Remembrance of Things Past
Swann's Way
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Remembrance of Things Past
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Narrated by:
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John Rowe
About this listen
Exclusively from Audible
Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook Remembrance of Things Past.
In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth. The jealous love that Swann feels for the courtesan Odette, is a foretelling of the narrator's own future relationships.
Proust paints an unforgettable, scathing and at times comic portrait of French society at the close of the 19th century and reveals a profound vision of obsessive love. The remarkable details from his memory are the fundamental triumph of the audiobook; details like his younger self's desperate need for a goodnight kiss from his mother.
In 1922, Virginia Woolf marvelled, 'Oh if I could write like that!'
Many adaptations have been made of Swann's Way including the 1984 English language film, Swann in Love, starring Jeremy Irons, and a graphic novel by French comic artist Stéphane Heuet that was first published in 1998.
Narrator Biography
Whilst training at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama, John Rowe did his first radio plays for the BBC before spending several years acting in repertory theatre. He then joined the BBC's Radio Drama Company at Broadcasting House and after a three year stint on stage with the Prospect Company at The Old Vic he became a committed radio actor. He is well known for his role as Professor Jim Lloyd in The Archers. He has not only worked extensively in radio but also in television and film, as well as narrating many audiobooks, including Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust. His film appearances have included The Heart of Me (2002) and Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001). He has most recently appeared on onscreen in the Netflix series The Crown (2016) and the BBC TV series Broken (2017).
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What listeners say about Remembrance of Things Past
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 05-06-19
From Taj
What a masterpiece. some parts of the book are so intimate one wishes to remember them, to bring them out of the unconscious mind... to go over them with Proust over a cup of... herbal tea as he would like it.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Alison O
- 03-03-19
Sheer perfection
Wonderful translation of this glorious masterpiece. A superlative performance by John Rowe. Will hunt down all else he has narrated for more such gems
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- kathleen m dineen
- 16-02-22
tea and cake
a warm bath fully clothed
an absolute prick tease.
flowing asur silk
beautiful word
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Barbie
- 12-08-18
Beautiful!
This is definitely the best way to enjoy Proust! Wonderful prose, beautifully narrated. It doesn’t get any better than this.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Kentigern
- 20-03-21
excellent
Excellent performance of a challenging text. Highly recommended. Honestly not sure what to make of the book itself but it is powerfully evocative and often amusing or insightful even if you might sometimes struggle to like the characters
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- osama
- 24-02-17
Rich, descriptive, colorful, deep, very slow paced
I enjoyed the first part, things afterwards became very slow and deeply descriptive. not my style.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Gawain Mayall
- 31-05-23
Quite excellent
The narrator really caught the wistful poetic tone. Why must I write fifteen words. Eh?
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- anna
- 16-03-24
outstanding
I'd put off reading Proust for 30 years and thanks Audible, this audible book has made me want to read them all. it was outstanding 👏.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 15-11-24
Perfect.
Proust's first volumes of his epic are so beautifully read and inovked by the feeling, sense and pronunciation of Rowe's reading. I lsitened as I read, stopping to reread and reflect, or reading and then listening back later for a differing perspective.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 12-07-20
An incredible sensory experience...
My only sadness is that John Rowe has only narrated two volumes in the series. Will the other 5 volumes follow?
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