/lit/ - Literature

Yes and I loved every part of it.

>>16374812
I've known a couple people that were obsessed by it.
I'll probably put aside an entire summer just for it sometimes in the next 10 years.

it took me about 3 weeks

published in 7 parts

Du côté de chez Swann
À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
Le Côté de Guermantes
Sodome et Gomorrhe I et II
La Prisonnière
Albertine disparue
Le Temps retrouvé

i plan to read it one day

>>16374812
It gets very repetitive at times during Proust’s philosophizing and some scenes drag on forever but it’s still great

>>16374833
You read the equivalent of 1 book a day?

>>16374812
Ready Player One but with 19th century painters instead of video games.

>>16374971
200 pages a day isn't that much

>>16374812
>>16374868
Really good article on Proust and involuntary memory. Basic overview of his philosophy and writing.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/100/To_Express_It_Is_To_Explain_It

>>16374847
>one day
Slow the fuck down my man, that's 175 pages per hour

>>16375085
kek

>>16374999

>>16375261
>>16374999
He's right, I read 250 pages or more on good days. Checked

>>16374833
I set aside the month of June 2014 for this and finished on the 24th (fête jean-baptiste) and have since read it again. Will probably read the final volume again before the end of the year as I've been thinking about it lately

>>16375345
Averaged ca. 150 pp a day
Like War and Peace it becomes the kind of book you look forward getting back to while you're at work, etc.

>>16374822
>have friends who claim to love Proust
>they read it all in translation
imagine reading 7 books of some retard half making shit up and thinking you're getting real literature

>>16374812
It is just a book by a bourgeois about bourgeois. So the story is always about rich people being bored and the rich women being whores.

Also there is a movie on it.

>>16374812
>4200 pages
Wait, is this true? I thought it was several volumes long. Is it only 4200 pages total?

>>16375525
If it was translated to a Romance language it wouldn’t be that far off, though. French is a terrible language anyways.

>>16375550
It depends on how big the print is. My two volumes are about 2,000 pages total.

>>16375560
That’s fucking hilarious. I kept avoiding it because I thought it was absurdly long. It’s just twice as long as Don Quixote.

>>16374999
>>16375278
It depends whether you’re a NEET or not. For a non-NEET that’s basically unachieveable except if autistic or willing to forego any downtime. That said, it also depends on the author. When I was a NEET reading aristotle I could barely make it through 50 pages a day.

>>16375595
I finished the complete dialogues of Plato in roughly a month.

>>16375616
I began a few days ago and I'm having some trouble with them, any tips?

>>16375626
Watch Sadler's videos.

>>16375636
...if you want to end up like tranny like his son.

>>16375616
As a NEET or no? I finished them while being a uni student in roughly 3, but that’s while having a but of a life.

>>16375545
>It is just a book by a bourgeois about bourgeois. So the story is always about rich people being bored and the rich women being whores
pretty much the reason why I still have not set some time to try it. don't really feel like committing to 7 books of rambling about bourgeois alienation

>>16375545
>>16375650
what are you, faggot commies? who unironically uses the term bourgeois in 2020? lmao

>>16375637
He rarely talks about trans issues in any of his videos.

>>16375679
Yet his son ended up being a tranny. He's a failed father/mentor. Avoid him.

>>16375650
>rambling about bourgeois alienation
like every work of post-60’s leftism?

I read Swann's Way several years ago and loved it. One of the greatest books ever. Tried Within a Budding Grove and stopped midway through and dropped it, didn't have any of that spark of the first.

Should I try again from the very beginning or start from Vol 2?

>>16375697
Probably, but it's quite widespread through most of turn of the century literature too. I read my fair share of those kind of works but I don't get much out of those lately and 4000+ pages of that seem like a bit much
>>16375678
I personally uses the term not in a classist way. It is just a useful shorthand to express a concept for me. The other guy is probably a commie tho

>>16374812
I'm searching for the time I lost reading this hot pile of garbage.

>>16376529
That's funny, anon
Why waste your time on a board devoted to reading books?
>in before: kek 'reading books' get a load of this faggot, etc.

>>16376572
Talking shit about a specific book doesn't mean to despise literature in toto.
Not every single book is worth your time. Do not value yourself so cheaply

>>16375650
How is that any worse than rambling a about poor people problems? You're still a child if you judge a book by its authors socio-economic status. The quality of writing is the important bit. Otherwise you should read some whiney blogs you fag.

>>16375926
Odd, because the first half of Vol 2 is the direct continuation of the story, and full of lovely Parisisms. It's the second half when it becomes apparent that Proust has decided to spin the story out indefinitely, and vol 3 when he really hits the peak of nothing but foreshadowing. In vol 4 shit gets real.

For interesting perspective, the entire Harry Potter series is 4,224 pages long.

>>16376869
Different anon. I'm at the end of volume 2 and agree re; the first half. I mostly find myself glued to the pages whenever Proust is exploring interesting characters like Saint Loup, de Charlus or Elstir. It takes me a while to really "get into it" whenever he goes on a long philosophical rant, even if it is interesting stuff.

>>16375686
lol

>>16376821
Again I am using bourgeois alienation as a shorthand for a wider concept I am not sure how else to name. A status where the writer/protagonist has long overcome the need for struggle and yet experiences a disquiet he can't find rest from because of his moral and spiritual drying up.
Sartre called it nausea, calvino called it senility, Dostoevsky called it the underground, and so on. Some of these books are great, other are painfully boring and samey, all of them are pretty far from what I am looking for in a novel.
I want to read about storms, I can't be bothered to sit through thousands of pages of complaining about seasickness
Apologies for poor english

Read Les Hommes de bonne volonté instead everyone

>7892 pages
>What began as a magnificent fresco of an entire generation degenerated into a daguerreotype of one embittered, splenetic man

>>16375085
ahah

>>16376735
It's a fantastic book, and exceeds a mere recounting of 'the bourgeois experience;' but then I've read it, love to read, and read quickly so time spent on it was never an issue. There are deceptively many ways to use one's time; reading and writing have never gotten in the way of the few other actual things worth doing.
t. walk between 8-10 mis. a day and have a job but to be fair broke up w gf about a yr ago so that's freed me up substantially.

>>16377020
I think attributing alienation to the failings of the author is a bit much. In the case of Proust what's odd is that his alter ego in the book, who is so autobiographical that he's called Marcel and finishes up by writing a great big novel, isn't gay and isn't Jewish in a book that's got substantial passages about the shame of being gay in that society and the anti-Semitic wave of anti-Dreyfusism. Proust actively denies the struggles he did have and tries to discuss them from a more objective distance.

That said, his sensibility is a hell of a long way from yours and is really concerned with happiness in (relatively) normal life. As most of us are.

>>16375595
I work and take a full load of STEM classes and I make time to read 100-200 pages of literature a day on average. Just because you waste your time on stupid bullshit doesnt mean that time doesn't exist

>>16375085

I have a program that synthesizes each page based on letter frequency, word frequency and syntax to summarize it in one sentence. Plus a text to voice reader going +1.5 speed

>>16375006
Thanks for this

>>16377176
Synthesize Proust pls

p.1 I didn't want to go to bed
p.2 I really didn't want to
p.3 I wanted my mom to kiss me
p.4 I really want
ad infinitum

>>16375545
>about bourgeois
What are you talking about? Huge parts of it are about the French nobility, not to mention peasants like Francoise. I assume you haven't read it.

who is that american author who spent time with the taliban and wrote a similar length novel/series? he's not as well known as proust but this thread reminded me of him. The book was about the history of war/america or something...

>>16377262
just remembered some more, it wasn't the taliban but the Mujahideen during the soviet era. I think the author was involved in academia somehow but went on a soul searching trip to afghanistan....

>>16377262
>>16377274
William Vollmann is the author. Never wrote a Lost Time length novel but did write a 7 volume non fiction book

>>16377262
>>16377274
Vollmann?

>>16375085
>3 pages a minute for 24 hours non-stop
hm. maybe it's achievable actually. at least to gather the essential plot points and information out of every page enough to re-tell what's going on in the story.
keeping it up for a whole day is probably impossible though

>>16375571
You gotta be fucking kidding me, same happened to me

>>16374812
hello zoomer

>>16375571
345,390 words vs 1,267,069 so ~3 2/3 times longer

With a name like that you know it has to be a troll.

>>16375616
that's very sad

I read the first 3 years ago and didnt really have a desire to keep going, shit was getting samey and theres so much else to read.

>>16377542
*first 3 books
I realise that was pretty ambiguous.

>>16375595
My last 2 years getting a chemical engineering degree, I read at that pace many days while also partying and hanging out with my best friend/roommate. Now as a working engineer I read at that pace along with writing, have been published in a good journal, met, dated and married my wife. Get some fucking discipline.

>>16374812
yeah. it's fucking great, and your life will have changed by the time you finish it.

>>16374999
Get a job lmao

>>16377776
Imagine be a wageslave instead of collecting rent money from various properties.

>>16374833
>3 weeks
>give or take 200 pages a day

Teach me

>>16377833
just read bro like what are you waiting for nigga lmao

>>16377758
>and your life will have changed by the time you finish it
No shit I will be old by then

>>16374822
>rushing ISoLT in one summer
ngmi

>>16375636
Alright, thank you, sir.

>>16374812
Read it twice. Once on my own, then the other for a seminar class on Proust

>>16377152
So how come you’re shitposting instead of reading now? I imagine to read 200 pages a day PLUS work means you can’t do anything else. Get back to reading faggot, chop chop, slave niggerfaggot

>>16377790
>implying you do that
Funny cope, neet

>>16379787
Hater alert

>>16374816
>>16374833
>>16374868
>>16375006
>>16375345
>>16375360
>>16375545
>>16375926
>>16376529
>>16376572
>>16376869
>>16376975
>>16377244
>>16377542
>>16377758
Translation or original? How many of those who have read this book ITT are simply frenchfags, and how many are normal people?

>>16379837
Agree completely, Frogs aren't normal.

>>16379837
Burgers are the abnormal ones.

>>16375006
I almost didn't open this. Thank God I did.

>>16377056
>>16377152
>>16377730
>My last 2 years getting a chemical engineering degree, I read at that pace [250 pages a day] many days while also partying and hanging out with my best friend/roommate. Now as a working engineer I read at that pace along with writing, have been published in a good journal, met, dated and married my wife. Get some fucking discipline.

>I work and take a full load of STEM classes and I make time to read 100-200 pages of literature a day on average. Just because you waste your time on stupid bullshit doesnt mean that time doesn't exist

>There are deceptively many ways to use one's time; reading and writing have never gotten in the way of the few other actual things worth doing. t. walk between 8-10 mis. a day and have a job but to be fair broke up w gf about a yr ago so that's freed me up substantially.

Didn’t know that /lit/ is such a superhuman central :) You guys are so cool!

>>16374999
Only if you have nothing else to do. Should I be homeless so I can read 200 pages a day?

>>16377730
2 years to get a chemical engineering degree? kek where are you from?

>>16375638
>while having a bit of a life
How much of a life?

>>16374812
Yes. It really is very entertaining if you give it a chance.

>>16379938
Are you a Frenchfag or a native English speaker?

>>16379866

based on descriptions from people that enjoy the book, 4200 pages of navel gazing may be an impressive accomplishment to read through, but it doesn't mean that it was worthwhile to read, or that it offered much understanding of life or art. we can all glaze our eyeballs over the page of a book and feel accomplished

>>16379892
3 weeks guy here. I was working full time but had no social life or hobbies. I've since taken up recreational soccer

I would recommend a slower pace though, I know when I reread it I'm going to take it more gently

>>16379780
Wow good comeback

>>16379780
Based

>>16379780
>>16380019
Fuck off samefag

>>16379849
Impossible. Burgers set the standard. Abnormality is measured by how far you deviate from American norms.

>>16380071
The average person in the world is Asian. Burgers are a minority. Amerocentrism is subject to mockery and ridicule.

>>16379780
kek

>>16379952
English speaker.

>>16380285
So you read a translation of it

Some anons here discouraged me from reading it cuz they said there’s no sense in reading a translation of it

>>16380085
It's not about numbers. It's about relevance, and we Americans are the most relevant. You all consume our popular media.

>>16380291
This is one of the most notoriously brilliant translations there is though? It's also highly unusual among classic translations, in that two separate reputable translators have successively gone back to update and improve it, but without putting their name at the top of the list, so that your actually read Moncrieff + Enright + Kilmartin. None of the ego of the radical new translator here, it's genuinely a multi-decade project to produce the best possible English prose version by careful line-by-line revision.

>>16379955
I don't think of it as 'an impressive accomplishment' I just like reading good books. Judging something one knows very little about, and with such certainty, is actually what idpol faggots do when googling authors for what they may have said (context be damned) about race, sex, homosexuality, choose your poison. Whereas those egotistical motherfuckers are concerned solely with themselves (and their fake hurt feelings) anon here's hangup's size, which he converts to a waste of his oh so precious time. Though his mode of cancellation differs slightly (still an egotistical faggot) he's nonetheless fully engaged as a proselyte of 'cancel culture'.
This or a need to justify his own laziness as a reader on a literature board, which is simply pathetic.

>>16375678
>uses a word correctly
>WTF THIS NIGGA USING COMMIE WORDS

>>16374999
Checked

I read 20 pages a day for what felt like an eternity. I miss it now and look forward to reading it again someday, perhaps at 15 pages a day.

>>16375637
His son is a tranny?

>>16380291
Obviously a translation will almost never be as good as the original but the m/k/e translation is a work of art in its own right

>>16377730
>being a NPC hedonistic provider to a women is the pinnacle of my life

>>16376930
This book (in translation at least) is extremely purple-prosey and philosophical in nature. You can't read too much at a time without losing a bit.

>>16379955
You really got nothing at all out of it?

>>16374812
My mom read it.