To learn more about the themes of this novel, watch this video next: kzread.info/dash/bejne/nIhtrrWdoMmspso.html

I needed a good cry. I had to pause and might not finish it because I’m almost done with the fourth book. It’s so sad, when I realized through your words that we are always different people, never our former selves. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this video. I’m pretty Stoic, but you hit a nerve with your take on this sublime journey which is Proust.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Wow thank you so much. i think you should really thank Proust. I'm a mere messenger, he was the true genius.

@gracefitzgerald2227

Жыл бұрын

@ColdNightSea I finished! It’s difficult. I got the audio books and listen to them as well. When I was on book 4 that’s when I started the audio adventure. Proust is a master at keeping his story like rooms in a huge building that you can weave in and out of. It’s so trippy that as your reading a chapter he alludes to the same scenario in the audio and vice versa. It’s literally a book that’s alive. Best wishes and I truly hope you love it.

@akeithing1841

Жыл бұрын

I tried the first book and unfortunately could not get it rolling. I have never audibooked it but I think you have inspired me to try it!

@gracefitzgerald2227

Жыл бұрын

@@akeithing1841 Hooray! It’s hard, but it feels so friggin good when you persevere through something that you didn’t think you’d would. Double the satisfaction when you the driver hands you the wheel! All my best wishes!

@alexandertye3244

Жыл бұрын

You're not Stoic

Thank you so much for this monumental effort. It sounds like Proust left posterity with a blueprint for a meaningful and happy life.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

He was obsessed with an artistic legacy. It paid off. Thank you!

Through this labour of love, perhaps I will rediscover my love of literature. Thank you for this formidable journey.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Great to hear that.

@cheri238

8 ай бұрын

​@@Fiction_Beast Thank you ❤

I am half way through volume two. I will definitely read all seven volumes. Already at this early stage I can say that this is the greatest work of literature I have ever read. Thank you for making this excellent video.

I like this review. I read The Search about 10 years ago, and reread Swann’s way recently. I love Swann’s Way for sure. I appreciate the beautiful prose, the humor, and I deeply appreciate the love and appreciation for music and art. Thanks for the review. J

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much! I also loved Swann's way and that enticed me to power through the entire novel. But Time Regained was also wonderful.

Great video. Thanks for all the work you put into making this.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Appreciate it.

Simply beautiful! Thanks so much.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching such a long video :)

@cheri238

8 ай бұрын

​@Fiction_Beast I have watched this several times of your many videos. Thank you again, Fiction Beast. In addition, I have every leisurely loved reading Marcel Proust's masterpiece, "In Time Lost," throughout my years.❤

I'm an avid reader of literature, have a graduate degree in Literature, adore Flaubert. But Proust is my Waterloo. I began with" Swann's Way"- as one does. And ground my way through it. The descriptions of the countryside, those exquisite blossoms, the double church spires were intoxicating. But Swann's blind infatuation with the woman of the demi- monde and the creatures of the salon she inhabits drove me insane. It was obviously a painting she reminded him of that he was in love with- the idiotic aesthete. Mercifully he marries his creature and then loses interest- while she has affairs with minor aristocrats. Unfortunately she has a daughter with which Marcel can now continue the cycle of obsessive infatuation. No, even my immune system started to become depressed and like Proust I craved a cork lined room- but to keep out the following volumes of "Le Temps Recherches".

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Going to Proust for plot is just as disappointing as he was with high society, love and career. He opens your eyes to new possiblities which we often either dont see or dont care to see. Yes, love is disappointing for Proust, but art is not. literature is not.

@DarkAngelEU

2 жыл бұрын

I like to read it for the gossip, the melodrama. Sharing it with my girlfriend turns into bouts of laughter how French he is. I wrestle through some of the boring passages because I know something beautiful will come up. Maybe you need a sense of humour and laugh instead of feel depressed for Proust.

This is wonderful! And how appropriately you have chosen each painting to illustrate the narration. Thank you so much. I am now going to read Proust, thanks to your videos.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

You’re the first to comment on it. So I appreciate that you noticed.

So I’m almost done with the fifth book. Here’s the weird thing. I bought the audio books. I’m on Within a Budding Grove and every time I listen to the audio book there’s references to the fifth book, or future things that happen in minute details. This makes me think I could be a crazy person and listen and read these books for the rest of my life and have strings that attach to circumstances the narrator makes, like pins that attach to a bulletin board. Like a psychotic cop who can’t solve that last case. How’d he do it? I’ve never held magic in my hands like these novels. It is truly remarkable. Sorry about the long rant but I know you’re the only person I can share this with.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

He experienced the depth of human suffering and that taught him deep insight. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

I love the Impressionists. Gorgeous video. Thank you for this.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

You are so welcome!

@TheSalMaris

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast content is also great - forgot that part. Look forward to your next video

Really love the Vermeer paintings

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

So did Proust.

Your videos are beautiful works of Art

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much 😀

This would win the game show challenge "Summarizing Proust."

@gracefitzgerald2227

2 жыл бұрын

But he had to do it in less than two minutes😅. Hilarious bit BTW. Fiction Beast is an incredible story teller on his own.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Two years ago i did a shorter summary, and a one sentence summary.

@marichristian1072

2 жыл бұрын

I think Monty Python attempted such a summary in game show format.

@gracefitzgerald2227

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast 😝 lol

we want more such long video great work!

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

more to come.

I’d recommend The Story of the Stone/Dream of Red Chambers (1791) by Cao Xueqin as a rival to Proust’s opus. It’s a beautifully written account, with amazing psychological depth and narrative mastery, of the decline and fall of an aristocratic Chinese family in 1700s.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I talked about it in my 10 Chinese novels. It’s great.

When i finished reading it (and it took me 7 years to get there, because the final volumes were not translated and published yet) i was amazed, exhilarated and sad at the same time. After many years i had read a work that i enjoyed as if it was the first great book i have ever read (imagine going back to the first time you read dostoevski) and at the same time i was sad because i knew there would be no other book like it.

@paritoshparashar9929

9 ай бұрын

When you read it the second time, it will be your future self's first time. We die every moment.

Thank you for introducing such an interesting author, I ve never read any book of his. But I will. 💚💚.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

He wrote just one novel. But a big one.

@hayatkaidi7889

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast like Emily brönte then( who wrote only" wuthering heights ") I will give it a try. Thank-you sooo much ❤️

@cheri238

8 ай бұрын

​@Fiction_Beast It's one of my favorite novels!!! Huge!!!!

Thank you, love blossoms in art .

@ayliea3974

Жыл бұрын

What a beautiful thing to say! Thank you !

Thank you

This video gives us a great understanding of the deep meaning of the masterpiece.

A great introduction to Proust's oeuvre. Proust is not for everyone. It is slow moving...very slow moving with sentences that go on forever, introspective and minutely detailed. @ 4:39 two spelling errors, one of which could mislead, the other makes no sense in the context but could be understood by anyone ambitious enough to read Proust. "Plump" not "plum". Madeleines are a butter pound cake baked in special molds. They contain no plums. They are described as "plump" because the side that is not scalloped looks like a pregnant woman's belly. "Palate" not "pallet". The first is the roof of the mouth, and the second is a wooden frame used for shipping, or a makeshift bed.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

While reading from the book, I used Page's (apple) dictation function, and my pronunciation is not refined enough so my computer misunderstood those two words, and i was too sloppy to check them properly. Really appreciate you taking your time correcting my mistakes. It's too late for the quote in the video, but I can change the subtitles.

Great video and thanks for uploading! Which translations are featured in this video? I don't recognise the book covers?

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Various translators but all I believe commissioned by penguin classics.

What's your favorite volume?

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Volumes 1 and 7 (6th in English)

Thanks!

What an astonishingly good video! I am deeply grateful for your work. Thank you.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Wow, thank you!

good work man

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Appreciate it!

Okay, let's begin before my memory fades😮

I would be grateful if give your 3-4 (or more, if any) reasons why you consider "in search of lost time" the greatest novel in human history? Other than Proust's wonderful depiction of time and memory.

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

I will address it in a future video

@lilyghassemzadeh

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast Thank you very much.

I strongly suggest reading the two MP biographies written by first G. Painter & second by Barker . Both will allow for an easing into the work: circle the mountain before trying to climb.Furthermore, let's be clear, the "novel" "is a gay classic. Yes, very much so, and that explains its success initially, and later. The gay lobby in literature was florid prior to and during the Bel Époque, and hence, MP was given ample assistance by his gay friends in its promotion.

This channel will have more views in future

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

World's longest novel 💓

I still couldn't believe that I read the entire novel of In Search of Lost Time.

This video is very... Proustian...

@Fiction_Beast

2 жыл бұрын

Looong :)

I absolutely hate this author as a person but man was he dedicated to what he did

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

how come?

@Saber23

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast he lived and promoted life as an absolute degenerate like most French figures it’s the antithesis of my way of life and a path I find evil and destructive so yeah that’s why

I enjoyed both translations, but still prefer the older (and presumably not as literal) Remembrance of Things Past.

12”40’ --I read the book three times, didnt see a clue that Proust was in love with Gilberte’s mother odette , also didnt see that was the reason Gilberte broke up with him ….he indeed described Ottette’s way of dressing and decorating her drawing room as a professional courtesan , who ‘lives for men “ ….

@Fiction_Beast

3 ай бұрын

An easy one to miss.

What publisher and edition is the filed version from?

I want to tell you of my magic moment. There was this place between two woods where the grass was cut leading to both and there two little kids who I saw 6 or 7 days a week in the summer and 4 or 5 days a week in the school time would spend all day with me for five years. I dream of two kids running, with me behind running after them, through the trail towards the woods away from their house. Then I begin thinking of all the children I ever helped or played with throughout the years, but somehow that image of a trail between two woods is like the wood between the worlds like in "The Magician's Nephew" for me. One day they asked what we would do today and I said, "We will put whip cream on your mother's head and throw cheetos at her till they stick." It was just a thought on a whim. The kids immediately ran to their mother to say what they would be doing today and she looked at me and said, "are you going to do it too?" I said all of us will do it. She nodded in consent. You never saw a young four year old throw a cheeto as if he was a military man dealing with his worst enemy in battle with a hand grenade.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed reading it.

Hi, I would like to know whats the boos order?

"in the shadows of young girls with flower" the same as "within a budding grove"? I was looking at copies of everyman's library and volume 2 is named something else. Also what translation do you suggest and why?

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Yes within a budding grove is an older translation.

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I recommend the penguin translation

@cheri238

8 ай бұрын

Lol

That's the thing about lost time. You don't look for it.

Dear sir, have you read Chinese novel? How do you like the Dream of the red chamber?

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

I have read parts of the red chamber but not the entire novel. A while back I did a video on ten Chinese novels. Search for it here. Top 10 Chinese Books of All Time (10 Greatest Chinese Authors) kzread.info/dash/bejne/oqCilKZyp8XYm8o.html

23:00

you should be more enthusiastic about proust at the start.. it's a joy to read.

"our memories" or just "memories"?

This is one of the finest work but not the greatest - come to india and read the works of Munshi premchand and rm dinkar jhani…

There is no way in hell you enjoy reading all these classic novels haha I know it’s an heroic task to finish. It’s rewarding but I know for a fact you have to be exhausted reading these tedious things. Take a break and read some contemporary stuff like delillo or vessas or anything that isn’t 200 years old haha. I appreciate it tho haha

คนเรากว่าจะรู้สึกได้ว่าอะไรเป็นอะไรนั้นต้องผ่านการใึกฝนเรียนรู้ชี้ทางใช้สูตรการศึกษาและวิจัยอย่างครบถ้วนสมบูรณ์นี่แหละว่าหนังสือที่จะได้รางวัลนั้นจะสร้างเรื่องให้ชาวโลกทำได้สิ่งที่ดีที่ถูกทางด้วยกันอย่างรู้สึกทันความผิดความไม่ถูกต้องทันทีรับรู้ได้ทันและสัมผัสได้ด้วยการเอาควาทดีแลกใครมีความดียิ่งหลบได้ทันเพราะจะรู้สึกได้ดีมนตัวเองว่าเราจะทำอะไรได้บ้างในเวลานี้ตรวนี้จำเป็นต้องรู้ตัวเองให้ทันให้ได้ค่ะบทความที่สร้างให้คนต่างระดับยิ้มได้คนดีที่สุดที่ไม่ยินดีตะยิ้มให้ความจนแต่คนจนที่ดูดีที่ดูสมบูรณ์แบบนั้นจะต้องมีเหมือนคนจริงความจริงของคนเอาความละเอียดอ่อนของคนจะมาเกิดเป็นคนเพราะพ่อแม่เลือกเป็นเรื่องที่ไม่อาจสื่อให้คนทั่วไปได้รับฟังได้เพราะความสมบูรณ์แบบที่ได้มาจากการถูกให้เกิดมาาร้างสื่อซ่อมแซมแก้ไขทุกปัญหาทั่วโลกและทั่วจากทั่วจักรวาลเรื่องเหล่านี้ใครรับฟังเนียนรู้ได้และนำไปปรับใช้จะได้ผลกว่าการสอนให้ยอมรับควาทเหลวแหลกเราไม่โทษใครแต่เราจะไม่ทำลายตัวเองด้วยการอยู่กับความต่ำช้าเรื่องราวของผู้เจริญรุ่งเรืองฟังบ่อยๆได้วิธีแยกแยะชนิดและประเภทของคนได้อย่างละเอียดอ่อนเป็นอย่างไม่ป่วยไข้หรือโง่งมงายหรือไม่เป็นบ้าหอบฟาง

I've read La Recherche (I'm French) and Ulysses. I learned from both. But to me the greatest book of the 20th century is Le voyage au bout de la nuit.

@ahmetdogan5685

Жыл бұрын

Did you read in French?

@mg.7668

Жыл бұрын

@@ahmetdogan5685 yes (I'm French)

Yo whats ur name again matt?

What’s with these odd wimpy accents that so many KZread commentators use? It’s odd...

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

What if it’s your own accent?

@duellingscarguevara

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast makes one wonder what Robert thinks Robert sounds like, and what he actually does sound like?. (Cassette recorders had the same effect, on everybody I know. “That’s not me!”. ). I guess these days, apps can make a recorded voice, sound like, what a person thinks they sound like?. Wonderous times we live in.

I am currently creating an online French literature course to be marketed and sold by my company, LinguaTute. This would be an 8-week long course consisting of one live class (1.5hrs) every week, which will be taught by a PhD French literature student at Oxford University. I'd really love to hear people's opinions on what should be included in this French literature course - in return I can offer you a 10% discount on the course (which we will begin delivering around the end of May/beginning of April - specific date is still to be decided). If you would like to have a chat with me and help to shape the future of this course, please respond to this comment. Thank you!!

" On ne fait pas de bonne littérature avec de bons sentiments. " Ainsi la Bible, quel chef-d'oeuvre ! - Henri Jeanson. So a "beautiful novel" is not a criterium for a good novel. That's why also femal writers can't accomplish a chef-d'oeuvre, .. For Kant, women = beautiful, men = sublime. Also, Crime and punishment is the greatest book, if one look at the influences, even Freud and Nietzsche refer to Dostoievsky . No one refers to Proust, because Proust is only a columnist (he wrote in the Figaro) who went bad. Lenin referred to Balzac's Comedie humaine... You can't really expect very much from a folk that cherish a novel beginning with "Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure... " this is a dreamy folk, with no energy. A submissive country. The worst thing is that with all this nostalgy and care for the past, we didn't save our towns & landscapes from the destruction by the housing lobby. You can admire Monet and Sisley in the museum while the locations they painted are almost all destroyed. In reality we don't care at all for the Lost time. And imho, the greatest novel ever written is Celin's "Voyage au bout de la nuit". This book had more influence than Proust, on french culture.

I am allergic to how often people of your gen use "we, humans". Can't you say "we, people", "us, thinking creatures", "us, speaking creatures", "us, the readers"? Why do you try to name a void, you "humans"?

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

It’s subconscious.

@dancroitoru364

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast It's interesting though that in my generation we almost always used "humans" in the 3rd person as in "Human beings are ...". Your gen seems to use language as if saying "I have the phallus because I say it". That's what little kids do before they accept they can't have the whole meaning ...

@Fiction_Beast

Жыл бұрын

Maybe humanism has become part of our dna

@dancroitoru364

Жыл бұрын

@@Fiction_Beast Or maybe, methinks, "you humans" are unashamed narcissists who can't cope with anything not in the first person. Hahahahaha!

@cheri238

8 ай бұрын

​@@Fiction_Beast Yes❤