Volume one of Remembrance of Things Past was great. Volume two was entertaining and moving. Volume three started to get on my nerves but was still worth reading. Volume four was tough... and took me a year to slowly get through. All I can say is that it is incredibly boring.In Cities of the Plain the Narrator has become a part of French high society and attends a lot of parties. And he details all of the people me meets and their snobbish behaviors in great great detail for hundreds of pages. Probably three quarters of the book is just his descriptions of some gathering of people gossiping about other people (and it isn't a short book either). As for the other quarter of the book, I actually enjoyed it when the Narrator talked about his evolving feelings about his friend Albertine and his thoughts on random stuff in life.
It is kind of hard to give this one a grade. Some parts are incredibly well written and beautiful... but most of it is snobby French people talking about other snobby French people. I guess a B-. It makes me think that anyone that lists Remembrance of Things Past as the greatest book ever written is a bit pretentious. Also, the book mentions Don Quixote and Anna Karenina
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