My first thought when reading “Combray” by Marcel Proust was, why are these sentences so long? 

It wasn’t until I continued to read the novel and watch the video on Proust that I realized these unconventional grammatical rules and sentence structure were simply a part of modernism. The reason for the length of sentences became clear to me after I watched the video on modernism and understood it as defying typical grammatical rules and structures. This deliberate use of sentence structure allows readers to be more attentive to the story, and almost become a part of the narrative. It also reinforces the idea of representation versus reality that modernism often explores. 

This structure is also important when thinking about the use of multiple-perspective narratives often found in modernist texts, like Combray. These multiple perspectives of present-day Proust and past Proust allow readers to question how authentic a memory can be, even if it is a memory of your own. Questioning the authenticity of memory is established heavily as the narrative voice often flows in and out through temporality. This temporality includes the past and present as well as the sleep and awake narrative. These long, often grammatically incorrect sentences are almost ‘dream-like’ mirroring a dream or memory: without a definite end or beginning as they flow in and out of consciousness.  

The scene that especially stuck out to me was the famous Madeleine scene: when Proust recalls memories of his past after he dips the cake into the tea. The main question I had in this scene as well as throughout the novel is: how true is a memory? In everyday life, there are seemingly ‘meaningless/little’ things that you associate with people, places and moments. Like hearing a song and remembering a past love. But are you remembering the true memory or a romanticized version of the truth? Are we remembering what actually happened, or simply the comfort that the nostalgia brings? 

These questions are highlighted in the title of the book “In Search of Lost Time”. Personally, the title evokes a sense of childhood versus adulthood. As a child, you fantasize about being older and independent, but when you reach adulthood you often find yourself wondering where ‘all the time went’ since you were a child. Again, finding comfort in the nostalgia, and at times using that nostalgia as a form of escapism. 

My question for discussion would be: ‘Do we as humans see the objective truth in memory or the romanticized version we want to see?’ For me, as much as I would like to pretend I’m an objective person, I definitely tend to remember a more romanticized version of my memories and block out the parts that don’t fit that narrative.