In Search of Lost Time (Dramatized)

By: Marcel Proust

Narrated by: James Wilby, Jonathan Firth, Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs, Corin Redgrave

Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

A BBC Radio six-part dramatisation of Marcel Proust's groundbreaking series of novels, tracing the extraordinary story of the author's own life. Starring James Wilby and Jonathan Firth, and with a distinguished cast including Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs, and Corin Redgrave, this rich, multi-layered adaptation brings out all the variety and subtlety of Proust's magnificent masterpiece.

Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers, In Search of Lost Time is Proust's search for the key to the mysteries of memory, time, and consciousness. As he recalls his childhood days, the sad affair of Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, his transition to manhood, the tortures of love and the ravages of war, he realises that the simplest of discoveries can lead to astonishing possibilities.

©2009 Fiction Factory (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks Ltd

Proust Snapshot

If you could sum up In Search of Lost Time (Dramatized) in three words, what would they be?

Entertaining, well-performed & enjoyable.

What other book might you compare In Search of Lost Time (Dramatized) to and why?

There is nothing like In search of lost time!

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Very well read and he helped to set the scene perfectly.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

no extreme reaction

Any additional comments?

It was a delightful way of getting an overview of the very log story despite the fact that I have listened to a 33 CD version also.

Absolutely First Class Drama!

Any adaption of literature is not really easy. This drama has reached an excellent height to make this complex novel understandable and compelling. Very sensitive, profound voice of narrator and all outstanding actors. Thanks for BBC and fiction factory produced such beautiful work!

Stunning

I now cannot wait to buy each of the books separately and hear all 3000 words.

This audiobook became my permanent companion

Proust made me retrieve moments of my past. Perhaps forgotten or unobserved before. He helped me find key answers of myself.

A pretentious blur of garbage

I wanted to build my library with some of the "classics" . Thus , I did several searches of the top 50 best books written and this book came up in the top 3 and usually as number one. Ok, why not? So I dove in and started to listen. This has no plot, is filled with so many characters and skips from place to place so many times it is impossible to just listen to. It seems it is the for-runner of the modern soap opera with very explicit sexual references and experiences. I read or listen to hundreds of books a year and I don't get this one at all.

Amazing - Proust makes his life story so alive

Amazing - Proust makes his life story so alive

a must read for everybody who asks themselves what goes on in other peoples' minds

Mucho más que un buen libro

Dicen que uno no lee un libro, sino que se lee a si mismo en ellos. Afortunado soy de haber tenido el gusto de encontrarme a mí mismo en "En busca del tiempo perdido".

A masterpiece

One of those books which leaves you stunned, silent. A book which inspired insight and honesty in self introspection. A book which forced me to face myself and the world in their terrible, wonderful complexity. I wish it were the full book, yet the dramatization has its own poignancy.

How much I enjoy listening to this adatation

loved it!! do you have such equally excellent radio !adaptations? is there a BBC audio catalogue?
serge@sergemosovichmd. com

worth it

This performance is fantastic. perfect for listening to on lengthy bus rides in Guatemala!
It is safe to say that I would not have gotten around to reading In Search of Lost Time, and without this BBC performance I would've missed this experience all together. Somehow Proust's often-insufferable narrator dispenses minute parcels of wisdom betwixt vivid memories and those little wisdom nuggets are, at times, astonishing.

Wonderful

Any additional comments?

I have wanted to read Proust for a while now, but was always a little daunted so opted for this wonderful BBC production and loved it. I now feel ready to start all the seven original/unabridged novels. Highly recommended.

Brilliant performance moved me to tears at times

Narration was brilliant felt like you were in the audience of a play than a book highly recommend downloading it

BBC does Proust proud

An enchanting journey into Proust's greatest work, with the BBC's typical attention to sound quality. A difficult work is made approachable and mesmerising. Recommended to be listened to in the highest quality possible. It's a little like falling into someone else's mind.

Excellent Introduction to Proust

I have been meaning to read 'In Search of Lost Time' for ages and as with many readers, its sheer size put me off. This then is the perfect introduction to Proust. Weighing in a just over five hours it is a relative sprint compared to the full marathon. Yes, something will have been lost in the editing but on the other hand, much is gained in the dramatisation. Made a few car journeys much more enjoyable.

Beautifully read.

I could not wait until I found time to listen each day. What a wonderful story made so much more vivid by the dramatisation.

So glad I read it!

I'm so glad I read it! Reading a book is always better than the watching the film, and listening to a book is so much easier... Even though it lasts almost 6 hours I thought it was worth every minute of my time and I can't wait to get the rest of the series.

I just can't get bored from it

I love how everything is perfect in this work, the performance, the music, the words and the amazing voice of the narrator !! I kept repeating this book again and again. I just can't get enough of it. I wish the same performers in this book would be doing another long work like Dostoevsky very long novels !

An absolute must read/listen to

What a wonderful thought-provoking story of life and how we form our ingrained associations during childhood, of which will later drive all of our future relationships. I think I’d need to read/listen to this story another 5 times before fully grasping it’s depth.

Wonderfully read aloud by the narrator.

Only small critique would be the ‘background’ noises/chatter was sometimes a little annoying. Understand the purpose is to create the atmosphere of which it did.

Interesting but not life changing

I have been meaning to read this for ages, I was recommended this version and I am really glad to have listened, I found it hard to like any characters enough to care about their love lives, hugely self indulgent, but still strangely addictive

Just amazing

highly recommended. Just an amazing read. I have to admit, I almost did give up after the first book/chapter. But the richness of his writing, his inner thoughts, they was he experiences his life and put it down on a paper, it is on a different lever. One of the best booked I have read/heard recently. I will defenitely dead it again soon.