Thoughts on Proust “Combray”

Proust’s Combray reads like an ever flowing stream of consciousness between the lines of sleep and wake. In true modernist fashion, Proust jumps from thought to thought often moving along before assuring the readers understanding. In this way I found it quite challenging to understand at first and felt as if the text dragged on toward the end. However, I really enjoyed the beautiful writing and descriptions in that I felt completely immersed into the world of Combray.

In order to fully capture the thoughts behind the text, I wanted to first understand the significance of the title of this section, Combray. Through his vulnerable words we discover that Combray was the home of his grandparents in which he spend much of his childhood. This is telling as throughout the text he is longing for his childhood in this dreamlike state. It makes me think of how the title of a work usually gives a lot of insight into the work and I wonder if this theme will be consistent throughout the course texts. He seems to use this state as an escape to a better time or as a way of coping with the loss of his childhood, thus making the title quite significant as his safety or comfort net almost. He even explained that through his troubling relationship with his parents he was able to turn to literature (as we are doing in this course as well) to escape reality.

I found Proust’s writing style very captivating and unlike anything I’ve ever read. The dreamlike haze that he is writing from is a universal experience that is hard to capture. That time when you are half awake half asleep often expose your most raw and genuine thoughts which I think Proust captures perfectly. The detail that he uses in describing these visions of childhood (such as the Gothic style architecture, churches, queens and saints) provided great insight and almost transported me into his mind/world. I loved the detail he provided of the architecture as it also gives insight into the time period and place that Proust was living in, truly transporting the reader into a historical era.

Proust encapsulates this idea that memory is what we make of it in the sense that it can be completely fragmented or distorted but we can recreate it through our own thoughts and attachment to certain places. Through Combray  Proust idealizes his childhood through much detail and emotion through a dreamlike state.