It has taken me over a month and a half to try to wrap up this novel. I am forever changed after reading In Search of Lost Time.
I now understand what people who have finished mean when they say you have to read and finish it to "get it". And now I do.
Memory. Flashbacks. Pulling to the front of the mind what has lain dormant for decades. The power in this process. ALL of this and so much more is explored in this fantastic work of Marcel Proust.
I didn't expect to cry while reading the last 10 pages. Maybe the tears were because I could feel myself about to summit this masterpiece, or because of the tenderly beautiful things Proust urged me to think about regarding time and how we try to capture it, and if it's even possible to capture it or not.
Wow. Volume VII is a real treat. All of the treads of this work began to come together and it was so nice to revisit most all of the central characters, and see how they've changed (some into ugly old hags- I paraphrase- according to Proust).
"Is there still time?" (p. 446)
How I remember. How I process my life are forever affected. After closing my kindle after the last words, "in- Time". I cried a river of tears and felt so accomplished.
THIS is the feeling that reading great literature gives you; part accomplishment + part sublime.
I now stand n awe os what Marcel Proust managed to accomplish with this work and within his life considering his health ailments.
I find myself evermore mindful of drinking my hot coffee in the morning. Perhaps one day when I'm much older my involuntary memory will bring me back to a perfect cup I've made and unlock a hidden world of secret memories for me.
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| Volume VII |
Proust has encouraged me (not for publication), but for my daughter to start writing a novel of sorts for her where I take time to call to mind every memory from as far back as my mind goes.
Something from Proust's work has lodged itself forever inside of my bones and as much as I was thinking during Volumes III and IV (and I loved both volumes), "My gosh this is long", I'm almost ready to start reading it again.
I've reread the last 5 pages over and over as I let this novel slowly settle into my bones. I'm finding more and more to love about it.
I thought of including a plethora of quotes, but decided to end with this quote and on this note: If you've even thought about reading Proust, pick him up. Start with Swann's Way. Ignore whatever you've heard (that hasn't been positive), and go into the novel with an open mind and heart.
Moreover, that we occupy place, always growing, in Time is something everybody is conscious of in this universality can only make me rejoice, it being the truth, the truth suspected by each of us, that I add to seek to elucidate not only does everybody feel that we occupy a place in Time, but the simplest of us measures this place approximately, as he would measure the one we occupy in space.
I am so happy that I committed ten and half months to the daily reading of Proust. I'm not one of the people who would ever tell someone "how to read Proust".
Pick up Swann's Way and read it however your soul calls. Proust will dictate the manner in which you can consume his work.
Trust me... you'll never be the same if you commit to finishing it- either in a year or 10.
Happy Proustian reading.
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