How do I get into this? Are there any pre-reqs or must reads

>>7636043
Just read it, look into some competent translations, buy the first volume, don't go all in until you're comfortable with doing so, and have at it.

>>7636043
by learning french

>>7636061
Are the modern library like the one in the pic good? They seem to be the most widely available

>>7636062
kill yourself

Its pretty dense but rewarding. Look up the allusions to art as you go

>>7636043
there's no need to look at it like a full set
read the first one
i haven't read past the first one but apparently the quality drops off somewhat after book 3

How would you rank In Search of Lost Time to Infinite Jest, the best novel ever written?

>>7636067
http://www.amazon.com/Remembrance-Things-Past-Budding-Vintage/dp/0394711823

i personally have these, I haven't read them yet, but my mother has, she was addicted almost instantly, so she bought the full set. I would imagine you'll have to do a bit of research, but I think you'll do okay.

>>7636072
I would rank Infinite Jest as a juvenile meme, of the simplest ordure. don't forget to vote!

Proust devotee here

>>7636061
This tBh. You can just jump in. The first time, I read each book twice before moving to the next one. You're not liable to fully understand what's happening on your first go, and if you lose a thread, you won't be able to pick it up again very easily (you cant figure out who's talking by flipping back a few pages; try a few hundred pages)

>>7636067
There are not that many translations out there, understandably; Montcrieff's isn't the most readable, but it is the most true to the original. I always like Modern Library; the spines make a picture when all lined up though, which is yuck

>>7636069
books 4 through 6 are boring in terms of plot, but in for a penny in for a pound, i'd say. If you really want to read ISOLT but not all of ISOLT, just read like, 2 page, then put it away and then jump out a window

>>7636043
I always find hardcovers difficult to manipulate physically, which means I can only read them in a limited number of positions in a limited number of places; with a book this big, you want softcovers. Many would disagree though

good luck OP, you're in for a painfully long-winded good time

>>7636043
The key is to be in the early stages of a relationship with a girl you're jealous of, so you can correctly read yourself into Swann's misery. The rest just kind of happens automatically.

>>7636067
The modern library is great. It has a wonderful synopsis at the back for ferreting out lost narrative strands. The text is nice and big. The paperback editions stay open on the table nicely. I switched to the ML edition from the pure Montcrieff edition for vol. III, and the readability improvement of the updated translation seemed pretty immediate. Then again, maybe I'd just gotten used to reading Proustcrieff by then.

>>7636101
>i read proust translated
>others should defenestrate

Walter Benjamin's essay the Image of Proust is a really great companion. I read it before I read Proust. Maybe someone will say this is unwise—I can't know myself, as I can't unread it. For me, though, it really provided a nice framework and encapsulated the philosophical aspects of Proust in a kind of well-turned mystical little nugget. Benjamin's Baudelaire essay is useful, as well, though it contains a more obvious Proust spoiler (ironically enough). Frankly, though, you'll likely forget the giveaways that appear in either essay by the time they become relevant to the novel itself.

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517KB, 429x410px

>>7636377
>That feel when someone writes an introduction or a critique and gives away plot points.

>>7636101
>books 4 through 6 are boring in terms of plot
Sounds like you hadn't actually read it nor understand Proust, you gigantic faggot

>>7636809
Agreed. Sodome & Gomorrhe is a really fun read, the narrator grows sharper and sharper in his observations and remarks on society, while La Prisonnière is like a tense and claustrophobic drama. Can't wait to read AD and the last one.

>>7636349
I didn't read it translated
or rather, not initially

>>7636809
>>7636864
Those three books are in content very similar to other novels. Proust's unique-ness is far less pronounced. In a very boiled-down sense, those books function as build up to Time Regained. They're still excellent and one shouldn't skip them. I'm just acknowledging that they're the most skip-able

>>7637019
I don't think you should skip La Prisonnière if you want to grasp Proust's ideas of jealousy (and love). Of course you could say that it's merely a reenactment of Swann's Way, but this repetition is the fundamental structure of the novel (repetition-difference, see Deleuze's Proust) or even the simple fact that the narrator doesn't understand most signs until he goes through them, until he falls himself in love with Albertine. I really can't imagine La Recherche without La Prisonnière, of all the books.

>>7637038
you're right but remember you have to have a pretty hardcore interest in it in order to read all of it even once. If you reduce it to only the most important, overarching aspects (the modernist prose and proust's treatment of memory) then all the books except the first and last are basically just means to an end.
Again, though, if you really want to comitt to it I agree that you have to comitt to all of it

Without spoiling anything, does it all come together in the end? Is the ending a powerful one?

>>7636043
I tried and failed to get into it some years ago, I am reading the Lydia Davis translation now and I like it. The downside is she probably wont be done with all 7 in anyone's lifetime.

one nice thing about Proust is he doesn't rely on a bunch of "what am i referencing now? teehee i'll never tell!" bullshit like some OTHER modernist writers...

>>7638742
Yes, Time Regained is satisfy as a conclusion
to most people at least, I found the philosophical conclusions to be fairly weak