Audiobook · read by volunteers
Swann's Way
Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
Read by Denny Sayers (d. 2015), Andrew Coleman · 30 chapters · 24 h 17
About the book
It begins with a cup of tea and a small cake, the madeleine, and a flood of memory. In Swann’s Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust follows a narrator who recalls his childhood in the village of Combray, the long evenings waiting for his mother’s goodnight kiss, and the love story of a wealthy man named Swann. Written in long, flowing sentences, the novel explores memory, time, jealousy and the way places and objects hold our past. It is famous for its length and for the idea of involuntary memory, but it is also warm, funny and often beautiful. Thirty sections and more than twenty-four hours, shared between two readers, in the English translation of C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, give you a world to live in.
Introduction
Marcel Proust, who lived from 1871 to 1922, was a French novelist whose monumental work, In Search of Lost Time, is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of modern literature. Swann’s Way, published in 1913, is the first book of the seven-volume work, which is also known in English as Remembrance of Things Past. It is a novel written in the form of an autobiography, though its narrator is not identical with the author.
It is Proust’s most prominent work, popularly known for its length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the episode of the Madeleine. In this scene, the taste of a cake dipped in tea suddenly brings back a whole world of childhood memories. The volume also includes the long story of Swann’s love for Odette, and it paints a detailed picture of French society at the turn of the century.
Proust’s style is demanding, but it is also immensely rewarding. His sentences twist and expand, following the movement of thought, and they capture sensations with remarkable precision. Listening can be an advantage, since the rhythm of the voice helps you through the longer passages.
This LibriVox recording uses the English translation by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, who lived from 1889 to 1930. It has thirty sections, beginning with the Overture in several parts, and lasts about twenty-four hours. Two volunteers share the reading, Denny Sayers, who died in 2015, and Andrew Coleman. Do not worry about getting through it all at once: it is a book to live with, in small doses or in long immersions.
Public domain
Marcel Proust died in 1922: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text