![]() ![]() called the Search "one of the gloomiest books ever written." Henry James.: "inconceivable boredom." Joseph Conrad.: "no reverie, no emotion." Arnold Bennett. The extremely long-winded psychological dissection of homosexuals and Parisian snobs was nothing I could identify with, and there were no compensating factors (e.g., the work is devoid of humour, the plot not exciting, the sentences long and involved for no reason, and there was no significant dealing with "big ideas".) I just couldn't follow the storyline through the labyrinthine prose, although I'm usually quite happy with big novels and involved story lines (in Tolstoy or Dickens, for instance.) I don't think the prose was too difficult for me, I just found the story became too tedious, my eyes glazed over. But I don't think the translation was at fault, I just found the work too boring. I liked Swann's way, but I gave up about half way through the complete set of the Enright/Kilmartin translation in Penguin. ![]()
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