Aciman on Proust

Comments · 90

• RC

  @rcash4467 · 7 years ago

  Blew my ear drums out with the intro

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• MA

  @mathilde-r9k · 5 years ago

  It's always amazing for me as a french that Proust could be so appreciate in others country even in translations, certainly some kind of deep power of the book. No one put his own life as far as him in his writing, isolate, hard night worker, never satisfied, always try in to push further the meaning and style together.

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• TQ

  @TQ512 · 8 years ago

  Ahhhh!! Rehearsing the pain before it happened. This was in Call Me By Your Name.

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• BA

  @balaton1 · 1 month ago

  Thank you for this. &nbsp;I&apos;m older and reading Proust for the first time. &nbsp;These speakers give me hope that I&apos;m reading it correct, and also insight to what I had not noticed. &nbsp;What has helped me get through the first pages, (they are not Dr. Seuss), was that I have read most all of &nbsp;William Faulkner 40 years ago. &nbsp;I find myself having to read very slowly at times, or re-reading the paragraph, then to long periods where they are like a toboggan run.<br> &nbsp;His description of the medeline (spelling), that&apos;s exactly when I first had blackened yellowtail snapper where I grew up in Key West. &nbsp;I will never forget that first bite. &nbsp;I can&apos;t recall how it tasted exactly, I only recall lifting my head to the sky in ecstasy. &nbsp;<br> &nbsp;I have a fear that works like Proust, Tolstoy, Gibbon will never happen again. &nbsp;The world of the aristocracy is gone. &nbsp;Where folks had the family money to get highly educated, and had the TIME to try to write these works. &nbsp;Will we have a new addition to &quot;the classics&quot; in our time? &nbsp;I wonder.<br> &nbsp;But, I so look forward to continuing my Proust journey. &nbsp;Jeez, the suffering of Swann on Odette ached my bones. &nbsp;It was a pain I was familiar with. &nbsp;Terrifyingly so.

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• MA

  @mathilde-r9k · 5 years ago (edited)

  One of the best reflexions about Proust meaning and style whith the one of Marguerite Duras, great french writer.

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• OL

  @oliviamckinney7543 · 5 years ago

  I love André Aciman novels so much that I’m going on a quest to find books and songs he mention.

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• BO

  @bonChic20 · 7 years ago

  after five years of reading proust, I&apos;ve become fond of the book and its characters as much as the time I had spent reading them, which in a way parallels Proust&apos;s view that books serve as &quot;calendars&quot; to life

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• DO

  @donbarile8916 · 3 years ago

  OMG. I just discovered the title for my book in progress: &nbsp;This is Nothing Like Proust<br><br>Thank you Professor.

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• SU

  @suzandehghani7892 · 3 years ago

  Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.<br>In Search of Lost Time❤️

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• BR

  @BrunieStudios · 7 months ago

  Great interpretations by , thank you.

• MI

  @mirandac8712 · 4 years ago

  Just for what it&apos;s worth, this doesn&apos;t reflect at all my experience with Proust -- but I&apos;m sure that merely illustrates the manifold angles of this incredible writer. &nbsp;(To me, the kind of stuff these guys are talking about -- aristocratic ironies, jealousy and petty hatreds -- &nbsp;is what kept me from reading it in the first place, and I found very little of it. &nbsp;I&apos;m probably just picking up on different things, and certainly the speakers here are marvelous critics. &nbsp;But for me it&apos;s the most exciting and passionate writing I&apos;ve ever read. &nbsp;There&apos;s no sense of &apos;minutiae&apos; -- and there&apos;s a very definite and sharp form. &nbsp;I enjoy Ferramte and the Knausser but I can&apos;t emphasize how different Proust is from them.<br><br>The seven volumes go from richness to loss and back again. &nbsp;There&apos;s a scene where he has a panic attack in Venice, and it is the most accurate rendition of this quintessentially millennial experience I&apos;ve ever encountered. &nbsp;What it&apos;s really about is the question of sexual identity in our age of social media. &nbsp;In any case, for sure, not enough people read him!)

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• MI

  @michelez715 · 3 years ago (edited)

  I have read numerous times that Elstir was based to a large part on Whistler, or on a combination of several artists, but I don&apos;t think Monet was ever mentioned in that connection. &nbsp;Btw, Mr Burnham, Mme Verdurin marries the Prince de Guermantes, not the Duc of the same name. &nbsp;Gide was on the editorial board of the Nouvelle Revue Française, and rejected the book, the first volume being published at Proust&apos;s expense by Bernard Grasset. &nbsp;Gide then realised his mistake, and begged to take over publication for the NRF, and Grasset, I believe, was bought out of his contract with Proust, or graciously relinquished it.

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