“Combray” by Marcel Proust

I found Marcel Proust’s “Combray” to be a great portrayal of his main ideas in the novel for many reasons, and I also found it to be quite enjoyable read. I specifically enjoyed the way in which he gets his ideas across to his readers. Firstly, I have to say, although maybe an unpopular opinion, I found the long sentences to be a great way to portray his ideas and get his points across. I think that the use of long sentences, specifically in describing attributes of memories really add to the reader’s understanding of his ideas. I believe that this way of writing goes hand in hand with the use of imagery in this novel, which plays a huge role in the text. The use of imagery in the novel adds so much to the quality of the read in my opinion as it really allows readers to take on his view of his childhood memories. For example, he writes “Her own room looked out over the Rue Saint-Jacques,… monotonous and grey, with the three high steps of stone before almost every one of its doors, seemed like a deep furrow cut by some sculptor of gothic images in the very block of stone out of which he had fashioned a Calvary or a Crib.” This example demonstrates the importance of imagery and how it portrayed the genuineness in Proust’s memories throughout the novel.

As well, I think that Proust’s writing/narration style in the novel really helps to captivate the emotions and thought behind his words. The way that he narrates about himself almost watching his memories back was very captivating to read, and I feel helps to share some of that emotion with his readers. This, along with the long sentences really displays sort of this feeling of raw emotion that comes across while reading the text. In doing this, I find that it enables readers to kind of put themselves in his shoes as they are really able to picture and kind of take on the “scene” of each memory that he describes.

Overall, I think that Proust, in Combray allows readers to experience his main ideas, of time and memory in a less common way through his writing style. In writing about his past memories in a way that captivates his readers, he brings across as if he’s almost in an unconscious state while recalling these memories and therefore he really gets across the message that more goes into memory than one might think, as it is not constant and can be impacted/changes through different forms.