Within a Budding Grove cover art

Within a Budding Grove

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Within a Budding Grove

By: Marcel Proust
Narrated by: John Rowe
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About this listen

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. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature

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Most relevant
Beautiful book and beautifully read. I've heard reading Proust feels like floating river and I couldn't agree more. Listening to Proust however, even better!

"Like floating down a river..."

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You must , you have to listen, and if you haven’t, you must begin to hear Proust now,neither pretentious nor elitist, I have to admit to never finishing any one of the whole set, but John Rowe drew me in, somehow, it worked, or perhaps it is fifteen years on, and I have more time? I have now completed all, on Audible, and it has been a joy, with the help of Mr Rowe, of course !

Begin here !

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On my second time round through the Proust books with lots of bits where I have to re-listen, because, its so unbelievably simple yet profound, so beautifully written. Like other reviewers, I have been daunted by its reputation as difficult and intellectual. No. It's long, is all, but thank heavens for that, I never want to stop listening. It tells you so much - there is no story - our hero thinks about love, and things. The detail and insight are amazing. The bit about how the will dictates our actions - the sections about looking at the same person and seeing different faces - I love the bit where he decides Giselle adores him and instantaneously sets off to catch the Paris train to meet her, then gives up in a moment when there is a problem on his journey to the station. I mean its hard to write about because a review sounds so banal, so pedestrian compared to the prose. The narrator is my new best friend. Highly reccommended!!

exquisite

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i loved the book. it was so inciteful of the human spirit and I could identify with so many of the emotions described. beautifully crafted, the sentences were like waves on the ocean going on and on. the pain of young love, growing up, and the comfort of family were all so tenderly portrayed. exquisite.

the reading was beautiful, lyrical and soothing

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