The Swann Way

From the French novelist, essayist, critic, and one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century: the first volume of his monumental masterpiece, one of the most sensitive renderings of childhood in fiction and a brilliant meditation on the recreation of the past through art and memory. Swann’s Way is the most frequently read part of Proust’s epic novel, Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time). It introduces subjects that resonate throughout the entire work, including the narrator’s love for Swann’s daughter Gilberte, Swann’s jealous passion for Odette, and the rise of the nouveaux-riches Verdurins. Proust’s narrator vividly recalls his childhood in Paris and Combray, most famously in a fraught evocation of his mother’s good-night kiss and in the iconic scene where the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea brings back a flood of memory.

Published as the first volume of the popular French 'In Search of Lost Time' series in 1871, 'Swann's Way' and other volumes following it were written by Marcel Proust. The series is considered to be his most prominent work, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine" which occurs early in the present volume.

'The memory of a particular image is only regret for a particular moment...' The Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. The work is a portal to Proust's novel and an introduction to its unforgettable first-person narrator-protagonist. Immersed in themes of time, memory, identity, art, sensation, love, and jealousy, the narrator embarks on the story of his life and the paths he takes towards fulfilling his vocation as a writer. Principally focused on the narrator's childhood, this volume lays the foundation of Proust's extraordinary literary edifice. The first volume in a major new translation of In Search of Lost Time, co-edited by Brian Nelson and Adam Watt. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'The memory of a particular image is only regret for a particular moment...' The Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. The work is a portal to Proust's novel and an introduction to its unforgettable first-person narrator-protagonist. Immersed in themes of time, memory, identity, art, sensation, love, and jealousy, the narrator embarks on the story of his life and the paths he takes towards fulfilling his vocation as a writer. Principally focused on the narrator's childhood, this volume lays the foundation of Proust's extraordinary literary edifice. The first volume in a major new translation of In Search of Lost Time, co-edited by Brian Nelson and Adam Watt. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

When the night falls, the unnamed narrator finds it difficult to reign in his galloping thoughts. Night for him means profound loneliness and also the only time when his thoughts and memories come back unbidden, often waking him up in the middle of the night. His thoughts involuntarily go back his past, his country home in Combray and the people who once populated that time... "For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say "I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time..." Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-1927). He is considered by English critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889–1930) was a Scottish writer, most famous for his English translation of most of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, which he published under the Shakespearean title Remembrance of Things Past.

The first volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, in Lydia Davis's award-winning translation Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way. Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood: a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel "Swann in Love," an incomparable study of sexual jealousy that becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age—satirical, skeptical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition—Swann's Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreated through memory.

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Swann's Way by Marcel Proust Swann's Way is the first volume of the famous masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Using the involuntary memory technique, Marcel Proust travels back in time to his childhood where the reader meets Charles Swann, a friend of the family. The memories fade and reappear again in Proust's mind this time telling the sad love story between Swann and Odette, an intriguing woman with an unusual style. What more can the narrator remember? In Swann's Way, the themes of Proust's masterpiece are introduced, and the narrator's childhood in Paris and Combray is recalled, most memorably in the evocation of the famous maternal good-night kiss. The recollection of the narrator's love for Swann's daughter Gilberte leads to an account of Swann's passion for Odette and the rise of the nouveaux riches Verdurins.

Now available for the first time in the United States, a celebrated translation of the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Swann’s Way, the first of the seven volumes that con­stitute Marcel Proust’s lifework, In Search of Lost Time, introduces the larger themes of the whole work while standing on its own as a brilliant evocation of childhood, hopeless love, and the French Belle Époque. We first encounter Proust’s narrator in middle age, consumed with regret for his misspent life. Suddenly, he is back in the past, seized by memories of childhood: his clinging attachment to his mother, his dread of his father, summers in the country and the two walks his family was in the habit of taking—one by an aristocratic estate, the other by the house of a certain Charles Swann, to whom a mystery was attached. A child’s world, and the world of adults the child struggles to imagine, spread out before us, while Proust’s pages teem with incident and puzzle­ment, pathos and humor. The novel then takes a further step backwards to tell the story of Swann’s infatuation with the courtesan Odette. Swann, man­-about­-town and familiar of royalty, is reduced to walking after midnight, forlorn as a child awaiting a good­night kiss. James Grieve began his career translating Proust in the early 1970s, driven by his dismay at how many readers recoiled from what they imagined to be the difficulty of Proust’s work, and his translation of Swann’s Way brings out the book’s fluency and speed as no other version does. It offers an unequaled introduction to an incompa­rably absorbing work of art.