Thoughts on Proust

For me, this whole novel lost me at many parts, but the moments where I did pay attention, it gave me one specific feeling: nostalgia. Proust shows nostalgia exactly as it feels, like being immediately pulled away into the past without choosing to.

First of all, I want to answer the lecture’s questions. What do I look for in a novel? I like authors who “paint a picture” with their writing. It sounds basic, but I enjoy detailed descriptions of places and feelings written in a creative way where you truly feel like you’re there. “There” not only being a physical place, but also a feeling or a mental state that the author wants to convey.

However, I feel like Proust overdid this which leads me to the next question: what did I expect from Proust’s novel? I didn’t know much about the author and even less about the novel, but I expected it to be less complicated and boring than it actually was. That said, I found that many of his descriptions were redundant and unnecessary. What frustrated me wasn’t only their length but the sense that Proust refuses to let the reader move on; everything is dissected so thoroughly that it loses its impact. Instead of nostalgia flowing naturally it felt forced. Yeah, it’s cool how you remember things when you smell something, make a certain movement, or look through a window at a specific light, but honestly it just feels like a pretty common thought that didn’t need to be described as broadly as he did. However, I don’t know if that was his whole point, like trying to extend a memory and not let it get lost, like, enjoy it as much as he could.

One thing I did like was his reflections when he had insomnia. The whole overthinking vibe brought back memories of when I was a child. His descriptions of his family home in Combray made me nostalgic for my own childhood. When we were little, life felt so simple: the greatest happiness was having dinner with family, and the greatest sadness or anxiety came when everyone left, the house went quiet, and you had to go to your room. That feeling stayed with me while reading the novel.

I also liked how Proust treats childhood emotions, especially things adults usually see as trivial, like a goodnight kiss or a bedtime routine. He shows how overwhelming these moments actually feel for a child. This was clear in his relationship with his mother. At first he feels anxious because she won’t come up say goodnight again, then he feels happy when she comes, and then he feels guilty. There are so many emotions going through his mind that adults probably don’t notice. This is shown in a line that really stood out to me because I heard it a lot when I was a kid. When Françoise asks the mom why the narrator was crying, the mom just says: “Why, even he doesn’t know, Françoise”. It really hit me because that’s exactly how adults talk about kids’ emotions. It’s not that the feeling isn’t real, it’s just that as a  child you can’t put it into words yet.

Even though I struggled with parts of the novel, the moments that worked really stayed with me. Excited to discuss all this in next week’s lecture!