Hello all, this is my second post for the class, and this one is going to be about my thoughts on certain aspects of Proust’s “Combray”.
To start of I believe the way this book was narrated sets it apart from a lot of other books, for some for the better and for other for worse, me personally I feel kind of neutral towards. It is no secret that Proust really allowed himself to portray seemingly every single aspect of this book, in other words the book was completely filled with details, which I generally love to have in readings since they add more depth and make it feel more real, however, in this book I thought sometimes it was too much and it even felt a little unnecessary. Even though I was not a big fan of the sometimes overly descriptive narration, I did really like the use of first person when narrating the book, it helped me connect with the characters and their stories which allowed me to get a better understanding of the book in general but also to just enjoy it more than I would have otherwise.
This reading focused mainly on memory, in fact I think it focused so much on it that now its hard for me to think of other topics in the book as relevant as memory, I feel that it is important to clarify that I actually really liked that and I honestly think it does a brilliant job at portraying not only the role of memory in our lives, but its enormous importance. The best way in which Proust does that in my opinion is with the flashbacks that are in the book, which let’s be honest, it does not fall short of them, the one that I believe gave the clearest example of this was the following quote:
“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.”
The reason why I loved that quote is because it portrays memories not just as reminiscing about past experiences or quick thoughts that pass through, but as intense even all consuming experiences transported from the past into the present in order to relieve them one more time just as if they were happening all over again, I also loved that it shows that memory can be involuntary, like a sleeping giant waiting to reveal itself utilizing even the smallest trigger to do so.
I think the main character shows the beauty of memory in the reading but as the title suggests, he doesn’t stop there, he allows these memories to consume him and they become an obsession, forcing himself to live in the past and searching for them everywhere he can : “I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third, which gives me rather less than the second.”
Overall I think I enjoyed the book, it was just a little hard for me to get really into it at first, my discussion question is, Do you think Marcel’s obsession with the past reflects how we live as a society? Do we also focus too much on the past? or is it just him who takes it a little to far?
I found it very interesting how you detect the way in which the narrator (Proust?) “fills” each space of the writing, where that first person is a presence that physically interacts with the objects and then linguistically recreates those relationships without losing a overwhelming subjectivity. Thanks for noticing it.