Sodom and Gomorrah : In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

In Search Of Lost Time is Proust's masterpiece and was described by Somerset Maugham as the greatest novel of the 20th century. This edition contains notes, addenda and synopses."Proust isn't just the most profound of novelists, but the most entertaining, too." - The IndependentMarcel Proust's monumental seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time is considered by many to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, is notable for its pioneering discussion of homosexuality. After its publication, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (known as Colette) wrote to Proust, "No one has written pages such as these on homosexuals, no one!" In Sodom and Gomorrah, Proust's narrator not only depicts the class tensions of a changing France at the beginning of the twentieth century but also exposes the decadence of aristocratic Parisian society and muses upon the subjects of homosexuality and sexual jealousy.Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. In Search Of Lost Time is one of the greatest, most enjoyable reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation."A giant miniature, full of images, of superimposed gardens, of games conducted between space and time." - Jean Cocteau"The way he replicates the workings of the mind changed the art of novel writing forever...his style is extraordinary, enveloping, captivating." - The GuardianEach book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast. The fourth volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century John Sturrock's acclaimed new translation of Sodom and Gomorrah will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Proust. The fourth volume in this superb edition of In Search of Lost Time— the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy. Sodom and Gomorrah takes up the theme of homosexual love, male and female, and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Proust’s novel is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles in earlier volumes now reappear in a different light and take center stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus. Sodom and Gomorrah'now in a superb translation by John Sturrock'takes up the theme of homosexual love, male and female, and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Proust's novel is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles in earlier volumes now reappear in a different light and take center stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus. First time in Penguin Classics A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French flaps and luxurious design The first completely new translation of Proust's novel since the 1920s