Combray by Marcel Proust, the first text I have ever encountered of such a descriptive, narrative nature. I found the book especially hard to consume due to, what I found to be, increasingly complicated and elaborate descriptions of the world. This took form in the shape of extremely long sentences, heavy use of adjectives and extreme world building. These characteristics made it especially hard for me to maintain my focus on the book, therefore I had to read over the same part multiple times and various parts to understand and reorient myself in terms of the story. This created a sense of urgency in the text for me, where I felt as if the slightest of breaks would make me completely lose my sense of context in the story. However, this type of narration also helped immerse me in the idea of these descriptions being the ramblings of someone describing their memories. Although this is what makes this reading exceedingly hard, I found the ability of the author to elicit the emotion that one experiences when listening to their friend go on and on about a dream they had, this sense of organized chaos/misconstrued coherency, in my opinion, to be one of the most important and innovative aspects of the book and the type of narration it entails. Ironically, the narration at the beginning of the chapter, where the narrator describes the confused state he wakes up in, perfectly encapsulates what one feels while reading this text for the first time. Overall, I found this text to be extremely interesting in terms of, how the author depicts what can now be considered a rather overdone theme of memories. This text approaches it from a unique perspective of self-awareness, with grandiose descriptions, and extreme care and attention to the contextualization and world building. The highlight of this text for me was the undeniable evidence of Proust’s mastery over the medium. His use of extravagant verbiage and elaborate descriptions, although confusing and complex, ultimately paint a picture and immerse the reader in the story’s world uniquely.
Hello Prathyush,
It is reassuring to know that you were having some of the same difficulties I was. I too found myslef to be overwhelmed by the detailed and lengthy description and to reread sentences MULTIPLE times just to get them through my head. I do agree with you that this can be viewed as proof of Proust’s mastery of writing technique. I like your conflation of the first part of the text with how you felt reading the text. I think this describes my read through as well!
Hello Prathyush, Thanks for your sharing. I share the same sentiment as you. This novel posed a significant challenge for me as a non-native English speaker. It took me quite a long time to finish, and while reading, I also found the author’s thinking to be quite abstract. After providing detailed descriptions of the character Swann, the narrative then shifts to discussing his need for a kiss from his mother before bedtime, which struck me as somewhat peculiar.
Hi Prathyush, I totally agree with your sentiment in terms of the difficult of this reading. I found myself losing my mind as the sentences continued to never end and I felt trapped in Proust’s mind prison. Your idea of this story encapsulating what it is like when you listen to someone ramble on about a dream they had, makes me wonder if listening to this story in the form an audiobook would make it more digestible. I find when I call my friends and they go on and on about whatever they remember, I am still able to follow along, or at least better than how I felt during my reading of this story. Thank you for your write up and I’m interested to hear more of your thoughts in the future.
Hi Prathyush. I also found it ironic that the state of confusion described by the narrator maps so well onto the experience of the reader, and I agree with your sentiment that reading Combray feels like listening to a friend describe a dream they’ve had. I also agree that Proust’s prose demonstrates a “mastery over the medium,” as I could not imitate his writing style, no matter how hard I tried.
In truth, Proust’s narratives are immersive, it is like swimming in a river where you have to let yourself go a little with the current, not fight too much but keep trying to stay afloat among the current of words. Please, don’t forget to ask questions to your blog readers!
Hey Prathyush,
I totally I get, I had a very similar experience when trying to read the book, I would have to reread certain parts over and over again and the more I read them, the more I would lose focus, but eventually I got kind of used to it and was able to enjoy the detailed descriptions.
Hi Prathyush! It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only person who had to reread parts of this book several times to fully understand it. I also agree that the extremely detailed descriptions helped to feel connected to the book and paint a clear picture of what was being told!
Hi Prathyush, it was nice to read someone’s thoughts on the book that were very similar to mine. I often found myself reading sections over again and even then would not fully grasp the point of those passages. I think his writing style is very unique and imaginative, and it surely requires a lot of effort to both write and read in this style.