The narrator of Swann's Way is fond of beds and sleeping. In fact, laying in bed is what you might say is his hobby. In our day and age he would be someone that likes to "bedrot". Of course, this novel was published in 1913, long before you could lay in bed and watch tv or be on your phone. Instead, for entertainment and/or combat insomnia, the narrator enters into a virtual world of his memories. This is because being in bed is a place where he can remember all the places he has slept through his life, and along with the places he remembers the people and circumstances of his life during those moments in time. He is especially fond of Combray, a small town where him and his parents stayed at his grandparent's house when he was a child.
Even though his family is quite interesting, being upper bourgeoisie, they think they are better than the common rabble and always aspiring to be the envy of their neighbors, he is more intrigued by a family friend named Swann. At first, Swann visits a lot, but then the narrator's family begins to shun him because in some way Swann's wife is scandalous.
The second half of the book, entitled "Swann in Love" flashes back to an earlier time as Swann meets and falls in love with Odette, a charming woman who isn't exactly beautiful, but has some intriguing x factor that Swann finds undeniably attractive. Another problem is she isn't averse to playing the field with other men and even other women. You get the feeling she'd be up for a threesome if Swann introduced the subject.
In Search of Lost Time, which is comprised of 6 volumes, is a series that is hardly read anymore to completion these days. I know of NOBODY that has even read the first book. I am sure they are out there though. Despite that, it has the reputation of being one of the greatest works of literature produced in the West. I've always had the ambition to read the whole thing but it always felt like a work you would read in retirement so you could focus your entire thought on it without distraction.
It was not an easy read by any means. It took me about 2 and a half months to read this first volume. It has to do with the density of Proust's writing/thought. He can be looking at a lamp on his nightstand or the shape of his pillow and slip into all manner of time and space adventures. He travels back to Combray and is once again anxious and melancholy when his mother does not have the time to kiss him goodnight, which feels like the meaning of his existence.
That's one of the things that stands out about the book, that every object, every place, is a catalyst for memory or emotion. Even Swann gets affected by this theme, over and over being almost spiritually overpowered by a musical variation he hears. So strong that it might have been what made him fall in love with Odette.
The narrator is not fond of particular points in time and space, because time does not stop. It keeps barreling forward. He values his memories of the places or things much more than the current reality of them because they are eternal, not subject to decay and death.
The love affair between Swann and Odette is to me one of the most realistic depictions of unrequited love that I have ever read in literature. I don't know that Odette loves Swann. I got the sense that she was just using him for money. She didn't DISLIKE him, she just wasn't in love with him. He was convenient, and when he becomes inconvenient she begins to disrespect him more and more. Meanwhile Swann just becomes more and more of a simp.
I said it was a somewhat hard read. Sometimes you just want to say "Ok, Marcel, we GET it! Next scene!" but Proust just sinks deeper and deeper in his thought and language. It's almost like a musical invention where he weaves a theme or a thought into different contortions or variations in an effort to write a perfect statement. Don't get me wrong. This is not purple flowery prose. Just very creative and very exact when dealing with very abstract ideas.
To me, this is definitely not a series you can read back to back. I need a break from Proust's world. But I will definitely be returning for Volume 2: Within a Budding Grove after a brief siesta of a month or two....or three.
My Grade: B+
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