
Unblinking Eye: The infinite rewards of immersion in Proust - samclemens
http://www.weeklystandard.com/unblinking-eye/article/2003578
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anacleto
>In art there are merely—some merely—discrete geniuses, who arrive without
predecessors and depart without successors.

Well, after Proust there was Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Completely different from
M. Proust in ideas, writing style, novels, but surely a great successor. I
loved Céline and his major work: Voyage au bout de la nuit.

I loved also how quick was the shiftment from the Proustian period to the new
Céline era.

It's easy to see how we went from Balzac to Flaubert but it's totally non-
sense how we went from Proust to Céline a in a few years.

A huge part of literature is not predictable and that's the most interesting
part of it.

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zvrba
I remember having to read Proust's In Search of Lost Time in school when I was
something like 16-17 years old. I remember the book as excruciatingly boring.
It's a small book and I used whole two weeks to read it because of that and
went away from it with no takeaway whatsoever.

I blame it on the school program. Perhaps we were too young to appreciate it
at that age, perhaps the approach was upside-down: we _first_ had to read a
book w/o any guidance, and _then_ we'd discuss it.

~~~
lokedhs
It's not only boring, but also incredibly poorly written. Disregarding from
the fact that he's using far too many words to say very little (which is
arguably a matter of taste), having a single sentence strech multiple pages is
just poor writing.

I do disagree with you that the book is short though. According to Wikipedia
it's 4215 pages, which I believe is correct.

~~~
mazelife
Well, you're welcome to your opinion, but the statement "Proust (sometimes)
writes long sentences" is a fact, not a value judgement. Whether the prose can
be understood or not is how we separate good writing from bad, and in Proust's
case it's not hard to follow what he's saying. There are, by the way, a large
number of people who would strenuously disagree with you and consider Proust
one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Among them are people like
Edmund White, John Updike, André Aciman, and Vladimir Nabokov, formidable
prose stylists themselves; in fact, here's Nabokov explaining precisely why it
is that Proust is so unique, using an illustrative passage to come to an
understanding of how Proust's prose works as it does: [http://www.catskill-
merino.com/blog/nabokov-on-proust-in-blo...](http://www.catskill-
merino.com/blog/nabokov-on-proust-in-bloom)

...Nabokov being a good example of a person who never shied away from making
sweeping value judgements about authors, but was usually willing to back up
what he said with examples.

~~~
lokedhs
It is indeed my opinion, but when reading your response I felt it was an
appeal to authority, which is a fallacy, and as such difficult to
constructively argue. I would much rather hear what your personal opinion is
on Proust.

I read your linked article by Nabokov, and suffice it to say that I don't
agree. And, yes, I do recall the very passages quoted in the article since I
have read it before.

A good writer would have been capable of conveying the same message with the
same emotion, but with sentences that does not require the reader to
concentrate to the point of it being work to actually read the thing.

When reading it, I used to feel a sense of accomplishment after every few
pages. That's a pretty good feeling, and if it was hard to really understand
what the author wanted to say, it must be better than that simple writing by
lesser authors such as Tolstoy, right? (yes, the last part was irony)

Well, arguing about literature never really leads anywhere. I'd rather argue
about why Emacs is better than every other editor than talk about authors that
I don't even enjoy reading.

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mazelife
Not all arguments from expert opinion are fallacious. In this case I think
that those authors are recognized, themselves, as excellent prose stylists.
Therefore it's reasonable to accord their opinions more weight than the
average person's. If I'd said something along the lines of "Dan Brown says
Proust is a master prose stylist and he's a writer..." then you'd have a
point. Also, they are pretty representative of the critical consensus on
Proust's particular strengths. Finally, they all happen to have written on
Proust and what they like about him, some of them quite extensively. (Sadly,
not all of it is available online. John Updike penned a very nice piece years
ago on the ways Proust shaped him as a writer and the difference he found
reading him first in the Moncrieff translation and then later in French;
doesn't seem to be available anywhere.)

>> Well, arguing about literature never really leads anywhere.

A problem with the inherent subjectivity of art in general, I suppose. But
nonetheless, it can be an enjoyable past-time if kept civil and respectful.
Anyway, I appreciate you explaining what it is that you don't like about
Proust, even if we don't see eye-to-eye.

~~~
lokedhs
I have not read the Updike article, but I might seek it out and read it if I
find myself with some extra spare time.

Based on what you have said so far, I get the impression that you admire
handiwork of actually constructing a 4000+ page novel of this kind. In that
respect I can actually agree with you. It is indeed a remarkable work in many
ways. But, it is my opinion that in terms of a vessel for conveying a
compelling story, it completely fails.

Can you say that you actually enjoyed reading the book? Or did you
appreciation stem from a feeling of accomplisment that you managed to plow
through something that few people succeed in reading?

I can happily admit that I was not able to complete it. Once I realised that
it wasn't going to improve, I just stopped.

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kevinwang
Wow he really loves Proust

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pm90
There is a reason why he is described as one of the greatest novelist that
ever lived. I'm reading through In Search of Lost Time and just the simplicity
of the writing, exploring some of the most seemingly banal aspects of human
nature, is astounding. I do wish I knew French; I can only imagine what the
original manuscript must feel like.

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gpvos
What a weird web site. You need to click for the second page of the article,
yet you can scroll down for the "next" article.

