After reading the first page of this book, I realized that this work is very different from all the other books I have read before. Confusion is my first impression that I had regarding this book. I noticed that I would zone out and get lost as I read, and initially it would be slightly difficult to grasp what Proust was trying to express in this work. The most notable aspect of Proust’s writing style is that the sentences tend to be very long and descriptive. Each sentence is packed with various specific details, and some of them may seem to be never-ending. The thoughts expressed in brackets as well as the dashed sentences made the paragraphs sometimes exhausting to read. For me, this style of writing constituted the difficulty I found in reading this work, especially as I have rarely encountered works with such abundance of details. Additionally, the introduction of the different characters in the first part made it had to follow along.
Despite this difficulty and confusion with the content of this book, I still found it very interesting how the author uses his memory of eating a madeleine to connect memories from his childhood. The visual and gustatory imagery used to depict the author’s action of eating a madeleine was extremely vivid to me as a reader. Additionally, I found it fascinating how the author was able to deepen his thoughts with each sip of tea that was taken. Being able to use the illustrations of such a casual action, of simply taking a bite out of a madeleine and drinking tea, as a device to evoke the entire story is what makes this book to be distinct.
Although the detailed illustrative style employed throughout the book made it slightly difficult to follow along the plot, they did allow for me to engage with these visual aspects by being able to instantly picture the descriptions in my mind. The author’s relationship with his mother particularly stood out through the various depictions of how he yearned for her goodnight kisses as part of the childhood memories. I found it interesting how this relationship was especially portrayed in contrast with the relationship he had with his father.
My question for this week is what were your first impressions of this book, and has this changed over time?
It is true that Proust’s style is exhaustive and leaves us exhausted. I think there is an effort to capture something that in the end cannot be achieved through language, precisely the image of the world that exists in memory. That is why this exhaustiveness has an anguishing part, which is sometimes not very clear but which cumulatively makes us realize it.
I really enjoyed your perspective on this, I share your perspective on the complexity of the text. I often found myself wishing that the text was less verbose so that I could better engage with the narrative.
Combray was definitely a challenging literature to read. I’m not sure if this was the intent of Proust nor if it is the style of writing that is within all his works. One thing I would think is a possibility is that the original translation could have been more easily conceptualizing to its reader, but in the process of translation, it altered the way it was supposedly meant to be read. Your perspective is definitely one that pertains to my own.