For any reader who has been humbled by the language, the density, or the sheer weight of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Roger Shattuck is a godsend. Winner of the National Book Award for Marcel Proust, a sweeping examination of Proust's life and works, Shattuck now offers a useful and eminently readable guidebook to Proust's epic masterpiece, and a contemplation of memory and consciousness throughout great literature. Here, Shattuck laments Proust's defenselessness against zealous editors, praises some translations, and presents Proust as a novelist whose philosophical gifts were matched only by his irrepressible comic sense. Proust's Way, the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, will serve as the next generation's guide to one of the world's finest writers of fiction.

【書評】

"Shattuck leaves us not only with a deepened appreciation of Proust's great work but of all great literature as well."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times  

"[W]ritten with grace, enthusiasm and a keen critical sense. It is stimulating and provocative. It has both wit and depth."—Victor Brombert, author of In Praise of Antiheroes 

"Moving and absolutely successful... Shattuck allows his wonderful image of Proust to come alive within our minds and hearts."—James Kincaid, University of Southern California  

【作者簡介】

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Shattuck

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/arts/10shattuck.html?_r=1 

Roger Shattuck (born Roger Whitney Shattuck, August 20, 1923 in Manhattan, New York – December 8, 2005 in Lincoln, Vermont) was an American writer best known for his books on French literature, art, and music of the twentieth century. 

In an interview yesterday, Harold Bloom, the author and Yale professor, said Mr. Shattuck's own writings exemplified these traditional ideals.

"He was an old-fashioned, in a good sense, man of letters," he said. "He incarnated his love for literature." 

Mr. Shattuck's scholarly contributions included writing three books on Marcel Proust, one of which won a National Book Award in 1975

In 1963, Mr. Shattuck published "Proust's Binoculars," which explored Mr. Shattuck's belief that an event, originally fleeting and meaningless, may later by some reflex be recalled and seen, this time in true focus, as with binoculars. In 1974, he wrote a sweeping biography of Proust, which won a National Book Award the next year. His third Proust book, "Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time" was published in 2000. 

【Editorial Reviews】 (From Amazon)

http://www.amazon.com/Prousts-Way-Field-Guide-Search/dp/0393321800/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235107583&sr=1-1 

【Customer Reviews】

…For me the most interesting chapter was "Continuing Disputes", suitable for all readers, even those who don't know if they want to embark on the Recherche. The author writes a passionate, though not entirely convincing, polemic against the 1987 Gallimard "Pleiade" text, where there's almost as much cut text and critical material present as there is the final novel. He also talks about English translations, explaining exactly how Kilmartin and then Enright revised the old Moncrieff version. It is a pity that this was written a bit too early to cover the new Penguin version, with each book done by a different translator. Film adaptations are also mentioned. Shattuck admires the Pinter screenplay, and I agree that Proust fans should check it out. The last two portions of this chapter are on philosophical notions in Proust, which I found overly academic for a book marketed to the layman.

【個人導讀】

在進入本文之前，〈Introduction〉 (標題 A sense of life ) 先給了我們這本書適用對象及相關內容一個概略的輪廓 

The chapters of this book evolve gradually from elementary pointers for beginning readers to comprehensive arguments about the structure and the moral tenor of Proust’s novel. The final chapter, on continuing disputes about the Search, closes with an exploration of how Proust reconciles reason and imagination, intelligence and sentiment. That remarkable synthesis reinforce the sense of life that flows through his tentacular sentences. . [p.xix-xx] 

第一個章節〈The Work and Its Author〉，Shattuck 簡短地介紹 Proust 生平及其小說的一些相關軼事。

一開始，他就坦言讀者的稀疏零落以及相較於Joyce、Kafka…..《追憶似水年華》銷售的窘況 

Among the handful of literary classics produced in this century, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is the most oceanic—and the least read. Joyce and Kafka, Faulkner and Camus sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Proust sells barely in the thousands. His substantial reputation as an extreme case of something—long-windedness, psychological vivisection, the snobbery of letters, salvation by memory—rests not on wide readership but on a myth of uniqueness that often hides his true attractions. In an era when the significance and the privileged status of the work of art are being both questioned and reinforced, this ultimate monument to the artistic vocation, banked high on all sides by interpretation and biography, refuses to sink back into the sands of time. [p.1] 

曾經， Proust  寫信給他的好友 Antoine Bibesco 王子，提到了他寫作的焦慮：”小說中上百個角色、上千個意念一直要求我給他們血肉之身…” 

In December 1902, at the peak of his Ruskin absorption, he wrote to Prince Antoine Bibesco: "... a hundred characters for novels, a thousand ideas keep asking me to give them substance, like those shades that keep asking Ulysses in the Odyssey to give them blood to drink and bring them to life, and that the hero pushes aside with his sword." [p.13] 

〈How to read a roman-fleuve〉這章節應該是這本書提供給初學者的最佳閱讀策略：首先是 In Search of Lost Time 的閱讀方法，他給了兩個建議

1.慢讀 

A steady, leisurely pace, without the tension of fixed deadlines, serves best.

…

How many of the three thousand pages should one read ?…The reader should let probably not decide the question in advance and should let his appetite guide him.

 [p.24] 

2.跳讀

*The following is one suggestion, which any Proustian could criticize: Swann’s Way(the first three-quarters: ”Combrey” and ”Swann in Love”); With a Budding Grove(Part Two: ”Balbec”); The Guermantes Way(II, Chapter One: ”The Grandmother’s Death”); Sodom and Gomorrah(first thirty pages and the last thirty: ”Charlus and Albertine”); The Captive(first thirty pages and two hundred pages on the concert at the Verdurins’ arranged by Charlus); The Fugitive(omit);Time Regained(the last two hundred pages: the last reception and reflections on writing)  [p.25]

其次，在〈The Elements of the Story 〉這一段文章中，Shattuck 以圖示的方法更讓我們清楚了解小說中這些地點、人物錯綜複雜的架構 

I.                     PLACES 

II.                   CHACRACTERS 

III.                  COUPLES 

IV.               SOCIETY SCENES 

〈The structure of sheer length〉談到了大家閱讀障礙最大的一個問題---就是厚達 3000 多頁的《追憶似水年華》，其實在 1912 年 Proust 原本希望他的小說以 2 冊各 650 頁的方式出版，經過幾次被出版社拒絕，最後只能先簽立”自費出版 1 冊 500 頁，其他再議”的合約，沒想到之後又經過5年戰爭及4年的半隱居生活之後，整本書已經超出當初計劃的 2 倍…

相信有不少讀者質疑：是否真的需要這樣的厚度才能完成這本小說？ Shattuck 代替 Proust 回答了這個問題 

As I have said, there is something of the Prodigal Son parable in the Search, without the figure of the loving father at the end take him in. Marcel is able to recognize himself and to come home as the Narrator of his tale. Everyone’s perseverance, including the reader’s, is required for sheer length to attain its full effect. [p.176] 

這本書另外對於各種版本及譯本給了一些評論，包含目前大家推崇的 Pléiade 版本， Shattuck 提供了一個不同且近乎反對的看法： 

Intending to carry In Search of Lost Time to its final apotheosis in their sumptuous 7,300-page edition, Tadié and his associates have in effect buried Proust’s novel in trappings and distractions and commentary. The volumes honor scholars’ decisions about what to include more than they honor Proust’s decisions about what to exclude.

… Hypertrophize? Whatever we call it, we should not confuse this intended tribute in the new Pléiade with an acceptable way of honoring an auther’s accomplishment. It shrouds and demeans the author’s work. [p.183] 

Shattuck 也談到了一些有關 Proust 的電影及其評論，但我比較想摘錄其中他所提到 Flaubert 對於小說人物 illustrated 的反對意見 

When Flaubert heard of plans to issue an illustrated edition of Madame Bovary, a kind of reading aid, he exploded.

Never, as long as I live, shall I allow anyone to illustrate me, because: the most beautiful literary description is eaten up by the most wretched drawing. As soon as a figure [type] is fixed by the pencil, it loses that character of generality, that harmony with a thousand known objects which make the reader say: “I’ve seen that” or “That must be so.” A woman in a drawing looks like one woman, that’s all. The idea is closed, complete, and every sentence becomes useless, whereas a written woman makes one dream of a thousand woman. Therefore, since this is a question of aesthetics, I absolutely refuse any kind of illustration.  [p.193]

【總結】

以上大概就是目前自己能夠提供的一些初淺的看法，整體而言，這是一本令人印象深刻、受益匪淺的文學評論，據此為標竿，我還是衷心期盼國內有志於研究 Proust 的學者能夠另闢蹊徑，寫出另外一本 Proust’s Way. 

【書摘】

Clausewitz described war as the continuation of policy by other means. Like many authors, Proust often treated writing as a continuation of life by other means. The word can conquer where the flesh is weak. [p.4] 

Marcel now fully acknowledges the elusive being who has been growing steadily inside him, like a chrysalis. The chrysalis is a nascent writer, thwarted and abandoned at every turn. But his time has now come. He matures in the final pages into the Narrator, whom Marcel at last recognizes as himself—himself transformed, his alter ego, the other I in the double I. It’s a long story. The Search turns out to be a metamorphosis that permits a self-recognition. [p.136]