Frankly, that was not the easiest read!! I found many of the descriptions were hard to follow and quickly lost my interest. A particularly difficult one for me was the seemingly neverending description of the church around p. 81 – 90. However, the parts that I DID really enjoy I decided to read closely, and in those moments I enjoyed the flowery tone of the writing.
For example, the descriptions of rain and storm really pulled me in. I love rain, it’s my favourite weather and for that reason, p.14 – 16 were my favourites in the whole book and the grandmother is definitely my favourite character (followed by Françoise). The line “At last one can breathe!” on p. 14 completely relates to me. Rain always brings me such a beautiful feeling of relief that only a small number of people I know relate to. P. 143 when the grandmother leaves for a walk in the rain and Françoise says she’s “off her head” made me giggle. I also love p. 185 when the grandma says that one shouldn’t waste time visiting people when you’re by the seaside and tells the narrator to go outside and enjoy the sea. I also feel sorry for her since it’s hinted that her husband is, or at least was, an alcoholic, and that her sister antagonizes her. Although she doesn’t show up much in the story the grandmother is by far my favourite character!
Marcel himself seems to not hate the rain, although the thing in nature he seems most enamoured with is flowers. The descriptions of flowers were my second favourite parts of the book. The hawthorns in particular were a big focus of the story. I looked them up while was reading and, man, I get it Marcel, they’re so gorgeous!
Another thing I noticed from the very beginning was how odd Marcel’s descriptions of women are. He seems to try very hard to describe them as sexual, but always ends up drifting off to some other description of flowers or something else. When he meets women in real life and decides that they aren’t nearly as good as they are in his head, it made me giggle. This book largely actually seems to center around women, I noticed how little he focuses on the male characters, besides Swann and M. Vinteuil. The most standout characters were his mother, his aunt, Mlle. Vinteuil, the Duchess of Guerrmantes, and Mlle. Swann. This makes sense since it’s in a way a coming-of-age story. But again, the way he describes women is like I’ve never seen before, it seems to balance awkwardly between sex, adoration, and hatred? I can’t quite place it
I definitely found this was a really good read with some really beautiful passages (even if it was tiring sometimes).
My question is: who was your favourite character and why? Like which one would you be friends with, not which one was most interesting to you.