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Title: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 3: The Guermantes Way by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin, Marcel Proust ISBN: 0-375-75233-1 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 03 November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: ****
Comment: I found this a more than worthy volume, but less so than the previous two. The grace and charm of those is largely pushed aside in this one by a pettier, bitchier tone. "Marcel" may be pointing out the foibles of aristocrats, but I daresay it's from a defense mechanism that he isn't one himself. This volume brought to mind H.G. Wells' line, "Moral outrage is jealousy with a halo." THE GUERMANTES WAY is perhaps more than the previous volumes like Thackeray's VANITY FAIR whose subtitle is "A Novel Without a Hero," and where most everyone is noble in title and none in character and rushing to their copies of BURKE'S PEERAGE to see where stands who they've just met in the London pecking order. THE GUERMANTES WAY is more a cynical slice-of-high-society book (and a good one) than one of lyricism like the previous two. Perhaps Proust is to be commended for capturing both lyricism and social commentary so effectively in one work.
Rating: 5
Summary: High Society
Comment: In the previous two volumes of IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, we have seen the young Marcel fantasize about love (in the persons of Gilberte and Albertine) and high society (in the person of the Duchesse de Guermantes). The bulk of THE GUERMANTES WAY's 819 pages is concerned with two parties involving the glitterati of fin-de-siecle Paris.
At the party of the literary Mme de Villeparisis, Marcel gains his first admittance to the world of the nobility and gets invited to an evening of his prized Dutchess, whom he had gazed on from afar when she attended church services in Combray, amid the tombs of her ancestors. Sometimes, however, when you get your heart's desire, there is that nagging question: "Is this all there is?"
At one point in the latter party, Swann says to Marcel that "one can't have a thousand years of feudalism in one's blood with impunity." The novel ends with the Guermantes about to leave for yet a more empyrean social gathering, to which Marcel is not even sure he is invited. (As we see in the next volume, he is invited and does attend.) At the very end, the Duke puts off seeing a dying friend and begins carping about his wife's choice of shoes.
We see the beginnings of Marcel's disenchantment with the social scene. Since this volume covers such a short span of time, we do not yet see the effect of his grandmother's death on the young narrator. We leave him, stunned and confused, at the threshhold of a personal triumph that has already lost much of its luster for him.
As I re-read Proust's great series, I am struck by how much I missed the first time I read it years ago. Many reviewers are struck by the length of the scenes describing the parties, but now I find that there is so much going on, and so many undercurrents, that the interior action passes quickly. Most of the action takes place in Marcel's mind as he encounters these gods of society and their hangers-on as they duel for position in their circles.
"Thus I beheld the pair of them," muses Marcel, "divorced from that name Guermantes in which long ago I had imagined them leading an unimaginable life, now just like other men and other women...."
Rating: 5
Summary: In touch with the high spheres of society
Comment: The third volume of In search of Lost Time begins with the moving of Marcel's family to an apartment in a palace, next to the which Charlus lives. This is where Marcel begins to deal with the highest society: the Guermantes family, which seemed so distant to him in his child fantasies, becomes soon part of his life. He goes to parties and meetings, where he can see Mme Cambremer, duchess Orianne and her husband, Charlus, Odette, Swann, etc. The words of the narrator are as thorough as his sight, and he describes for pages and pages the dialogues and behaviours that take place during such encounters. In this volume is where we begin to find the diferent sexual tendencies that will be later explored. As Marcel keeps visiting Saint-Loup, Mr. Charlus develops an interest in Marcel, therefore he begins to play a series of odd games: Charlus will have outbursts of rage as Marcel's shallowness becomes clear to the count.
The snobism and everchanging criteria, through the which political circles consider someone as part of the group of desireable relations, are shown through the detailed depiction of the Dreyfuss affair. The fears of society are suddenly embodied in the character of this german diplomatic, who apparently is spying on the french government. But, even worse, he is a jew. The colliding opinions about this affair divide society. In the midst of this social confusion, Marcel is but a quiet witness, whose interventions seem to stop in invitations and references to other great names of society. One of his favorite activities during this parties is to find and reconstruct the family ties between the different participants. An interesting relationship develops between Marcel and Orianne and her husband, while Charlus finds this to be of bad taste. Marcel will know through these people the details surrounding Saint-Loup's romance with an "indecent" dancer. He knew something from the days he spent visiting his friends while he was in service.
By the end of this volume we get to see Swann's decadence in the high circles, while his wife, Odette, seems to gain more terrain everyday. Swann tries to mantain his contact with the Guermantes, but they are less interested in him as time goes by... and not even his revelation of being in the route of death, due to an ailment, captures their interest. Even more, they don't believe him.
Proust keeps working in describing the defyning coordenates of this world of looks and absurd, hollow judgements. The life of the court parties is ruled by worldly signs, theatrical effects and empty forms. Although the character's fantasies surrounding the name of the Guermantes crumbles after he meets them and find them to be... just humans (and not the corporeal reality behind the images he used to see with endearment in Combray); although this fact, he is more and more fascinated by their importance between the other aristocrats. His desire is renewed by the inclusion of a third party that desires to establish contact, or to hold good relations with the Guermantes. It is the game of snobism, in which fear seems to be the main tool.
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Title: In Search of Lost Time Volume IVSodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust ISBN: 0375753109 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 16 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: In Search of Lost Time Volume IIWithin a Budding Grove by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin, Marcel Proust ISBN: 0375752196 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 03 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: In Search of Lost Time Volume VThe Captive & The Fugitive by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin, Marcel Proust ISBN: 0375753117 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 16 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: In Search of Lost Time Volume VITime Regained by Andreas Mayor, Terence Kilmartin, Marcel Proust ISBN: 0375753125 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 16 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, Lydia Davis, Christopher Prendergast ISBN: 067003245X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 11 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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