I guess this work is now known as "In Search of Lost Time", which is a better translation of the French title. I really wanted to like it, but for the most part it was just plain tedious. Every once in a while a little burst of interest, but then...pfftt, boring again. Also, the narrator was an irritating little priss. I just wanted to slap him. It's hard for me to read a book in which I don't identify with or even like the narrator. I was rolling my eyes at him every page or so.

I am typically a big fan of very long books, and I like French literature from that period, but I only got through one and a half volumes (Swann's Way and part of Within a Budding Grove) before I had to call it quits, and believe me, I tried. I do not give up on books easily.