As a first-time reader of Proust, I did not know what to expect from Combray. As I started reading, I struggled to identify the narrative the author was trying to weave, leading me to re-read the first few sentences and paragraphs. Soon, I realized that the lack of a coherent plot is what the narrator seems to be going for, making it easier to read as I started enjoying the vivid descriptions of mundane day-to-day things and drifting through dreams and experiences. However, the archaic language still made it a challenging read, preventing a smooth flow.
I couldn’t help but think that perhaps part of the reason why this is such a hard read is that we are reading it in its English translation. How much of the meaning of words and sentences got lost in translation from French to English
What particularly struck me about this text was the amount of detail in the descriptions, especially from a child’s perspective. I do not have nearly as many vivid memories of childhood as the narrator in this text (or maybe I just don’t have as many words to express them?).
A while into the text, I was able to visualize the narrator’s descriptions better. Similar to some of my fellow classmates, Combray made me wonder about how our interpretation of the real world around us is influenced by our spatial imagination of places that we consider “home” or “safe” (such as our childhood room) in our dreams. Also, how do our memories of these places change over time, as we move away from the familiar feeling that these places evoke? Do we end up mixing memories of things that happened in the past with imaginations of how we would have liked them to be?
These thoughts reminded me of a line delivered by the titular character in the famous musical theatre play Hamilton – “I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory.” I think this line tries to capture the interplay between our mind’s incredible capacity to imagine and our memories of real events.
