So.., this was very confusing at first and very different than what i am used to reading. In the beginning the reading felt dense and really challenging to navigate. The sentences were long and they were kinda non-linear, alot of the times i just didn’t know where Proust was going with his thoughts especially when he was constantly shifting between memories, sensations and reflection. This reading required a different level of patience and attention than what i usually give when reading.
That being said i kind of started to change the way i viewed the book and adjusted my expectations and it quickly became unexpectedly engaging. I realized that rather than telling a traditional story, Combray felt like an attempt to recreate the experience of memory itself. The narrator’s recollections blur the boundaries between past and present, making time feel fluid instead of fixed and im pretty sure that that was the source of my confusion in the beginning. Yes it was frustrating to follow along the story initially but it slowly became immersive. Unlike the linear stories, i didn’t find myself concerned with what’s going to happen next, i was more interested in how the narrator experienced these moments internally.
I think a really compelling aspect of this text to me was how memory was often triggered through sensory experiences. It just shows how our senses are deeply connected to our bodies; that through them we experience and trigger those memories and not through some conscious effort. Just thinking about that made me reflect on how sometimes i just smell, taste or feel something and it instantly brings back memories i hadn’t thought about in years. Often, they’re memories that i can’t make the conscious effort to remember. Proust captures this phenomenon in a way that feels both personal and universal.
Despite finding the text difficult to read and follow at times, slowing down and allowing myself to sit with the text rather than rushing it felt rewarding. I haven’t gotten through the whole text since i joined the course late but just reading what i read so far made me understand that unlike the fast-paced reading i am more accustomed to, Combray demands a lot of patience and attention.
This style of writing is definitely far outside my comfort zone, but Combray has kind of made me more open to this foreign (to me) form of literature. While challenging, the experience became engaging enough to make me curious about how memory and identity continue to unfold throughout the part of the text I haven’t gotten to yet.
I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts 🙂