sometimes I'd read a good portion over a week. Reading a proscribed small amount of pages per day didn't work for me. Because it's broken into books, you can take a decent break of a few weeks or so between each book.

The symbols and themes that flow throughout the 7000 pages are stunning. And the ending is amazing. It's not to say I didn't have moments of boredom or losing track of the story, but overall it was a formative reading experience that I highly recommend. I'd like to reread it some day.

I also highly recommend a companion book called "Paintings in Proust" that has beautiful reprints of the art work talked about in the novel and descriptions of why they are important. It added a lot for me.

[Anonymous]

Yes it’s worth it but I too haven’t actually finished it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We should do a DCUM book club virtual meeting or something for this book. I've been meaning to read it as well.

I’d be into this

[Anonymous]

I read it over a summer after finishing college, working random jobs and missing the boyfriend who left me but who I loved madly.
It took 2.5 months
Some parts are really boring imo but just press on.