Hello Everyone,

This week’s reading, “Combray” in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, was challenging but insightful for me to read. When I first started reading, I struggled to get the central story and the chronological order of the texts. I found the text to be in a dream-like flow, where the focus jumps quickly across themes like a flashing light. By reading more slowly, I gradually understood some of the mysteries and aesthetics of the story about memory and childhood.

The story begins with recollections of the narrator’s childhood. Because these memories are fragments, the plot development is not smooth and is difficult to follow. However, the events and scenes the narrator recalled are detailed and vividly beautiful.

Part 1 of “Combray” is long but centers around the narrator’s anxiety about sleep, obsession with his mother’s kisses, and his father’s scolding from a child’s perspective. It becomes clear that the narrator is a very sensitive child, and the fear of sleep and eagerness for a kiss has become his earliest memories of Combray and the past.

What stimulated his memory of Combray was the taste of tea-steeped madeleine that Aunt Léonie once offered him. In this part, Proust emphasizes how the experience of taste can open a gateway to the past. For me, this transition to part 2 is very aesthetic; the madeleine is like the missing piece of a machine. When you successfully find it, your memory also successfully runs.

A highlight for me in part 2 is the detailed depiction of landscapes in Combray. Many people may wonder why the author spends so much time depicting the scenery instead of focusing on the plot and characters. In my opinion, without these recollections of the details of the scenery, the narrator wouldn’t be able to recall the full picture of memory. Just as the narrator said, when he sees a steeple in different places, it reminds him of the steeple of St. Hilaire church in Combray and its relevant memories.

Other than this, the depiction of Aunt Léonie is so detailed and creates a sad atmospheric section in part 2. After the death of her husband, she no longer connects with the outside world, “always lying in an uncertain state of grief, physical debility, illness, obsession, and piety.” (p. 80)  It is clear she was interested in what was going on outside, but it is unknown what stopped her from connecting with the outside world. Was it sorrow, fear of stimulation, or mentally ill? In all, Crombray is aesthetic to read, characters like Swann and Odette are also important to analyze, but however, I had more reflections and thoughts about the above writings.

One question I would like to post is why Proust would choose to write over 40 pages to depict the narrator’s sleep and anxiety, and how does it connect to the rest of the parts in Crombray?