Nope, nah, uh uh, no. I'm sorry, but I just can't get my head around high Modernism. I have tried Woolf, Joyce and now Proust and they have all left me feeling bored and uninterested. There's something about an entirely internal book that I just don't get. Surely what's interesting about fiction is that it can be about both what's inside us and the world around us?

In retrospect, this book was especially unlikely to appeal to me, as it is French and I have had my struggles with French literature in the past (apart from [b:Les Miserables|36377471|Les Miserables|Victor Hugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1509394980l/36377471._SY75_.jpg|3208463], which I remember enjoying).

It's also very hard to read. The numerous, and seemingly endless, run- , or even ramble-, on sentences just make it hard to read. I often found a verb following a comma and had to comb back through the sentence to figure out what it referred to. That's annoying, but to make it worse, I mostly wished I hadn't bothered. There certainly wasn't enough profundity to justify all that obfuscation and complexity, although the book was occasionally quite funny. But I just couldn't find the right way to read it. I tried powering through and not minding if I missed some of the nuance, but that made it boring. So I slowed right down and carefully read every sentence so I could appreciate it as it arrived. But that was also boring.

In fact, on reflection, I think high Modernism might represent the limits of my tolerance for experimental fiction. I have never had much time for books like [b:Gravity's Rainbow|415|Gravity's Rainbow|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657594227l/415._SY75_.jpg|866393], so I guess I'm quite traditional when it comes to novels.

Anyway, just in case I want to pick it up again in the future, I'll have to remember that I got up the bit where the narrator had another feeling. ( )

paperback

Not done yet, but this is awesome writing. ( )

Que dicir? A BELEZA! ( )

Hard to explain why Proust is so mesmerizing, as he drills down deeper into every way our minds consider every experience, place, person. Amazingly, the longer and more protracted it gets, the more you get drawn in. I can already foresee the day that I finish the final volume, and wish there were more. ( )