I mean, it's 3,000 pages. And it's blocks of text with no white space, no dialogue, just descriptions of flowers or churches or someone's psychological state. There's barely any plot. This guy was nuts.
It's said that some books teach you how to think. Proust teaches you how to feel. He has the ability (one peculiar to the almost pathologically introspective) to notice even the most fleeting, evanescent emotion, the kind that non-neurotic people don't even register, catch it before it vanishes, and put it under a microscope. Then he scrutinizes it from every angle, classifies every organelle and every protein, pours reagents over it, and writes an entire treatise on that particular 0.13 second emotional shiver.
Then he moves on to the next one. And keeps going like this for 3,000 pages.
By the end (if you make it to the end), you'll have become hypersensitive to yourself and the world around you. Your inner antennae will be so finely tuned that they'll vibrate at the faintest emotional breezes, the kind you would previously have been completely oblivious to. Your sensory taste buds will be raw nerve endings, and the slightest caress will make them scream.
I'm not saying this is a desirable outcome, but it's what Proust will do to you.
submitted by /u/Bear-and-loathing[link] [comments]