****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Just to be clear, this review is of the single-volume complete hard-copy edition of La Recherche published by Gallimard, and not of the Kindle edition of anything.I recently finished a graduate-school course on Proust, and, against my professor's recommendation, bought this edition to use throughout. My professor was right -- first-time readers of Proust need the plot summaries, explanatory end-notes, and possibly the other editorial additions (e.g., introductions) that are standard issue in the excellent mass-market paperbacks of each of the seven volumes published by, for example, Gallimard in the "Folio" series. (The Folio paperbacks, at least if published after 1988, contain the same definitive text as that contained in the current Pleiade edition of Jean-Yves Tadie and published in four hard-cover volumes in that year.)But having struggled through an initial reading of Proust needing all the help I could get (i.e., a great teacher as well as footnotes, plot summaries, etc.), the virtues of this edition become much clearer. This is especially important because, as my professor told us from the outset, just about anyone's first reading of Proust merely lays a foundation for subsequent readings, should one wish to go in search of lost time, again.Here are the virtues of this edition as I see it.First, it contains the full text of Tadie's definitive 1988 Pleiade edition in a single volume.Second, although this sounds counter-intuitive, it is printed in larger and more readable type with wider margins than the Pleiade edition itself. The pages are larger, and at first glance they appear to be overly crammed with words, but this first impression is misleading. The pages of this edition are, to me at any rate, far more readable than any of the mass-market paperback editions, or than those of the Pleiade edition.Finally, the quality of paper used by Gallimard in this inexpensive edition is extraordinary. There is no bleed-through from the text on one side of a page to the text on the other. Equally important, this paper is the functional equivalent of the kryptonite so dreaded by Superman or the Gardol so dreaded by tooth-decay (please excuse these dated pop-culture references from the 1960s).Call me a troglodyte, but I invariably underline, write marginal notes, etc. in soft-lead pencil. A good-quality eraser (e.g., Staedtler Mars) used with care will remove anything I've written in this book once I realize that I've totally missed the point of what Proust was saying and want to re-read (and re-underline and make new marginal notes) without destroying the paper or leaving a trace of what I previously wrote.This last point may sound obsessive -- okay, it is obsessive -- but so was Proust. The peace of mind I get from knowing that I'm free to make marginal notes that turn out to be inane and can thereafter be "disappeared" as we say in NJ, is huge. I can't think of any author other than Proust for whom getting this sort of "second chance" is so important, at least to me.Bottom line: the excellent mass-market paperbacks are great for a first date with Marcel Proust, but this Gallimard one-volume edition of La Recherche is the one to hook up with for the long haul, should you be in search of one.
