/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7478230]

For those who've read "A la Recherché..." in French:

For how long were you learning French before you could read it, and is it written in an experimental or oblique way?

[Anonymous No.7478236]

>>7478230
>how long
a long ass time.
>experimental
yes, but not in a way that makes it harder to read, imo. it still can be challenging though

[Anonymous No.7478242]

Hey, actual French so I couldn't tell you how long I had to learn french sorry.

However, about the "experimental" aspects of A la recherche du temps perdu, it is what we call in lit studies a Méta Roman, which is a novel that gives the reader matter to think about the very process of writing.
It's accessible though and easily understandable, it just covers a wide range of philosophical and other wide and open-ended interrogations about life and what creation is all about.

Hope it helped, needless to say that I encourage you to read this book, one of the best of the 20th century in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.7478249]

>>7478242
Would you say that Proust is one of those authors who loses more than most other French writers in translation?

[Anonymous No.7478260]

>>7478242
I don't know why, but I've always thought that "A la Recherché" has the same sort of prestige as a French novel that "Ulysses" has as an English-language novel.
That got me thinking of the difficulties of trying to read a novel like "Ulysses" if English was a second or third language, just because it's so radical and irreverent with language and form.

What I'm wondering, is Proust similarly experimental with language or is it a complicated novel written in simple language?

[Anonymous No.7478264]

>>7478260
lose the accent on the last e
Proust isn't experimenting with language as much as Joyce. I'm reading Swann's Way right now and it is accessible (tho I too am french).

[Anonymous No.7478266]

[Anonymous No.7478267]

>>7478249

I haven't read any Proust translation since I don't really need to. That being said, I think other authors have much more to lose in translation such as Baudelaire ou Apollinaire, or even Flaubert, those authors would lose a lot since the very shape of their sentences is the product of intense reflexion (For example, Flaubert had a "Gueuloir" a room where he could yell every sentences he wrote in order to check if they sounded good). Proust isn't exactly a "formal" novelist, and gives most of his creative intention in the reflexion itself, much like Zola or the Goncourt Brothers.
For that reason, I don't think you would loose much by reading the translation, even though it's always better to read what the author's mind first intended.

[Anonymous No.7478275]

I've read Swann's Way in translation and there are sentences with 200+ words in them.

[Anonymous No.7478285]

>>7478264
I see.
Last question: is Hugo difficult to read for a French speaker?
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.7478288]

>>7478285

>I'll be brief here.

No but it's fucking boring

[Anonymous No.7478289]

>>7478285
If you can read Proust you can read Hugo. He's more "grandiloquent".

>>7478288
Hugo n'est pas chiant pas rapport à Proust.

[Anonymous No.7478295]

>>7478288
>>7478289
Merci, mes copains!

[Anonymous No.7478304]

>>7478288

Par rapport à Proust ça se tient, mais il sera toujours moins sexy que Céline.

[Anonymous No.7478339]

>>7478242
>>7478267
I'd guess it will be similar to other translations of dificult work. Proust uses a lot of things similar to Baudelaire prose poems, long sentences which are meandering and meandering sometimes and so on.