Combray

Marcel Proust’s Combray was a challenging yet profound read for me. I expected to run into some trouble trying to fully comprehend the texts we will be reading as they were published from a long time ago, and hence the language might be very different. In addition, most of the texts we will read are translated, which can also take away some of the intended meaning the author might have tried to present. Yet still, from what I understood, Combray touched on some deep topics that most, if not all of us, will run into at some point in our lives; this being the concept of nostalgic memories through reverie. The main character of this book seems to frequently have these very vivid flashbacks of his childhood, often mentioning his relationships with his family. I think that having these instances of remembering our childhood is important as a big part of ourselves is our growth, and remembering our upbringing and how it all ultimately shaped us into who we are is a significant part of our individuality. 

To describe these memories that the narrator is referring back to, there were a lot of streams of consciousness. This narrative device is what I think, fundamentally, made it difficult for me to read. In addition to the highly convoluted language the text had, the sentences ran very long and often times had me constantly re-reading them in order to understand their full scope. Running into this problem was particularly challenging for me as when I read books, I prefer to be able to see the “bigger picture”, and to be able to connect the meanings in order to come to the conclusion of a bigger allegory it contains. But by frequently having to dissect every sentence, this was not at all possible for me. 

A part of Combray that I particularly liked was the allusion to the main character’s love for reading. I think that many children find escapism through books, especially when there’s a desire to forget about reality even for a moment. Furthermore, Proust’s description of vivid imagery helped a lot in setting the scene for the reader. This eventually made reading the text easier for me, as the more detailed the descriptions were, the more it helped me understand the picture the author was trying to paint. Overall, reading Combray was rewarding as trudging through the difficult aspects of reading it ultimately guided me to the bigger themes the book had to offer.