The Counterfeiters by André Gide (novel # 248)

 

The Counterfeiters by André Gide

            Translated from French by Dorothy Bussy

Oh, simplicity! What a pure angelic soul you possess! And consciously. Life, my dear fellow, is nothing but a comedy. But the difference between you and me is that I know I am playing a part, whilst … ~ Olivier to Bernard

For starters, I did not like this novel.

 

But, I am trying to adopt John Updike’s rules for literary criticism (I don’t truly consider my “reviews” as criticism, but merely my own reaction). Nonetheless, rule #1 is:

• Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

As best I can discern, and as concisely as I can put it, I believe Gide intended to show that we all wear masks. If I am half-correct, I have to admit that he portrayed that premise fairly well, though I am not half-convinced that it is universally true. In this regard, and only this, The Counterfeiters reminds me of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

 

Updike’s second rule:

• Give enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

A conversation between two main-characters Oliviers and Bernard:

“Then why am I telling you all this? … Because, reflecting on my own case, I became aware that not only images but ideas may strike the brain with more or less clearness. A person with a dull mind receives only confused perceptions; but for that very reason he cannot realize clearly that he is dull. He would only begin to suffer from his stupidity if he were conscious of it; and in order to be conscious of it, he would have to become intelligent. Now imagine for a moment such a monster—an imbecile who is intelligent enough to understand that he is stupid.”

“Why he would cease to be an imbecile.”

 

“No my dear fellow; you may believe me, because as a matter of fact, I am that very imbecile.

The Counterfeiters is a complex, character-driven story with no central plot but several interconnected subplots, including a group of schoolboys passing counterfeit coins to collect change in real currency—a literal and allegorical nod to the title. Gide uses numerous unreliable narrators, shifting perspectives, and even metafiction: one character, Édouard, is writing a novel also called The Counterfeiters, possibly as Gide’s alter ego. A chapter titled “The Author reviews His Characters” left me wondering who was speaking, Édouard or Gide.

 

Updike’s third rule:

• Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.

Consider a line from the character Sophroniska:

“Yes, yes; I’m beginning to see,” said Sophroniska politely, though Laura’s laugh was very near conquering her. “But you know it’s always dangerous to represent intellectuals in novels. The public is bored by them; one only manages to make them say absurdities and they give an air of distraction to everything they touch.”

I quite agree with the Sophroniska. All the brilliant intellectuals and their absurd navel-gazing left me bored and distracted.

 

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

 

 

This novel fulfills the “Crime” category for the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge, as the title features the crime of counterfeiting.

 

The rest of Updike’s rules for literary criticism can be found HERE 

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Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (novel #178)

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

(translated from the French by Ralph Manheim)

 

I had tried to lose myself, I hadn’t wanted to be face to face with my own life anymore, but everywhere I kept finding it. ~ Ferdinand Bardamu

 

The “journey” is that of Ferdinand Bardamu, and courses through the First World War, colonial Africa, the United States, and concluding in the suburbs of Paris, where Bardamu is a doctor. It is semi-autobiographical.

 

And utterly depressing. Bardamu is a cynic and pessimist, and holds humanity, including himself in contempt. Everything is stupid, worthless, pointless. 

 

The only person in the book worse than Bardamu is Robinson, a fellow soldier he meets during the war – the two of them trying, and failing to surrender, to avoid further mindlessness of war. Bardamu and Robinson’s paths are fated to cross time and time again – in Africa, in the U.S., and back in Paris. 

 

My analysis of Céline’s point, though one I admittedly don’t care to waste much time on, I already wasted too much time reading this book, seems to be that life is a journey – a journey of night and darkness, the end of the night is death. The main character, and Céline I presume, consider death a relief from the misery of life. 

 

Point made – and rejected. Moving on. The first I’ve read by Céline, undoubtedly the last. And the cover's weird.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

 

This novel satisfies “a classic in translation”, in the Back to the Classics 2021 Challenge.

 

Excerpts:

 

Most people don’t die until the last moment; others start twenty years in advance, sometimes more. Those are the unfortunates.

 

While the war was still on, the seeds of our hateful peace were being sown.

 

The plain truth, I may as well admit it, is that I’ve never been really right in the head.

 

There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good people from bad.

 

I’d always worried about being practically empty, about having no serious reason for living. And now, confronted with the facts, I was sure of my individual nullity.

 

We kid ourselves, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles and nothing else.

 

I had cast off all self-respect long ago. That sentiment had always struck me as far above my station, much too costly for my resources. I’d made that sacrifice once and for all and had no regrets whatever. 

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Germinal by Émile Zola (novel #168)

(translation by Havelock Ellis)

 

Was Darwin right, then, and the world only a battlefield, where the strong ate the weak for the sake of the beauty and continuance of the race? ~ Étienne

 

Germinal is widely regarded as Zola’s masterpiece. It is set in France during the coal miner’s strike of the 1860s. The principle character, Étienne, is a recurring character introduced in an earlier novel. Étienne is out of work, for striking his supervisor and although he is qualified for more skillful labor, he takes a job as a coal miner. He nearly quits after one day of the back-breaking work, but…

 

He did not know, but he wished to go down again to the mine, to suffer and to fight.

 

Étienne is an idealist, and Germinal is the tale of The Bourgeois and Proletariat. I am tempted to say it is the French version of The Grapes of Wrath, but that would be unfair to Zola whose masterpiece was published a half-century before Steinbeck’s. 

 

Early in the book, I thought I was not going to like it. I thought it was going to be a thesis for communism, portraying the heartless greed of capitalism. But no. Zola humanized both miners and capitalist, showing the very different suffering of each in the elongated strike.

 

He portrays the long slow suffering of the miners…

 

Things dragged on; a deep discontent was fomenting in the pit…

 

against the comfort and sudden plunge to ruin of the capitalist.

 

These revolutionary dreamers might demolish society and rebuild another society; they would not add one joy to humanity, they would not take away one pain, by cutting bread-and-butter for everybody. ~ M. Hennebeau

 

Tragedy and ruin:

 

On both sides obstinacy was piling up ruin: while labour was dying of hunger, capital was being destroyed.

 

Zola depicts the passion of the Étienne, who was a persuasive speaker, but naive and unprepared for the full toll of suffering a strike would cause.

 

The mine belongs to you, to all of you who, for a century, have paid for it with so much blood and misery.

 

And even the stoic anarchist, Souvarine, is given fair voice.

 

Raise wages – how can you? They’re fixed by an iron law to the smallest possible sum, just the sum necessary to allow the workers to eat dry bread and get children. If they fall too low, the workers die, and the demand for new men makes them rise. If they rise too high, more men come, and they fall. It is the balance of empty bellies, a sentence to a perpetual prison of hunger.

 

All a compelling struggle, but I didn't love this story, until the end, when lives are imperiled, miners are buried; the bitterness and conflict is forgotten as all sides are united in their desperation to save a few human souls.

 

…and these two men, with their contempt for each other – the rebellious workman and the skeptical master – threw themselves on each other’s necks, sobbing loudly in the deep upheaval of all the humanity within them.

 

This was tragically beautiful, and made the whole story worthwhile.

 

Perhaps Steinbeck learned from Zola – the imperfect ending. There is no happily ever after. Yet, there is hope born of adversity, and bathed in blood, but still…hope.

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first time I’ve read Germinal or Zola. Have you read this novel? This author? What did you think? I’ll definitely read more by Émile Zola

Oh and...the author has the coolest name, ermmm, second coolest name in literature (apologies to Italo Calivno for nearly forgetting him).

 

Other excerpts:

 

But now the miner was waking up down there, germinating in the earth just as a grain germinates; and some fine day he would spring up in the midst of the fields: yes, men would spring up, and army of men who would re-establish justice. ~ narrative

 

You will never be worthy of happiness as long as you own anything, and your hatred of the bourgeois proceeds solely from an angry desire to be bourgeois yourselves in their place. ~ Sourvarine

 

Men were springing forth, a black avenging army, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and their germination would soon overturn the earth. ~ narrative

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Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (novel #128)

(translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteux, illustrated by Gustave Doré)

 

…as you know that in all companies there are more fools than wise men, and that the greater part always surmounts the better…

 

 

This pentalogy is usually referred to simply as Gargantua and Pantagruel, but is also collectively known as Master François Rabelais’ Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel. The first volume, published in 1532, is The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua

 

In 1534, possibly due to popular demand for more, came the prequel:  The Very Horrific Life of Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel

 

The remaining three pick up with Pantagruel again: The Third (1546), Fourth (1552), and Fifth (1564) Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Good Pantagruel

 

In entirety, G&P is a little like Gulliver’s Travels mashed together with Jason and the Argonauts, with a sprinkling of Don Quixote.

 

It is filled with wordplay, bawdy and scatological humor, fantastic feats, astonishing creatures, violence, nonsense, and codpiece jokes – lots and lots of codpiece jokes, such as this description of Gargantua’s prodigious codpiece:

…it was still gallant, succulent, droppy, sappy, pithy, lively, always flourishing, always fructifying, full of juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight. I avow God, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you more of him in the book which I have made of the dignity of codpieces. One thing I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it well furnished and victualled within, nothing like unto the hypocritical codpieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed only with wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex.

 

Now I get it. Codpieces are funny in any context, but after the first two or three hundred recurrences, even codpieces start to lose their appeal.

 

Another technique that Rabelais used over and over and over, when describing some event, some scene, some occurrence, act, fact, deed, mishap, predicament, affair, matter, exploit, juncture, proceeding, case, occasion, calamity, phase, tide, or crisis, he would list every possible synonym for the – whatever it was. I attempted to mimic this device above, but Rabelais’ list were usually much longer – sometimes filling several pages, and occasionally an entire chapter.

 

Oh ho! Those were great fun, every single time (sarcasm). 

 

Oh yeah – he also made up words. Rabelais used his knowledge of Latin to create new words. I understand that a few of these actually made their way into official French language – but most did not. These made-up words were translated to English, and the reader has to infer their meaning.

 

In a word – ughh!

 

It was a laborious read. It probably loses something in translation, and probably loses much more in context. G&P was undoubtedly pretty edgy stuff in the 16^thcentury, and I have no doubt Rabelais was witty and well informed. I’m certain it abounds with subtle commentary, clever wordplay, astute observation on the foibles of humanity, and profound philosophy – mostly lost on me.

 

But I also think it is not entirely just me. I suspect that even among Classics readers, there are a fair number who haven’t heard of this work, and many more who haven’t read it. Why not? I think, because it isn’t timeless. I think it was probably pretty special – and scandalous – in its day, but I don’t think it works well today. Which is sort of my apology to Rabelais for…

 

My rating: 2 ½ of 5 stars

 

I read this as part of the Back to the Classics challenge 2019: a very long classic (my version is over 1000 pages)

 

Tangential observation: On three occasions Rabelais used the phrase “the beast with two backs”, or some variation, as a euphemism for the act of making love. I’d always thought the phrase was attributed to Shakespeare, who also used it, but it should actually be attributed to Rabelais, as his is the earlier work.

 

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Candide by Voltaire (novel #124)

All is for the best

Candide is an 18th Century satire. The title character is a privileged, innocent young man, and illegitimate nephew of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh. Also residing in the baron’s castle are the baron’s daughter Cunegonde, and tutor Pangloss who teaches…

That they live in the best of all possible worlds

That things cannot be otherwise than as they are

And that all is for the best

A philosophy Candide embraces without doubt or reservation.

Until his world begins to unravel. Candide is evicted when a fairly innocent kiss with Cunegonde is discovered. Alone and unprotected, he is conscripted into the army, beaten and carried away, later to learn of an attack against his uncle’s castle, the murder of the entire household, and the rape and murder of Cunegonde.  

And yet, Candide is merely confused – he loses no faith in Pangloss’ teachings, but merely wishes for his tutor to help him understand the apparent contradiction of his philosophy and the reality of life.

In time, Candide happily finds Pangloss and Cunegonde – not dead after all, but in severely humbled condition – nonetheless there is hope for reward of Candide’s innocence and faith.

But no. A series of events brings the characters together, and then separates them, and causes them by force or freewill to leave Europe for the Americas. Candide concludes…

We are going into another world, ….and surely it must be there that all is for the best.

But no. Back to Europe, and then the Mediterranean. And slowly, though narrated very quickly, Candide is disillusioned.

The satire is quite evidently Voltaire’s rebuttal of Optimism. Meh…OK. I get it. But I was unimpressed, and I didn’t find it very funny.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel satisfies A Classic Comedy for the Back to the Classics 2019 challenge.

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Papillon by Henri Charriére (novel #123)

"My duty to myself was not to get even, but above anything else, to live – to live in order to escape." ~ convict Henri Charriére aka Papillon

Papillon is an autobiographical novel, in which Papillon tells his tale of imprisonment and escape from the notorious French penal colony in French Guiana, 1931-1941.

Autobiographical novel is a new genre for me, and it gave me a little trouble in deciding how I felt about this classic.

So, bear with me. Let me pretend for a moment that Papillon, the novel, is pure fiction, and that Papillon, the person, is a fictional character. I’d call this an exciting adventure of unjust imprisonment, inhuman conditions, daring escape, and the indomitable spirit of man. The narrator, Henri Charriére aka Papillon [French for butterfly], for the large butterfly tattoo on his chest, is a safecracker and thief in 1930s Paris underworld. He is framed, tried, and convicted for murder and sentenced to life in the infamous penal colony in French Guiana.

Papillon is by his own admission a criminal, but no murderer. If this is only fiction, I’d definitely classify him an unreliable narrator. No problem – the unreliable narrator is an effective literary device.

The penal colony in French Guiana, which includes Diable or Devil’s Island, is certainly infamous. It is the repository of France’s discarded citizens – those either unworthy or incapable of reform. Papillon calls it…

…guillotining of men without benefit of a guillotine.

After more than 10 years, and several failed attempts, Papillon manages to escape from inescapable Diable, along with a partner, by riding the tides on rafts made of coconuts. His partner nearly makes it, but dies in quicksand when they reach land. Papillon however, finally wins his freedom and becomes a legitimate and productive citizen of Venezuela.

An exciting and satisfying tale. If just a novel, I’d probably give it 4 stars.

Except – it isn’t pure fiction.

It is supposed to be autobiographical, as such the unreliable narrator is no longer just a literary device; if the author expects me to believe him, he needs to be reliable, and to be blunt, he isn’t. He was after all, a confirmed criminal – a dishonest man. His assertion of his innocence is rather self-serving, as are repeated assertions that all he wants is the chance to prove himself a productive member of society.

True, my punishment wasn't worthy of the French people, and if society need to protect itself, it didn't have to sink so low - but that's beside the point. I can't erase my past with a swipe of the sponge. I must rehabilitate myself in my own eyes first, then in the eyes of others.

Very noble, but he wrote these words after he’d gained his freedom. We can’t know his true motivation back in prison, but I suspect it was more about gaining freedom than proving his virtue. Finally, there is some rather compelling evidence that he borrowed details of some of his exploits from another author, casting further doubt on his reliability.

The definition of autobiographical novel is a bit fuzzy, and some fiction is allowed – but this felt much more like Charriére’s manifesto – to convince himself and the world that he was a decent fellow and a victim of French injustice.

I don’t really buy it. I’ll give him this though – he was a remarkable human being.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel satisfies A Classic in Translation (from French) for the Back to the Classics 2019 challenge.

Excerpts, all the words or thoughts of Papillon:

A society that had no intention of helping me. Men who couldn’t be bothered to find out if I was worth salvaging. A world that had rejected me and cast me beyond the reach of hope, into holes like this, where they had only one thing on their minds: to kill me off, no matter what.

Dear God, you’ve got to realize that I must live among civilized people and show them I’m capable of taking part in their lives without being a threat to them. That’s my real goal – with or without your help.

I looked around my cell. It was hard to believe that a country like mine, France, the cradle of liberty for the entire world, the land which gave birth to the Rights of Man, could maintain, even in French Guiana, on a tiny island lost in the Atlantic, and installation as barbarously repressive as the Réclusion [solitary confinement] of Saint-Joseph.

My duty to myself was not to get even, but above anything else, to live – to live in order to escape.

I touched God, I felt Him around me, inside me. He even whispered in my ear: “You suffer; you will suffer more. But this time I am on your side. You will be free. You will, I promise you.

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An Antarctic Mystery (The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) by Jules Verne (novel #118)

Pym, poor Pym! he must not be foresaken ~ Dirk Peters

An Antarctic Mystery is Jules Verne’s sequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Although it is not unheard of for one author to sequel another, it is rare that both are such renowned authors, each in their own right. What’s more, I think such sequels are often disappointing, but in this instance, I think it was rather brilliant.

I was excited to learn of Verne’s sequel (thanks Mudpuddle), because although I found Poe’s novel riveting – it ended quite abruptly, and left me wanting more.

Jules Verne obligingly provided more.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a bit of complicated metafiction. In the beginning, Poe has the fictional Pym relate his tale to Poe, asserting that no one would believe the tale if recounted as a true narrative, so he employs Poe to record it as a “pretended fiction”.

In other words, it’s a fiction, pretending to be fact, pretending to be fiction. I said it was complicated.

And then Verne picks it up and complicates it more. An Antarctic Adventure begins in the Kerguelen Islands, 11 years later with Mr. Jeorling, who does not appear in Pym’s narrative, but who is familiar with Poe’s novel. Jeorling encounters a ship’s captain, Mr. Len Guy, who believes the entire account to be true.

I thought I must be dreaming when I heard Captain Len Guy’s words. Edgar Poe’s romance was nothing but a fiction, a work of imagination by the most brilliant of our American writers. And here was a sane man treating that fiction as reality.

Jeorling concludes Captain Guy is not entirely sane, though an able seaman. Jeorling recalls another Captain Guy – Captain William Guy of the doomed ship Jane, from Pym’s narrative. 

Of course, events prove Captain Len Guy correct and it is evident he is obsessed with discovering the fate of his brother Captain William Guy who was lost with the Jane and her crew.

The original title: Le Sphinx des glaces should be rendered The Sphinx of the Ice Fields in English, but for some reason English versions of the novel are not given this title, but rather An Antarctic Mystery. This was my first time reading Jules Verne. I will definitely read more. I thought this tale quite clever in its treatment of the backstory, an exciting story on its own, and a perfect complement to Poe’s tale creating one complete, fantastic tale.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An Antarctic Mystery was published in 1897, nearly 60 years after The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and nearly 50 years after Poe’s death. So of course, we cannot know what Poe would have thought of it, but I thought it a magnificent tribute by one of the greatest authors of the fantastic to another.

Excerpts:

Life on board was very regular, very simple, and its monotony was not without a certain charm. Sailing is repose in movement, a rocking in a dream, and I did not dislike my isolation. ~ Jeorling

Pym, poor Pym! he must not be forsaken. ~ Dirk Peters

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The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (92 down, 8 to go)

(translation by Richard Howard) 

…it seems that nature has not granted me a heart with which to love and be melancholy; I cannot raise myself higher than vulgar pleasures, and so on. ~ Fabrizio del Dongo

The Charterhouse of Parma is a tale of romance, confounded by political intrigue, treachery, and adventure, wherein Stendhal pries into the psyche and soul of the young hero.

The hero, Fabrizio del Dongo, an Italian nobleman who, upon coming of age, runs off to join the cause of Liberté as he almost manages to enter Napoleon’s army. It’s all over before Fabrizio can truly enter the fray, but this adventure begins a lifelong sequence of right-place, wrong-time scenarios, and vice versa.

Fabrizio is intelligent though initially uneducated, honest, charming, and good looking, but in spite of this, I didn’t quite find him worthy of my sympathy, and this is the one weakness in the story for me. Fabrizio is also fickle, occasionally ungrateful, and impetuous bordering on reckless – no, he is outright reckless at times with his own life and with others’.

Nonetheless, it is an exciting tale reminiscent of The Count of Monte Cristo. The prose is affective and accessible, partial credit to the translator. Stendhal was an early practitioner of realism, when most of his contemporaries wrote in the Romantic style. I haven’t seen it labeled thus, but I would also call it a coming of age tale. There are also elements of Fabrizio that seem to be modeled after Stendhal himself, who like Fabrizio served in Napoleon’s army.

My rating: 3 ½ of 5 stars

This rating, just above the median on my scale, means I liked it, but didn’t love it. I intend to read more by this author, probably The Red and the Black. Have you read Stendhal or The Charterhouse of Parma? What did you think?

Excerpts

 

We must confess that, following the example of many serious authors, we have begun our hero’s story a year before his birth. ~ Narrative reference to Tristram Shandy

As after a great storm the air is purer, so Fabrizio’s soul was tranquil, happy and, so to speak, refreshed.

“I was in love with love”, he wrote to the Duchess; “I did everything possible to gain knowledge of it, but it seems that nature has not granted me a heart with which to love and be melancholy; I cannot raise myself higher than vulgar pleasures, and so on.” ~ Fabrizio del Dongo

A lover thinks more often how to reach his mistress than a husband how to protect his wife; a prisoner thinks more often how to escape than a jailer how to lock his cell; thus, whatever the obstacles, lover and prisoner will triumph. 

 

I am inclined to think that the immoral delight Italians experience in taking revenge is a consequence of their power of imagination; people of other countries do not, strictly speaking, forgive; they forget.

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Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (91 down, 9 to go)

(translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)

          

...a work of art is the only means of regaining lost time. ~ Marcel Proust from Remembrance of Things Past

Guinness recognizes Remembrance of Things Past as the longest novel in the world: over 9.6 million characters. In my version, that equates to 3,165 pages.

It took me around 100 hours – “lost time” I will never get back. I have never been more relieved to finish a novel.

The unnamed protagonist and narrator is the only child of an upper-class French family, late 19th and early 20th century. He is a sickly, aspiring writer, dilettante, idler, and heir to a comfortable fortune (semi-autobiographical). He has keen insight into the thoughts and hearts of others, but is himself incredibly double minded.

I was not invested in the narrator. He is not likeable, but neither is he unlikeable. Like his name, he is a blatant nullity. The numerous other characters are similarly uninspiring. They are flawed – vain, duplicitous, arrogant, snobbish, ambitious, hypocritical, fickle, insecure, suspicious, and perhaps above all ridiculously pretentious, but in spite of these foibles, they were largely uninteresting.

The plot is a remarkable nothing as well. I believe it is intended to be a philosophical treatise on memory, cyclical patterns in our existence, and the meaningless of life. I think it is also commentary on the vanity and decline of French aristocracy. In 3,000+ pages, there are numerous minor themes such as the arts influence on society, anti-Semitism, homosexuality, and the Dreyfus affair that divided France at the time.

The prose is complex, possibly suffering in translation, but not without truth or beauty:

For my intelligence must be a uniform thing, perhaps indeed there exists but a single intelligence, in which everyone in the world participates, towards which each of us from the position of his own separate body turns his eyes, as in a theatre where, if everyone has his own separate seat, there is on the other hand but a single stage. 

…it has indeed been said that the highest praise of God consists in the denial of Him by the atheist, who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator.

Some have called this “…the most respected novel of the twentieth century” or similar hyperbole. I’ve read numerous commentaries asserting the greatness of this novel, but very little explanation of what makes it great. I know it’s terribly presumptuous of me, but in my opinion it’s the emperor’s new clothes.

I may just be very simple; don’t trust my opinion. Read it yourself when you can spare a couple months.

My Rating: 1 ½ of 5 Stars

The title: À la recherche du temps perdu, has received different English renderings. Today it is commonly known by the literal translation – In Search of Lost Time. However, in the earlier translation that I read, Moncrieff and Kilmartin took poetic license from Shakespeare to render the title Remembrance of Things Past.

When I originally came up with my list of The 100 Greatest Novels, I did not realize the two titles were one and the same novel. Consequently, I did a disservice to the author. This novel should have been ranked #39 vs. #91. It’s complicated, but if you are curious as to why, read my explanation of my rankings HERE.

And now, I’m taking a brief break from my quest to read a couple SHORT Christmas Stories – emphasis on SHORT.

Other excerpts:

Then a new light arose in me, less brilliant indeed than the one that had made me perceive that a work of art is the only means of regaining lost time.

I had lived like a painter climbing a road which overlooks a lake hidden by a curtain of rocks and trees. Through a breach he perceives it, it lies before him, he seizes his brushes, but already darkness has come and he can paint no longer, night upon which day will never dawn again.

I had a feeling of intense fatigue when I realized that all this span of time had not only been lived, thought, secreted by me uninterruptedly, that it was my life, that it was myself, but more still because I had at every moment to keep it attached to myself, that it bore me up, that I was poised on its dizzy summit, that I could not move without taking it with me.

If at least, time enough were allotted to me to accomplish my work, I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force today, and I would therein describe men, if need be as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the restricted one reserved for them in space, a place, on the contrary prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant period they have lived through – between which so many days have ranged themselves – they stand like giants immersed in Time.

Proust makes NUMEROUS references to other authors and literature. Sometimes by naming the author, sometimes by naming the book, other times by referencing characters (Capulets and Mantagues). I probably missed some references, but I know he referred to:

Dostoevsky

Tolstoy

Gustave Flaubert

Molière

Balzac

Jonathan Swift

Émile Zola

Shakespeare

Miguel de Cervantes

Henrik Ibsen

Thomas Hardy

Nikolai Gogol

A Thousand and One Nights

But most ironically, Proust referenced The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal, which is next up in my Greatest Novels Quest.

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