Week 2, Combray

 

This first section of Michael Proust’s Combray is to me a tangled web of meaning and tangential breaks that feels as disconnected and warped as the narrator feels when dealing with sleep. First things first that was a lot of commas. Almost every other sentence is broken apart multiple times. Which honestly as a reader was definitely very confusing, this combined with the what I believe are like allegorical tangents throughout the first couple pages makes starting this particular text a process. At first I thought he was crippled from the waist down due to Proust’ switching between his own personal narrative and these tangents without any large indications other than the switching of pronouns. But after understanding that these are more targets to explore the feelings that our narrator experiences made me much more open to them as a literary device. `Continuing on with the theme of structure the other thing I noticed was that the world order is more similar to that of French/German(these are the only two languages I have some experience with) than that of a native english writer. It takes a little bit to get used to as the overall flow of a lot of the sentences doesn’t feel natural to me. But I would not consider this a detriment I believe it fits with the themes of the narrative, although this is most likely not an intentional choice rather a quirk of translation, and adds to the overall atmosphere.

As far as the narrative goes I quite liked it yet was also strangely discomforted by it. Reading about this child and the very tangible fear and discomfort he is experiencing made me feel a similar level of discomfort. As well the ritual of kissing his mother to allow him to go asleep makes me believe that Proust is dealing with a mental illness. And as we see through the narrative as Proust has an extreme outburst of emotion causes his mother to stay with him we are exposed to Proust’s undeniable depression. This overarching angst and sadness combined with the focus on the conflict of our preconceptions and reality makes the way the narrator describes his life feel disconnected. As well Proust through the use of vivid diction really allows us to understand the through the first few pages and then later along at the dinner party the severity of his feelings. As an introduction we are thrust into the dark place of this childs mind and the combination of vocabulary, atypical sentence structure, and the tangents create a world that feels adolescent.

2 thoughts on “Week 2, Combray

  1. Hey Ross,
    I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I definitely agree that commas, as well as the translation, take some getting used to. One thing that helped me was to have an audiobook version of the reading playing while I read, as it better guided me and kept me from stopping every time there was a comma. I find that sentence length is a balancing act where short sentences (periods) can disrupt readers due to the choppiness and abruptness, though long sentences (commas) make us lose track of what the sentence was about in the first place. I recommend trying to examine specific sentences here and there, using a close-reading method. It really allows for a better understanding of the writing style. I agree that this may be from translation rather than a choice. In response to your second paragraph, I wonder if this text is about Proust himself or a character that merely reflects parts of him? You mention that Proust may be battling mental illness, though is it Proust or is it the main character of this text? What do you think?

  2. Hi Ross! I completely agree that the amount of commas, as well as the flow of the writing, made this a harder piece to get into. I appreciate your comment about the at times awkward sentence structure–I also think this has more to do with the translation than Proust’s writing itself. I hadn’t even thought about the protagonist struggling with mental health issues, but now that you point it out, it makes a lot of sense. The need for routine (eg. nightly kiss from his mother), his moments of fear, his outburst toward the end of the first chapter… it all makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your interesting take!

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