Within a Budding Grove

De: Marcel Proust

Narrado por: John Rowe

In the second volume of Proust's great novel, the narrator emerges as an actor in the drama of his own life. Swann has now dwindled into a husband for his former mistress, Odette, and their daughter, Gilberte, becomes the adolescent narrator's playmate and tantalising love object.

We move from Paris to the seaside town of Balbec, from ritualised social performances to midsummer spontaneity and from Gilberte to her successor, Albertine.

In Balbec, the narrator is befriended by the painter Elstir who introduces him both to the craft of painting and to the mysterious 'little band' of girls. An artistic education is thus intricately interwoven with a journey of sexual self-discovery.

This is now the entire audiobook, not in two parts.

©2008 Marcel Proust (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

So Proust!

Good for lovers of Proust and know how he writes. The narrator has the correctly sensitive voice. Beautifully written ending.

Better than hard copy

Rowe's reading is brilliant. In fact, I've found the whole work more accessible and seductive as a listen than I did as a hard-copy read, thanks in large measure to Rowe's sensitive and often illuminating performance. I can't wait for the rest of the volumes to be available.

Not for me

My first encounter with Proust was Simon Vance’s reading of Swann’s Way. It left me feeling grumpy and irritable. It certainly wasn’t the narration — Simon Vance can make a traffic report sound interesting. And it’s not John Rowe’s narration for this second volume either: he is equally charming and graceful. But he can’t overcome the aspects of Proust that I find so frustrating. The pattern of endless rumination and little overt action established in the first volume continues in this second one. If I had any sense of having something in common with these vapid people, I might not mind. But they bore me; they annoy me; they baffle me. I find myself wishing one of them would have a sudden attack of flatulence, just to liven things up a little.

At one point, I thought things were getting better: at last! the narrator has gone to a brothel! — but Proust managed to make even that potentially interesting development sound shallow and desiccated. Later, near the end of the book, the narrator develops a promising crush on a young woman named Albertine; but alas, she turns out to be either a mean-spirited tease or monumentally dense about the implications of her flirtatious remarks. (She invites him to a secret tryst at night in her hotel room, and then furiously rings the alarm when he tries to kiss her.)

It’s like having to sit through 25 hours of “My Dinner with André.” It’s full of sound and fury, signifying nothing — except that there’s no fury and very little sound.

Proust’s characters — certainly at least the narrator — are cursed with the same kind of morbid self-consciousness that afflicts the characters of Dostoevsky. There’s one crucial difference: in Dostoevsky, the anguish is existential and the consequences are life or death; in Proust, at least as far as the first two volumes are concerned, the anguish is a mild cough and the consequences are a hangnail. He seems not to notice that his characters are mostly buffoons, the narrator being the biggest buffoon of all.

What can you say about a young man who’s old enough to visit prostitutes, even to have a favorite one, and still cries himself to sleep when his grandmother doesn’t invite him to kiss her goodnight? (The same grandmother who exasperates him because.... she wants to get her photograph taken?) I can’t figure his age. Maybe my attention wandered when he mentioned that. At times he seems to be a young adult, but overall he has the emotional maturity of a pre-teen.

As I said in my comments on the first volume, people I know and and whose literary judgement I trust tell me I’m missing something. I accept that. So, Monsieur Proust, it’s not you, it’s me. I will read one more volume, if only to expose myself to yet another narrator (Neville Jason). But then I expect to call a halt to the proceedings. It seems clear at this point that I am not for Proust, and he is not for me.

John Rose is a rapturously good narrator

Impressive narration by John Rowe. Volumes 1 and 2 are brilliantly done. So disappointed in the narration on Volumes 3 and forward.

John Rowe

John Rowe is an excellent narrator for the first two books of Remembrance of Time Past. So good that I cannot even listen to the subsequent books. Please Audible Publishing, produce the entire series with John Rowe.

more John Rowe, s.v.p.

having now completed the second volume of proust's amazing seven volume work, i am more convinced than ever that the ONLY voice for proust's narrator is john rowe. more, please.

A written and listening masterpiece

John Rowe made this listening experience possible for me. Other readers, at least via the samples, were bad to awful. Please encourage John Rowe to complete the series with his wonderful narrative style.

insomniac's dream

Proust writes marvelous stuff, but his interminable sentences can make his work difficult to read. Now, John Rowe to the rescue: he reads so sensitively, it's like listening to one's own thoughts. I was so glad to find he's started another volume of Proust's masterwork, and look forward eagerly to the second installment, and hopefully more to come. Insomniacs, take note: with Marcel Proust/James Rowe on your iPod, you may be able to jettison the Lunesta. I mean this in a good way (and I think that Proust, who wrote at night in that cork-lined room, would have approved): the narrative is absorbing, complex, seductive, and nonlinear, perfect for bedtime (or the wee hours of the night), as it hardly matters where you leave off or pick it up again.

Fun and colorful

Proust is an extraordinary author - noticing so many details and describing them wondrously. So good.

A fine reading of Proust

Rowe's performance feels less arch than Neville's. I like them both but preferred Rowe, this time around. I only wish Rowe had finished the series. Or, if he has, I wish Audible would make the rest of it available.