Group Read: Proust Volume 7, Finding Time Again

Here is the thread for In Search of Lost Time, volume 7, by Marcel Proust.

Our previous threads can be found here:

Volumes 5 & 6 http://www.librarything.com/topic/268170
Volume 4 http://www.librarything.com/topic/264809
Volume 3 http://www.librarything.com/topic/258050
Volume 2 http://www.librarything.com/topic/250359
Volume 1 http://www.librarything.com/topic/245011

In the Prendergast edition volume 7 is Finding Time Again. In other editions it is Time Regained.

I'm enjoying this much more than The Fugitive. Marcel is back in Paris after a long stay at a sanatorium. France is at war and the Germans are only an hour's drive from Paris, but Mme Verdurin's salon continues. She is inconvenienced by a shortage of men, as is Charlus who is forced to make other arrangements.

Half-way through. The war is over and Marcel has just returned from another long stay at a sanatorium. He is reflecting at length on memory, so the pace has slowed.

This volume reads so far as though Proust wrote it, unlike The Fugitive which reads like a collection of jottings that have been strung together.

Marcel is now reflecting on art. As for happiness, almost its only useful quality is to make unhappiness possible. We need, during periods of unhappiness, to form particularly pleasant and powerful bonds of trust and affection in order that their destruction can cause us the precious laceration called unhappiness.

The going is heavy.

After another long stay at a sanatorium, Marcel returns to Paris, and to an evening at the Guermantes'. While waiting in the library at the Guermantes' new house he takes a book from the shelf, the same book his mother read to him at Combray, and is flooded with happiness. He recalls other instances that recalled a forgotten past and filled him with joy, and realises that the atmosphere and emotions of the past still exist in him and can be triggered not by conscious thought, but by physical sensations and objects: the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea; a stumble on a paving stone; a musical phrase. He decides to devote the rest of his life to recalling these lost pieces of paradise and to make them into a work of art.

On entering the Guermantes' salon, Marcel is shocked to see his old friends and acquaintances in fancy dress, then realises that age has changed them. Time has also changed the social structure: people who were once lionised are demeaned or forgotten; others who were invited nowhere are now leaders; mediocrities are feted. Marcel sees that the connections between the past and the present will be the theme of his work.

This last section completes a circuit that began in the first volume with Marcel in his bedroom at Combray, connecting the Guermantes Way and Swann's Way, ending with the daughter of Gilberte and Saint-Loup.

Apart from a few slow spots, I found this volume thought-provoking and entertaining. Although tempted to start something else for light relief, I read this volume on its own because immersion seems to work best.

You finished!!!!!

I've started the final volume. I'm planning to make it my only book until I'm done - hopefully soon!

I've finished! This volume beautifully wraps up the work as a whole. It's amazing to me that Proust was able to so tightly construct a 4000 page work. This has been a wonderful reading experience and I'm so grateful to everyone who joined in. Good luck to everyone still reading - I'll keep all the threads starred so that I see if anyone is still posting and can comment.

Here's my review of the final volume.

In Time Regained, Proust finds his way back to his initial brilliance after the weaker volumes 5 and 6. Time Regained is a beautiful summing up of this 4000 page book. The beginning of this volume takes place during WWI, though the narrator spends much of it at a sanatarium trying to recover his health. After the war, the narrator returns to Paris and attends a reception at the home of the Princesse de Guermantes. The surprise to the reader is that the title is not held by the Princesse we remember, but now by Mme Verdurin who has finally ascended to the Faubourg St. Germain set. Many of our old favorites are at this reception or remembered in detail by the narrator (even if dead or not present) at it: the Duchesse de Guermantes, Gilberte, Odette, Charlus, Robert Saint-Loup, Rachel, Albertine, grandmother, Francoise, all the artists, etc. At the reception, the narrator comes to the conclusion that he has a special talent for making connections and memory and seeing the whole picture of life and concludes that he must write a book describing it. Of course, death hangs over him and he worries that he won't have time to complete his work.

This volume was an extremely satisfying and poignant conclusion to an unforgettable reading experience. I look forward to thumbing through all of the volumes to look at my notes and highlighted passages before writing and overall conclusion of this reading experience.