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Within a Budding Grove, Part 2
Within a Budding Grove, Part 2 is the second volume of Proust's monumental, seven volume, quasi-autobiographical novel Remembrance of Things Past, , in which young Marcel falls under the spell of an enchanting group of adolescent girls. At first, intoxicated by their beauty and athletic energy, he finds it difficult to choose between them. But gradually he finds himself drawn to the beautiful Albertine, without guessing how much she is to mean to him in the future.
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First published January 1, 1919
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About the author
Marcel Proust
1,799books7,096followersMarcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
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August 24, 2017When Françoise draws the heavy curtains of the narrator's hotel room window at the end of À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, we realise that due to doctor's orders, and from the very beginning of his stay at the Grand Hotel in Balbec, the narrator was confined to his room for long periods each morning. He lay there in the darkness listening to the sounds of the new day getting underway on the promenade; the band tuning up beneath his window; the young people calling to each other gaily; carriages and motors arriving and leaving. And when the curtains were finally parted towards noon, it was as if they opened on a theatre setting for a play called 'Les Vacances à Balbec', the sea making a spectacular backdrop to the action on the promenade stage.
In the early weeks of his holiday, the narrator was very much a spectator, looking down on the action from the opera box of his hotel window or from the parterre of the dining level, longing to be part of the scene but never believing there could be a role for him in the play. He knew all the actors by sight, some by name; he knew all their various costumes: the equestrians, the golfers, the casino players, the cyclists, but it seemed impossible that he might ever speak with any of them.
This has become a familiar theme in Proust's work, the narrator on the outside looking in, wishing to be part of the action. We remember the Tansonville gardens, the Vinteuil house near Combray, Mme Swann's house in Paris, the children playing in the Champs Élysée gardens, and always, the narrator longing to have a role to play in every scene.
And because he spends so much time observing rather than acting, it is as an observer that he excels, and more and more with every stage of his young life. The artist Elstir becomes his guide in Balbec, and he learns to look beyond the surface of things and see what lies beneath, whether it concerns the carvings of the local church, the cliffs and seascapes along the Normandy coast, or the expressive faces of the young girls who eventually befriend him.
But in this episode of the story of his life, the narrator as observer graduates to the role of actor. Just as M Norpois introduced him into Mme Swann's salon in Paris, now in Balbec, Mme de Villeparisis opens the way for him to walk on stage and meet all the other actors. He finally gets to play a central role in the play entitled 'Les Vacances à Balbec'.
In the early weeks of his holiday, the narrator was very much a spectator, looking down on the action from the opera box of his hotel window or from the parterre of the dining level, longing to be part of the scene but never believing there could be a role for him in the play. He knew all the actors by sight, some by name; he knew all their various costumes: the equestrians, the golfers, the casino players, the cyclists, but it seemed impossible that he might ever speak with any of them.
This has become a familiar theme in Proust's work, the narrator on the outside looking in, wishing to be part of the action. We remember the Tansonville gardens, the Vinteuil house near Combray, Mme Swann's house in Paris, the children playing in the Champs Élysée gardens, and always, the narrator longing to have a role to play in every scene.
And because he spends so much time observing rather than acting, it is as an observer that he excels, and more and more with every stage of his young life. The artist Elstir becomes his guide in Balbec, and he learns to look beyond the surface of things and see what lies beneath, whether it concerns the carvings of the local church, the cliffs and seascapes along the Normandy coast, or the expressive faces of the young girls who eventually befriend him.
But in this episode of the story of his life, the narrator as observer graduates to the role of actor. Just as M Norpois introduced him into Mme Swann's salon in Paris, now in Balbec, Mme de Villeparisis opens the way for him to walk on stage and meet all the other actors. He finally gets to play a central role in the play entitled 'Les Vacances à Balbec'.
July 5, 2022
Nakon Prusta se osećam kao hodočasnici koji, nakon žege i studenti, stignu blaženi i preumorni na cilj.
Ostaje mi još 8 knjiga do kraja ''Potrage za izgubljenim vremenom''; od 4 knjige koliko sam do sada pročitao, mislim da mi je ova bila najbleđa. Eto!
Ostaje mi još 8 knjiga do kraja ''Potrage za izgubljenim vremenom''; od 4 knjige koliko sam do sada pročitao, mislim da mi je ova bila najbleđa. Eto!
April 3, 2016
In this, the second part of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel travels to Balbec with his grandmother, and his arrival brings with it a string of disappointments.
Marcel had built up great expectations for both a church in Balbec and the ocean itself, and both, as he arrives and sees them, turn out to be quite different from what he expected. And as he arrives at the hotel itself, everything is foreign, nothing is familiar and the first night he spends in agony, lamenting that habit has not yet set in, making the furniture, the room, the circumstances not strangers, but old acquaintances that feel safe and known, so much you no longer notice them.
The subject of habit turns up several times over the course of the entire work, and habit is generally a good thing, it orders our surroundings, it makes the new feel like home after a few days. We all know the feeling. But in the first days of pain and restlessness from the unfamiliarity of it all, his grandmother becomes the rock he leans on. We discover how important she is to him, how she’s the person he reflects himself in, trusts with his everyday life and relies on. She’s a mother figure to him, whereas his actual mother is distant from and cold towards him, the grandmother fills her space with warmth and reassurance.
And so the subject of death also arrives, albeit very discreetly. When we get used to our surroundings, we no longer see them or pay attention to them; they die. They wither away, until something revives them, whether it be placing them in new surroundings or some circumstance bringing them to attention again. And the constant presence of the grandmother, his fear that she won’t hear him if he knocks at night and needs her there, is also a sign of death, his knowledge she won’t live forever, that she cannot always be there for him.
In this novel Marcel finds his feet, and falls in love with an entire group of girls, Albertine among them, before his sight settles, somewhat permanently, on Albertine, although their love affair has not yet truly begun. Saint-Loup, the nephew of Mme de Guermantes, is also introduced and the two strike up a fond and warm friendship that will last for most of the story. Saint-Loup is in love with a woman called Rachel, who mirrors Odette slightly in her position in life, and their affair mirrors the affair of Swann and Odette as well � and the affair Marcel will later have with Albertine. The mirror structure, the same story returning again and again, slightly changed, is integral to the story. It’s what it builds on, it’s how it rewards us; recognition.
Baron de Charlus is introduced as well, leading to some interesting and confusing scenes between him and Marcel that will not be clear until much later.
Most importantly, other than Marcel meeting Albertine, tasting love and freedom and taking his first independent steps towards high society and the social circles of the nobility, his time in Balbec is important for one other reason: art.
So much of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower � and In Search of Lost Time in general � is beautifully and wonderfully described. But the scenes with Marcel in his room, looking at the ocean, how it blends seamlessly with the sky, making it impossible to tell where one stops and the other begins, are particularly exquisite. And later he’ll see that very same thing in the atelier of the artist Elstir � and he’ll have his first lesson in art, and how to look at art, and the world, the right way.
Not only has his social education begun, so has his apprenticeship in art.
I think, along with the first part of Swann’s Way, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is my favorite book in the series so far. There’s something so innocent and tender about it, it’s a beginning, the place where so many things start and find their foothold. A pale reflection of the future, whispering vague warnings about what’s to come. The more of the books I’ve read, the clearer it is to me what a vision Proust has, how he is a singular talent in the art of foreshadowing.
Stunning.
Marcel had built up great expectations for both a church in Balbec and the ocean itself, and both, as he arrives and sees them, turn out to be quite different from what he expected. And as he arrives at the hotel itself, everything is foreign, nothing is familiar and the first night he spends in agony, lamenting that habit has not yet set in, making the furniture, the room, the circumstances not strangers, but old acquaintances that feel safe and known, so much you no longer notice them.
The subject of habit turns up several times over the course of the entire work, and habit is generally a good thing, it orders our surroundings, it makes the new feel like home after a few days. We all know the feeling. But in the first days of pain and restlessness from the unfamiliarity of it all, his grandmother becomes the rock he leans on. We discover how important she is to him, how she’s the person he reflects himself in, trusts with his everyday life and relies on. She’s a mother figure to him, whereas his actual mother is distant from and cold towards him, the grandmother fills her space with warmth and reassurance.
And so the subject of death also arrives, albeit very discreetly. When we get used to our surroundings, we no longer see them or pay attention to them; they die. They wither away, until something revives them, whether it be placing them in new surroundings or some circumstance bringing them to attention again. And the constant presence of the grandmother, his fear that she won’t hear him if he knocks at night and needs her there, is also a sign of death, his knowledge she won’t live forever, that she cannot always be there for him.
In this novel Marcel finds his feet, and falls in love with an entire group of girls, Albertine among them, before his sight settles, somewhat permanently, on Albertine, although their love affair has not yet truly begun. Saint-Loup, the nephew of Mme de Guermantes, is also introduced and the two strike up a fond and warm friendship that will last for most of the story. Saint-Loup is in love with a woman called Rachel, who mirrors Odette slightly in her position in life, and their affair mirrors the affair of Swann and Odette as well � and the affair Marcel will later have with Albertine. The mirror structure, the same story returning again and again, slightly changed, is integral to the story. It’s what it builds on, it’s how it rewards us; recognition.
Baron de Charlus is introduced as well, leading to some interesting and confusing scenes between him and Marcel that will not be clear until much later.
Most importantly, other than Marcel meeting Albertine, tasting love and freedom and taking his first independent steps towards high society and the social circles of the nobility, his time in Balbec is important for one other reason: art.
So much of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower � and In Search of Lost Time in general � is beautifully and wonderfully described. But the scenes with Marcel in his room, looking at the ocean, how it blends seamlessly with the sky, making it impossible to tell where one stops and the other begins, are particularly exquisite. And later he’ll see that very same thing in the atelier of the artist Elstir � and he’ll have his first lesson in art, and how to look at art, and the world, the right way.
Not only has his social education begun, so has his apprenticeship in art.
I think, along with the first part of Swann’s Way, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is my favorite book in the series so far. There’s something so innocent and tender about it, it’s a beginning, the place where so many things start and find their foothold. A pale reflection of the future, whispering vague warnings about what’s to come. The more of the books I’ve read, the clearer it is to me what a vision Proust has, how he is a singular talent in the art of foreshadowing.
Stunning.
November 22, 2024
Oh Balbec—thanks to hours of confinement (of both our narrator and Proust himself) we are gifted the most intricate observations of humanity perhaps ever recorded. This trip to the sea held all the treasures. Love, attraction, beauty, youth, summer. I could have sat by his bed of convalescence and talked with him all the hours of all the days, but instead I’ll just sit with him on my little chair and read it with all the rest of the world.
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September 22, 2024"Itse kuolema olisi voinut iskeä minua sillä hetkellä ja se olisi tuntunut minusta yhdentekevältä, kerrassaan mahdottomalta, sillä elämä ei enää ollut ulkopuolellani, se oli minussa; olisin säälistä hymyillyt, jos joku filosofi olisi selittänyt, että minun vielä jonakin päivänä täytyisi kuolla, että luonnon ajattomat voimat eläisivät minun jälkeeni, luonnonvoimat joitten jumalaisten jalkojen alla olin tomuhiukkanen; että minun kuoltuani jäisivät jyrkänteiden pystyt rinnat, meri, kuutamo, taivas! Kuinka se olisi voinut olla mahdollista, kuinka olisi maailma voinut kestää kauemmin kuin minä, koska en kerran maailmaan hukkunut, koska maailma oli minussa, minussa jota se ei alkuunkaan riittänyt täyttämään, minussa itsessäni missä tunsin olevan tilaa niin monille aarteille, että vähätellen viskasin nurkkaan taivaan, meren ja rantojen jyrkänteet?"
December 15, 2018
I think this would be impossible to recommend to anybody who is not interested in philosophy or French history or culture, or reading books simply because they are regarded as classics. The unusual writing style might be of interest to aspiring authors, or those studying literature, but that's about it. It's a very difficult book to recommend on it's own merits.
May 29, 2021
På sporet af den tabte tid forekommer tiden både at være investeringen og udbyttet. Udfordringen er at finde balancen, hvor udbyttet til stadighed overstiger investeringen, og det er ikke enkelt at gennemskue, hvor stregen mest hensigtsmæssigt skal trækkes, i dette øjeblik, det næste og det næste derefter. Livet leves og opleves mere og dybere gennem refleksionen af det levede liv, men der skal levet liv til, som brændstof, at refleksionsmaskinen ikke kører i tomgang, så livet forsat opleves mere end det udleves.
Hverken investeringen eller udbyttet på sporet af den tabte tid er lette kalorier. Når både indtagelsen og fordøjelsen er tidstunge indtræder også et tredje tidselement, hvor tiden blot passerer uden hverken at skulle indtages eller fordøjes, investeres eller udbyttes. Men den passerende tids lethed synes at få så meget desto mere værdi, netop i kraft af den tunge tid. Derfor ser jeg frem til at åbne næste bind på sporet af den tabte tid, og til at lægge det fra mig igen fra tid til anden. Nok om tid, den næste lader jeg passere.
—�-
Passager, jeg ikke kunne lade være med at notere mig:
“Almindeligvis er det med et væsen, reduceret til et minimum, vi lever; de fleste af vores åndsevner forbliver i en slummer, fordi de hviler i vanen, som ved, hvad der skal gøres, og ikke har brug for dem.� s. 4.24
“Sammenføjet med dem jeg følte nu, i en anden egn, på en lignende vej, som omgav sig med alle de yderligere følelser af at ånde frit, af nysgerrighed, af magelighed, af appetit og af munterhed som var fælles for dem, og som udelukkede alle de andre, ville disse indtryk forstærke hinanden og få sammenhæng som en særlig type nydelse, og næsten som en tilværelsesramme jeg i øvrigt sjældent havde lejlighed til at hense, men i hvilken mindernes opvågnen placerede en temmelig stor andel af antydet, drømt, uhåndgribelig virkelighed midt i den stofligt opfattede virkelighed, for, midt i disse områder jeg drog igennem, snarere end en æstetisk følelse at give mig et flygtigt, men eksalteret begær efter fra da af at leve dér for evigt.� s. 4.111
“Men det vigtige i livet er ikke hvad man elsker, (...) det er at elske.� s. 4.170
�...at vi, når vi er forelskede i en kvinde, ganske enkelt projicerer en sindstilstand på hende; at det vigtige derfor ikke er kvindens gode egenskaber, men tilstandens dybde;...� s. 4.265
“Hun havde som alle folk sin egen karakter; en person minder aldrig om en lige vej, men forbløffer os med sine særegne og uundgåelige omveje som de andre ikke får øje på, og som vi har svært ved at skulle gå ad.� s. 4.349
“Det at elske hjælper til at sondre, kende forskel.� s. 4.364
“Mine drømme opgav hende så snart de var holdt op med at blive næret af håbet om en besiddelse, af hvilken jeg havde troet de var uafhængige.� s. 4.399
“Deres ansigter havde sikkert alle sammen ændret betydning for mig efter at måden hvorpå de skulle aflæses, til en vis grad var blevet mig angivet af deres udsagn, udsagn jeg kunne tillægge så meget desto større værdi, som jeg ved mine spørgsmål udæskede den efter behag, varierede dem ligesom en eksperimentator der laver modforsøg for at verificere sine formodninger. Og alt i alt er det så god en måde som enhver anden at løse tilværelsens problem på, at nærme os de ting og de personer som på afstand er forekommet os skønne og mystiske, for at blive klar over at de er uden mystik og uden skønhed; det er en af de hygiejneformer man har at vælge imellem, en hygiejne der måske ikke er særlig anbefalelsesværdig, men den giver os en vis ro til at komme igennem livet og - da den tillader os ingenting at fortryde ved at overbevise os om at vi har opnået det bedste, og om, at det bedste ikke var noget særligt - til også at slå os til tåls med døden.� s. 4.418
Hverken investeringen eller udbyttet på sporet af den tabte tid er lette kalorier. Når både indtagelsen og fordøjelsen er tidstunge indtræder også et tredje tidselement, hvor tiden blot passerer uden hverken at skulle indtages eller fordøjes, investeres eller udbyttes. Men den passerende tids lethed synes at få så meget desto mere værdi, netop i kraft af den tunge tid. Derfor ser jeg frem til at åbne næste bind på sporet af den tabte tid, og til at lægge det fra mig igen fra tid til anden. Nok om tid, den næste lader jeg passere.
—�-
Passager, jeg ikke kunne lade være med at notere mig:
“Almindeligvis er det med et væsen, reduceret til et minimum, vi lever; de fleste af vores åndsevner forbliver i en slummer, fordi de hviler i vanen, som ved, hvad der skal gøres, og ikke har brug for dem.� s. 4.24
“Sammenføjet med dem jeg følte nu, i en anden egn, på en lignende vej, som omgav sig med alle de yderligere følelser af at ånde frit, af nysgerrighed, af magelighed, af appetit og af munterhed som var fælles for dem, og som udelukkede alle de andre, ville disse indtryk forstærke hinanden og få sammenhæng som en særlig type nydelse, og næsten som en tilværelsesramme jeg i øvrigt sjældent havde lejlighed til at hense, men i hvilken mindernes opvågnen placerede en temmelig stor andel af antydet, drømt, uhåndgribelig virkelighed midt i den stofligt opfattede virkelighed, for, midt i disse områder jeg drog igennem, snarere end en æstetisk følelse at give mig et flygtigt, men eksalteret begær efter fra da af at leve dér for evigt.� s. 4.111
“Men det vigtige i livet er ikke hvad man elsker, (...) det er at elske.� s. 4.170
�...at vi, når vi er forelskede i en kvinde, ganske enkelt projicerer en sindstilstand på hende; at det vigtige derfor ikke er kvindens gode egenskaber, men tilstandens dybde;...� s. 4.265
“Hun havde som alle folk sin egen karakter; en person minder aldrig om en lige vej, men forbløffer os med sine særegne og uundgåelige omveje som de andre ikke får øje på, og som vi har svært ved at skulle gå ad.� s. 4.349
“Det at elske hjælper til at sondre, kende forskel.� s. 4.364
“Mine drømme opgav hende så snart de var holdt op med at blive næret af håbet om en besiddelse, af hvilken jeg havde troet de var uafhængige.� s. 4.399
“Deres ansigter havde sikkert alle sammen ændret betydning for mig efter at måden hvorpå de skulle aflæses, til en vis grad var blevet mig angivet af deres udsagn, udsagn jeg kunne tillægge så meget desto større værdi, som jeg ved mine spørgsmål udæskede den efter behag, varierede dem ligesom en eksperimentator der laver modforsøg for at verificere sine formodninger. Og alt i alt er det så god en måde som enhver anden at løse tilværelsens problem på, at nærme os de ting og de personer som på afstand er forekommet os skønne og mystiske, for at blive klar over at de er uden mystik og uden skønhed; det er en af de hygiejneformer man har at vælge imellem, en hygiejne der måske ikke er særlig anbefalelsesværdig, men den giver os en vis ro til at komme igennem livet og - da den tillader os ingenting at fortryde ved at overbevise os om at vi har opnået det bedste, og om, at det bedste ikke var noget særligt - til også at slå os til tåls med døden.� s. 4.418
February 1, 2021
Man bliver langsomt suget ind Proust-drømmeverdenen, jo længere man kommer ind i værket, og enkelte passager rummer både stor poesi og tankevækkende refleksioner om alle livets facetter på trods af en klodset og ustruktureret redigering. Selvom Proust altid kræver dyb koncentration for at opnå fuld effekt, er læsningen ofte unødvendig tung og fordrende - den var nok ikke gået i 2021.
August 20, 2022
Dette fjerde bind har (mindst) to temaer. Det ene er de sociale klassers forhold til hinanden. Der er personbeskrivelser to die for, men også betragtninger over klassers indbyrdes forhold, der sagtens kan overføres til vores tid, selvom det at være adelig måske tillægges lidt mindre betydning nu. Det andet er en ung mands utallige flygtige forelskelser, der beskrives i Prousts sædvanlige minutiøse detaljer.
Han beskriver havet, en klit, et træ, en ung piges kind med samme overraskende detaljerigdom, som jeg endnu ikke er blevet træt af. Ligesom de unge pigers kinder, er havet også nyt hver dag:
"Hvert af disse Have blev aldrig længere end en dag. Dagen efter var der et andet, som nogle gange lignede. Men jeg så aldrig det samme to gange."
Og til slut: Efter at han henover mere end 400 sider har beskrevet sit sommerophold i badebyen Balbec i enhver tænkelig og utænkelig detalje, slutter han af med at påstå, at han stort set har glemt hele opholdet. Jeg elsker det!
Han beskriver havet, en klit, et træ, en ung piges kind med samme overraskende detaljerigdom, som jeg endnu ikke er blevet træt af. Ligesom de unge pigers kinder, er havet også nyt hver dag:
"Hvert af disse Have blev aldrig længere end en dag. Dagen efter var der et andet, som nogle gange lignede. Men jeg så aldrig det samme to gange."
Og til slut: Efter at han henover mere end 400 sider har beskrevet sit sommerophold i badebyen Balbec i enhver tænkelig og utænkelig detalje, slutter han af med at påstå, at han stort set har glemt hele opholdet. Jeg elsker det!
August 8, 2013
The second volume of Proust’s masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, Within a Budding Grove picks up approximately when the first volume left off, with the never-named protagonist being lectured by civil servants, aristocrats, and occasionally artists about art, theatre, and literature. Summarizing Proust, as Monty Python tells us, is an absurd thing to do, but I’ll take a crack at it.
Part I: Madame Swann at Home
After a summer in Combray, we find the sickly Narrator living in Paris with his family. He’s still obsessed with Swann’s daughter Gilberte, and he engineers meetings with her on the Champs-Élysées, where they become regular playmates. M. Norpois comes to dinner and tells the Narrator his writing reminds him of Bergotte’s and not in a good way, but convinces the Narrator’s parents to let him see the great actress Berma in Phaedre, though the Narrator builds it up in his imagination so much that he’s disappointed by everything about the performance, not least of which, the audience (“That’s a good bit of work! It’s all gold, look! Fine, ain’t it?�).
He manages to invite himself to tea regularly at the Swann’s, “playing� with Gilberte takes a turn for the sensual, he is once again disappointed by reality as compared to his imagination when he meets the writer Bergotte, and his admiration for Gilberte’s beautiful mother grows. Strolls happen and calls involving intricate social maneuvering are paid, the Narrator’s friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, and later the Narrator fights with Gilberte and decides not to see her again, though he knows he will cease being angry if she writes to him. *SPOILER* She doesn’t. Instead, the Narrator continues to visit Madame Swann until he sees Gilberte with another boy and eventually gives her up as well. Madame Swann’s beauty and grace remain fond remembrances.
Part II: Place-Names: The Place
Some two years after the Gilberte Debacle, the Narrator’s grandmother drags him to the seaside resort of Balbec for the summer. After having a hissy over being separated from his mother and being disappointed by everything and terrified of everyone in Balbec, he comes around to the good weather and beautiful scenery, and eventually even the varied assortment of people. His affection for his grandmother is rekindled, and they become reacquainted with an aristocratic friend of hers, Mme de Villeparisis, whose dashing nephew Saint-Loup befriends the Narrator and takes him out for dinner (and a lot of alcohol) at Rivebelle and occasionally tolerates Bloch’s boorish overtures. Mme de Villeparisis takes them on rides through the countryside and talks about all the famous artists she knows, the Narrator meets just about every rich/aristocratic person in Balbec and at least two of Madame Swann’s lovers.
He stalks a group of athletic young ladies, and eventually meets them, courtesy an artist named Elstir, who was part of the enclave from Volume I overseen by the awful Verdurins. The Narrator neglects his friends and other social engagements to spend as much time with the girls as possible, and all sorts of things go wrong as Albertine, the new object of the Narrator’s affections, fails to re-enact the scenes the Narrator invents in his head. The girls take their exams, Saint-Loup shocks the Narrator by getting engaged to someone rich and respectable before dumping his mistress, and eventually, everybody leaves.
So that’s what happens. What made this a five-star read? It’s a more linear narrative than in Swann’s Way, as the Narrator’s recollections are told in roughly chronological order with some references to future knowledge. Like in the first volume, the reader sees the world through the Narrator’s intricately rendered perceptions, expectations, and desires. As the Narrator ages, his recollections become less about his childhood fears and anxieties and more about his desire for the world to be as he imagines it, his pleasure when it is, and his humiliation when it isn’t. And yet, the awesome beauty of Balbec, with its sea, sun, and cliffs is rendered with as much love as the childhood paths around Combray, just as the cheap seaside amusements and ridiculous people are drawn with the same ironic detachment that the small-town residents of Combray are. The wonder and amusement the Narrator feels for these recollections is as beautifully written as they are enjoyable to experience through his eyes.
When I was about halfway through the book, I started putting improvised bookmarks at passages that I found particularly meaningful or beautiful, but when I went back to find them for this review, I found other lines that seemed equally important, to the point that I’m tempted to copy entire passages. So here’s a longer passage of Within a Budding Grove than I originally chose to share, but that feels appropriate, given that the entire work ended up being the longest novel in the western canon- a record I doubt Proust was attempting to set when he began writing it.
[w]hen we are in love with a woman we simply project on to her a state of our own soul; that consequently the important thing is not the worth of the woman but the profundity of the state; and that the emotions which a perfectly ordinary girl arouses in us can enable us to bring to the surface of our consciousness some of the innermost parts of our being, more personal, more remote, more quintessential than any that might be evoked by the pleasure we derive from the conversation of a great man or even from the admiring contemplation of his work.
Stay tuned for next summer's installment, Volume 2: The Guermantes Way!
Part I: Madame Swann at Home
After a summer in Combray, we find the sickly Narrator living in Paris with his family. He’s still obsessed with Swann’s daughter Gilberte, and he engineers meetings with her on the Champs-Élysées, where they become regular playmates. M. Norpois comes to dinner and tells the Narrator his writing reminds him of Bergotte’s and not in a good way, but convinces the Narrator’s parents to let him see the great actress Berma in Phaedre, though the Narrator builds it up in his imagination so much that he’s disappointed by everything about the performance, not least of which, the audience (“That’s a good bit of work! It’s all gold, look! Fine, ain’t it?�).
He manages to invite himself to tea regularly at the Swann’s, “playing� with Gilberte takes a turn for the sensual, he is once again disappointed by reality as compared to his imagination when he meets the writer Bergotte, and his admiration for Gilberte’s beautiful mother grows. Strolls happen and calls involving intricate social maneuvering are paid, the Narrator’s friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, and later the Narrator fights with Gilberte and decides not to see her again, though he knows he will cease being angry if she writes to him. *SPOILER* She doesn’t. Instead, the Narrator continues to visit Madame Swann until he sees Gilberte with another boy and eventually gives her up as well. Madame Swann’s beauty and grace remain fond remembrances.
Part II: Place-Names: The Place
Some two years after the Gilberte Debacle, the Narrator’s grandmother drags him to the seaside resort of Balbec for the summer. After having a hissy over being separated from his mother and being disappointed by everything and terrified of everyone in Balbec, he comes around to the good weather and beautiful scenery, and eventually even the varied assortment of people. His affection for his grandmother is rekindled, and they become reacquainted with an aristocratic friend of hers, Mme de Villeparisis, whose dashing nephew Saint-Loup befriends the Narrator and takes him out for dinner (and a lot of alcohol) at Rivebelle and occasionally tolerates Bloch’s boorish overtures. Mme de Villeparisis takes them on rides through the countryside and talks about all the famous artists she knows, the Narrator meets just about every rich/aristocratic person in Balbec and at least two of Madame Swann’s lovers.
He stalks a group of athletic young ladies, and eventually meets them, courtesy an artist named Elstir, who was part of the enclave from Volume I overseen by the awful Verdurins. The Narrator neglects his friends and other social engagements to spend as much time with the girls as possible, and all sorts of things go wrong as Albertine, the new object of the Narrator’s affections, fails to re-enact the scenes the Narrator invents in his head. The girls take their exams, Saint-Loup shocks the Narrator by getting engaged to someone rich and respectable before dumping his mistress, and eventually, everybody leaves.
So that’s what happens. What made this a five-star read? It’s a more linear narrative than in Swann’s Way, as the Narrator’s recollections are told in roughly chronological order with some references to future knowledge. Like in the first volume, the reader sees the world through the Narrator’s intricately rendered perceptions, expectations, and desires. As the Narrator ages, his recollections become less about his childhood fears and anxieties and more about his desire for the world to be as he imagines it, his pleasure when it is, and his humiliation when it isn’t. And yet, the awesome beauty of Balbec, with its sea, sun, and cliffs is rendered with as much love as the childhood paths around Combray, just as the cheap seaside amusements and ridiculous people are drawn with the same ironic detachment that the small-town residents of Combray are. The wonder and amusement the Narrator feels for these recollections is as beautifully written as they are enjoyable to experience through his eyes.
When I was about halfway through the book, I started putting improvised bookmarks at passages that I found particularly meaningful or beautiful, but when I went back to find them for this review, I found other lines that seemed equally important, to the point that I’m tempted to copy entire passages. So here’s a longer passage of Within a Budding Grove than I originally chose to share, but that feels appropriate, given that the entire work ended up being the longest novel in the western canon- a record I doubt Proust was attempting to set when he began writing it.
[w]hen we are in love with a woman we simply project on to her a state of our own soul; that consequently the important thing is not the worth of the woman but the profundity of the state; and that the emotions which a perfectly ordinary girl arouses in us can enable us to bring to the surface of our consciousness some of the innermost parts of our being, more personal, more remote, more quintessential than any that might be evoked by the pleasure we derive from the conversation of a great man or even from the admiring contemplation of his work.
Stay tuned for next summer's installment, Volume 2: The Guermantes Way!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2024
Eigenlijk is Proust ook maar een breedsprakig, geil mannetje.
January 4, 2013
I read this in English due to it being a gift and then of course the beautiful trnaslation of G.K.SCOTT MONCIREFF AND TERENCE KILMARTIN by the Modern Library. I'm three fourths, and it is an impressionistic ancient film of pastel images of mind and memory, being truly drunk & lost in time, a sort of limbo, really pleasing, bring in a romance phantaste and a little ghostly, if someone picked up on that, but the narration doesn't let you stop, the long long phrases carry you through and make landmarks on your soul, and at least myself I never get lost, different to Joyce in both Ulysses and Finnegans, which I admire more in a linguistic manner. I hope to make it to the whole Search for Lost Time volumes while I have time,
Best
Fed
Best
Fed
October 26, 2014
This is a different kind of book than most of us are used to reading. One must give up the idea of finishing it this weekend or next or the weekend after that. It traces it's own dimensions in time and space, and everything is slowed. Only once in a while we come to a break--I mean once in hundreds and hundreds of pages, and we can put it down to catch up on the accumulated stack of New Yorkers or whatever. And, if you resist hurrying, you find that you do understand and you do get drawn into this alternate existence, and Paris and Combray and Balbec are yours.
July 23, 2013
A masterful and beautiful book, much easier and more pleasant to read than Swann's Way, not like that dark book in that sense, but really Proust starting to come into his own with the complex sentence structures he is known for. Makes sense that it won the prize. I finished this a few years ago and am tempted to read it again having just finished the Guermantes Way, a very different but also rich and complex book.
Read
March 27, 2024this is literally changing my life
October 15, 2016
It seems as if all of Remembrance of Things Past is based on a complex web of engaging digressions � which maybe the way we experience the world � I don’t know. Maybe he's describing the world through obliqueness. It’s a helleva way to write and remain coherent though, but there you go.
Anyway, a digression which captivated me this week: Marcel is overwhelmed by déjà vu, which engulfs him on catching sight of a stand of three trees during a coach trip outside Balbec. This does echo a childhood experience somewhat, a pivotal moment in his life, which perhaps started him writing about “stuff� in the mode of ROTP; I don't know. It was, for him, a near ineffable experience of being transfixed by three church steeples in the landscape, which slowly shift position relative to each other, merging and separating, during a carriage ride home one evening in Combray. He was seized, impelled to get down in writing, to capture the quiet ecstasy he felt, to reveal something essential to himself. I’ve no idea what that essential thing was about those three steeples that reached inside him, really, and I don’t think he says so either (?) - but I think I recognize the feeling of being mysteriously drawn to something in that way (never mind people). It reminds me - I’ve seen toddlers, and cats too, who are irresistible drawn to something; or to a “spot�; or to tirelessly “do� something over and over again; some obsession that seemingly springs out spontaneously from within, without apparent reason, and then often passes.
So here, as Marcel passes by the trees, he desperately tries to understand why they seem so familiar, trying to unearth from within himself some explanation. Is it a half remembered memory, from a dream - or a premonition? Is it something from outside of himself, or within - or is there no barrier there at all? But in the end, feeling he has not been able to grasp something important, that there will be no second chances here, they pass by. And looking back as they recede, a sense of loss permeates him, and the trees almost seem to have an air of withholding, of deliberate concealment and challenge. Its a strange thing to experience this, and I occasionally feel this very strongly - I probably over use the word "existential", but it has something of that to it, a kind of unknowableness, a feeling of being confronted by surface, either its full of meaning, or there is no meaning at all.
Proust is extraordinarily good at describing people, social interactions, fears, desires, loves - sometimes to a clinical (albeit lyrical) degree, and of the contradictions and paradoxes of people - but there is always this strangeness, a mystery, underlying everything.
Anyway, déjà vu is not referred to by name, which made me wonder when it was named, or surfaced as a recognized phenomena � well, it seems the first use of the term was around 1903, but it had been well known before that � for instance, in the 1880s physicians noted it was often experienced by people with epilepsy, and Charles Dickens described it. And there seems to be descriptions of it well before this, back to the days of Homer and early Christian writers; but it was associated with the occult, past lives and such, so it was viewed with a certain wariness.
----
this is when the mind stops, the usually incessant inner chatter has receded, and young Marcel is present with the scene
Aaah, this is great, thank you � I felt a little whoosh going through my head on reading this � I let go of trying to “understand�, and instead in some way embraced “recognizing�, if that makes sense.
There’s also a passage that follows on from the three trees - the carriage going up to the crest of a hill � and he then goes on to describe, in a similar way, how this experience in that landscape goes on echoing through his life, when he traverses similar hills, or smells certain smells, or for any number of triggers and sensations... so there he is, telling me all this! Sigh� and I definitely have my own versions of these personal - what would you call them? - mythic moments and landscapes. Very much like Tarkovsky, yes... Reading these passages by Proust, which are slipped in every now and then, feels so eerie at times.
And talking of the eerie, Proust mentioned Edgar Allen Poe, and in The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, Poe is mentioned a lot as being an influence on French writers and artists at the end of the 19th century, from Baudelaire to Jarry. To the point one of one guy changing his name to a double barrelled Lugné-Poe, and then claiming to be a distant relative. I had no idea Poe had such influence and respect amongst the French.
----
20th Sept 2016
About half way through the chapter Seascape, with Frieze of Girls, in Within a Budding Grove. Proust's digressions, echoing and rebounding off one another, intertwining... I'm far enough in now to sense themes starting to constellate into a more coherent whole, a richer and richer layering of meaning and emotions.
Here he kicks off with a wonderfully filmic description of a gang of somewhat arrogant young girls, loping along the sea front in Balbec, full of disdain and vitality, visiting shock and consternation on the gentle folk perambulating. It's tantamount to directions for a modern film; even alluding to slow motion sequences; jump cuts of peoples faces and actions, building up a composite picture from multiple moments, angles and impressions � almost cubist, perhaps. Marcel is, of course, entranced... over and over thru ROTP he has been enthralled by fleeting glimpses of passing girls, letting his melancholy imagination savour delicious fantasies about “what if� encounters and (im)possible alternative lives. He recognises its all unhindered by the reality of the people, that knowing them would bring it all crashing down - but relishes the full reign of his imagination... he really wants to escape, does young Marcel.
So as always, he fantasizes about meeting this group of girls. At first he finds it difficult to differentiate between them, they seem interchangeable. In fact, that seems unimportant to him - its the group that's captured him; but here, there, slowly, over several days of waiting for them to appear, searching for them; slowly Albertine is coming into focus...
And all during this quest, events and thoughts continue to flow by: he gets drunk - hah! He gives a wonderful description of that state of mind; of how it moves him into the present, and he is led by his emotions - by the music, the people dining, the movement of the waiters. He captures that touch of the surreal intoxication brings, the wooziness...
...then he goes home: sleeping, dreaming, memories, desires�
...and then later, crucially, serendipitous, for a number of reasons, meeting and visiting the Impressionist painter Elstir. And learning there, that the painter is trying to see and paint that moment, when he really sees what is really there in front of him, before the mind, the intellect, starts ordering it, creating structure, filling in the gaps. Before Habit intervenes.
Marcel is slowly pulling together these experiences of Time and memory, and Habit (his capitals) as the novel progresses, all the time. And here, and now, these discoveries seem to get associated with the girls, and Albertine� with Proust, everything seems to be a part of everything else, all connected, all seeping into one another. At one point he even says that our Love often has less to do with the other than we imagine, and more to do with the context of our own state of mind and desires of that moment, changing from moment to moment.
Anyway, it continues to be a joy. And not even a third of the way through. I love how he brings to the fore forgotten characters, and we meet those he has foreshadowed (and often more than that - he often states, way before he reaches that part of the narrative, some pivotal event in the future - odd, surely you shouldn't give away plot points so readily? But this novel doesn't suffer - it is its sheer length, I think, also, that allows him to break conventions). Intrigued how he will sustain it for a couple of more 1000 pages...
----
I've just read Marcel's first meeting with Albertine, and it is a lovely description of moving from desiring someone from afar, and then meeting them in real life - the shifting perspectives and feelings of it all, the place it holds in memory directly afterwards, and then later on - and then hearing it from the other's perspective, things you imagined only you saw or felt. Certainly beats "our eyes met across the room" type of thing (although, I did meet perhaps the love of my life in just that lightening strike kind of way, so it does happen).
I'd also like to quote a little passage of Albertine, whose manner of talking is described as "British phlegm", where he nails that mannerism, and is very funny to boot,
In speaking, Albertine kept her head motionless, her nostrils closed, allowing only the corners of her lips to move. The result of this was a drawling, nasal sound, into the composition of which there entered perhaps a provincial descent, a juvenile affectation of British phlegm, the teaching of a foreign governess and a congestive hypertrophy of the mucus of the nose.
----
Nearing the end of Within a Budding Grove; Albertine has just declared her love, via a note, to Marcel. Last time I was discussing Marcel’s love life, I noted how he seemed more in love with being in love, than falling in love with a particular someone. In some slight exasperation, I put Proust aside for a time, and then picked it up again this week - and hah, immediately I read:
"The state of being indicated by the presence of all the signs by which we are accustomed to recognise that we are in love […] no doubt this state, recurring indifferently at the thought of one or another, was as different from what we call love as is from human life the life of the zoophytes, where an existence, an individuality, if we may term it, is divided up among several organisms. […] Such was for me this state of love divided among several girls at once. [...] that without my being able to say which of them it was [...] I was most anxious to love. At the start of a new love as at its ending, we are not exclusively attached to the object of that love, but rather the desire to be loving from which it will presently emerge ..."
As usual, Proust is one step ahead of me.
He also describes a discussion of an academic essay, written by one of the girls: it's beginning to dawn on me how tied up with conventions and rules and sensibilities French literature and poetry was (is?); that there was a very set way to structure and phrase, and also subject matter seemed to be derived predominately from classical literature, and the likes of Racine; and that delighting sensibilities within these rules seemed more precious to aesthetes than actually saying something new or thought provoking...
Anyway, a digression which captivated me this week: Marcel is overwhelmed by déjà vu, which engulfs him on catching sight of a stand of three trees during a coach trip outside Balbec. This does echo a childhood experience somewhat, a pivotal moment in his life, which perhaps started him writing about “stuff� in the mode of ROTP; I don't know. It was, for him, a near ineffable experience of being transfixed by three church steeples in the landscape, which slowly shift position relative to each other, merging and separating, during a carriage ride home one evening in Combray. He was seized, impelled to get down in writing, to capture the quiet ecstasy he felt, to reveal something essential to himself. I’ve no idea what that essential thing was about those three steeples that reached inside him, really, and I don’t think he says so either (?) - but I think I recognize the feeling of being mysteriously drawn to something in that way (never mind people). It reminds me - I’ve seen toddlers, and cats too, who are irresistible drawn to something; or to a “spot�; or to tirelessly “do� something over and over again; some obsession that seemingly springs out spontaneously from within, without apparent reason, and then often passes.
So here, as Marcel passes by the trees, he desperately tries to understand why they seem so familiar, trying to unearth from within himself some explanation. Is it a half remembered memory, from a dream - or a premonition? Is it something from outside of himself, or within - or is there no barrier there at all? But in the end, feeling he has not been able to grasp something important, that there will be no second chances here, they pass by. And looking back as they recede, a sense of loss permeates him, and the trees almost seem to have an air of withholding, of deliberate concealment and challenge. Its a strange thing to experience this, and I occasionally feel this very strongly - I probably over use the word "existential", but it has something of that to it, a kind of unknowableness, a feeling of being confronted by surface, either its full of meaning, or there is no meaning at all.
Proust is extraordinarily good at describing people, social interactions, fears, desires, loves - sometimes to a clinical (albeit lyrical) degree, and of the contradictions and paradoxes of people - but there is always this strangeness, a mystery, underlying everything.
Anyway, déjà vu is not referred to by name, which made me wonder when it was named, or surfaced as a recognized phenomena � well, it seems the first use of the term was around 1903, but it had been well known before that � for instance, in the 1880s physicians noted it was often experienced by people with epilepsy, and Charles Dickens described it. And there seems to be descriptions of it well before this, back to the days of Homer and early Christian writers; but it was associated with the occult, past lives and such, so it was viewed with a certain wariness.
----
this is when the mind stops, the usually incessant inner chatter has receded, and young Marcel is present with the scene
Aaah, this is great, thank you � I felt a little whoosh going through my head on reading this � I let go of trying to “understand�, and instead in some way embraced “recognizing�, if that makes sense.
There’s also a passage that follows on from the three trees - the carriage going up to the crest of a hill � and he then goes on to describe, in a similar way, how this experience in that landscape goes on echoing through his life, when he traverses similar hills, or smells certain smells, or for any number of triggers and sensations... so there he is, telling me all this! Sigh� and I definitely have my own versions of these personal - what would you call them? - mythic moments and landscapes. Very much like Tarkovsky, yes... Reading these passages by Proust, which are slipped in every now and then, feels so eerie at times.
And talking of the eerie, Proust mentioned Edgar Allen Poe, and in The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, Poe is mentioned a lot as being an influence on French writers and artists at the end of the 19th century, from Baudelaire to Jarry. To the point one of one guy changing his name to a double barrelled Lugné-Poe, and then claiming to be a distant relative. I had no idea Poe had such influence and respect amongst the French.
----
20th Sept 2016
About half way through the chapter Seascape, with Frieze of Girls, in Within a Budding Grove. Proust's digressions, echoing and rebounding off one another, intertwining... I'm far enough in now to sense themes starting to constellate into a more coherent whole, a richer and richer layering of meaning and emotions.
Here he kicks off with a wonderfully filmic description of a gang of somewhat arrogant young girls, loping along the sea front in Balbec, full of disdain and vitality, visiting shock and consternation on the gentle folk perambulating. It's tantamount to directions for a modern film; even alluding to slow motion sequences; jump cuts of peoples faces and actions, building up a composite picture from multiple moments, angles and impressions � almost cubist, perhaps. Marcel is, of course, entranced... over and over thru ROTP he has been enthralled by fleeting glimpses of passing girls, letting his melancholy imagination savour delicious fantasies about “what if� encounters and (im)possible alternative lives. He recognises its all unhindered by the reality of the people, that knowing them would bring it all crashing down - but relishes the full reign of his imagination... he really wants to escape, does young Marcel.
So as always, he fantasizes about meeting this group of girls. At first he finds it difficult to differentiate between them, they seem interchangeable. In fact, that seems unimportant to him - its the group that's captured him; but here, there, slowly, over several days of waiting for them to appear, searching for them; slowly Albertine is coming into focus...
And all during this quest, events and thoughts continue to flow by: he gets drunk - hah! He gives a wonderful description of that state of mind; of how it moves him into the present, and he is led by his emotions - by the music, the people dining, the movement of the waiters. He captures that touch of the surreal intoxication brings, the wooziness...
...then he goes home: sleeping, dreaming, memories, desires�
...and then later, crucially, serendipitous, for a number of reasons, meeting and visiting the Impressionist painter Elstir. And learning there, that the painter is trying to see and paint that moment, when he really sees what is really there in front of him, before the mind, the intellect, starts ordering it, creating structure, filling in the gaps. Before Habit intervenes.
Marcel is slowly pulling together these experiences of Time and memory, and Habit (his capitals) as the novel progresses, all the time. And here, and now, these discoveries seem to get associated with the girls, and Albertine� with Proust, everything seems to be a part of everything else, all connected, all seeping into one another. At one point he even says that our Love often has less to do with the other than we imagine, and more to do with the context of our own state of mind and desires of that moment, changing from moment to moment.
Anyway, it continues to be a joy. And not even a third of the way through. I love how he brings to the fore forgotten characters, and we meet those he has foreshadowed (and often more than that - he often states, way before he reaches that part of the narrative, some pivotal event in the future - odd, surely you shouldn't give away plot points so readily? But this novel doesn't suffer - it is its sheer length, I think, also, that allows him to break conventions). Intrigued how he will sustain it for a couple of more 1000 pages...
----
I've just read Marcel's first meeting with Albertine, and it is a lovely description of moving from desiring someone from afar, and then meeting them in real life - the shifting perspectives and feelings of it all, the place it holds in memory directly afterwards, and then later on - and then hearing it from the other's perspective, things you imagined only you saw or felt. Certainly beats "our eyes met across the room" type of thing (although, I did meet perhaps the love of my life in just that lightening strike kind of way, so it does happen).
I'd also like to quote a little passage of Albertine, whose manner of talking is described as "British phlegm", where he nails that mannerism, and is very funny to boot,
In speaking, Albertine kept her head motionless, her nostrils closed, allowing only the corners of her lips to move. The result of this was a drawling, nasal sound, into the composition of which there entered perhaps a provincial descent, a juvenile affectation of British phlegm, the teaching of a foreign governess and a congestive hypertrophy of the mucus of the nose.
----
Nearing the end of Within a Budding Grove; Albertine has just declared her love, via a note, to Marcel. Last time I was discussing Marcel’s love life, I noted how he seemed more in love with being in love, than falling in love with a particular someone. In some slight exasperation, I put Proust aside for a time, and then picked it up again this week - and hah, immediately I read:
"The state of being indicated by the presence of all the signs by which we are accustomed to recognise that we are in love […] no doubt this state, recurring indifferently at the thought of one or another, was as different from what we call love as is from human life the life of the zoophytes, where an existence, an individuality, if we may term it, is divided up among several organisms. […] Such was for me this state of love divided among several girls at once. [...] that without my being able to say which of them it was [...] I was most anxious to love. At the start of a new love as at its ending, we are not exclusively attached to the object of that love, but rather the desire to be loving from which it will presently emerge ..."
As usual, Proust is one step ahead of me.
He also describes a discussion of an academic essay, written by one of the girls: it's beginning to dawn on me how tied up with conventions and rules and sensibilities French literature and poetry was (is?); that there was a very set way to structure and phrase, and also subject matter seemed to be derived predominately from classical literature, and the likes of Racine; and that delighting sensibilities within these rules seemed more precious to aesthetes than actually saying something new or thought provoking...
April 22, 2024
Goncourt-palkitun Kukkaan puhkeavien tyttöjen varjossa -teoksen toinen osa vie kertojan viettämään kesäänsä Balbecin rannikkokaupunkiin. Balbec ei ole todellinen paikka, mutta perustuu Normandiassa olevaan Cabourgin rannikkokaupunkiin, jonne 1880-luvulla oli noussut rautatien tulon myötä noussut varakkaan väen lomakohde. Siellä Proust lomaili 1900-luvun alussa.
Kertoja matkustaa Balbeciin isoäitinsä ja Françoisen kanssa. Ensimmäisenä pysähdyksenä on Balbecin kirkko, joka pettää korkeat odotukset. Ensimmäinen pettymys on sijainti: Balbecin kirkkoa ei ole laisinkaan meren äärellä, vaan meri onkin yli viiden virstan päässä Ranta-Balbecissa ja kirkko taas vanhassa Balbecissa, joka on sisämaassa.
Huone Balbecin Grand-Hôtelissa tuntuu alkuun ankealta, mutta pian kertoja alkaa tarkastella sieltä hotellivieraiden ja paikallisen elämän pikkumaisia hierarkioita. Isoäiti tapaa vanhan tuttavansa madame de Villeparisis’iin, joka edustaa korkeinta aristokratiaa, ja tämän kautta kertoja kohtaa madamen sukulaisia: aikaisemmista osista tutun paroni de Charlusin ja nuorempaa sukupolvea edustavan aristokraatin Robert de Saint-Loupin. Tämä jälkimmäinen varsinkin paljastuu kertojan kannalta keskeiseksi tuttavuudeksi.
Tärkeitä ovat myös ne kukkaan puhkeavat tytöt. Kertoja aloittaa nuorten kauniiden naisten ihastelun jo junamatkalla, katsellessaan pienellä juna-asemalla maitokahvia kaupittelevaa maalaistyttöä (”Hänen aamuauringon purppuroimat kasvonsa olivat ruusuisemmat kuin taivas.�), ja Balbecissa varsinkin kiinnittää huomionsa lokkiparven lailla rannalle lehahtaneeseen tyttöjoukkoon. Saint-Loupin kautta kertoja tutustuu arvostettuun taidemaalaariin Elstiriin, joka tuntee nämä tytöt ja maalarin kautta muodostuu yhteys tyttöparveen, jonka kanssa kertoja viettääkin sitten onnellisesti loppulomansa.
Loman alkuvaiheissa kertoja on vielä kovin tiukasti isoäidissään kiinni, mutta loman lopulla kiinnittyy jo kovasti tyttölaumaan ja sitä myöten ulkopuoliseen maailmaan. Lopulta kesä päättyy ja lomakauden loppuessa hotellit suljetaan talveksi. Kertojankin on lopulta jätettävä Balbec.
Arvostan, että Kukkaan puhkeavien tyttöjen varjossa on suomeksi jaettu kahteen osaan. Jako on luonteva, sillä osat ovat selvästi erillisiä. Yhtenä niteenä tämä olisi tyrmäävän mittainen, lähes 700 sivua. Nytkin kirja on sen verran pitkä, että sen parissa kului aikaa � Proust on hidasta luettavaa, kuten nostamistani sitaateista on helppo nähdä. Toisaalta tämä tuntui muuten vähän aikaisempia osia helpommalta. Keskittyminen elämään Balbecissa, vaikka se heijasteleekin kaikenlaista muutakin, tekee tästä yksinkertaisemman. Odotan mielenkiinnolla, mitä seuraava osa tarjoaa.
---
The second part of "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" unfolds as the narrator embarks on a summer sojourn in Balbec, where they immerse themselves in the nuances of high society. His encounters with figures like Baron de Charlus and Robert de Saint-Loup offer glimpses into aristocratic life. At the same time, his fascination with a group of young beach girls adds depth to his experience.
As the narrative progresses, the narrator's initial attachment to his grandmother gradually gives way to a growing affinity for the vibrant world around him. Amidst the closing of hotels and the end of the summer season, the narrator reluctantly bids farewell to Balbec, marking the conclusion of this captivating chapter of his journey.
The book's division into two parts in Finnish allows readers to delve into the intricacies of Balbec's life without feeling overwhelmed by its extensive length. Focusing on the rich tapestry of characters and experiences in Balbec, this segment sets the stage for further exploration in the subsequent part of the narrative.
Kertoja matkustaa Balbeciin isoäitinsä ja Françoisen kanssa. Ensimmäisenä pysähdyksenä on Balbecin kirkko, joka pettää korkeat odotukset. Ensimmäinen pettymys on sijainti: Balbecin kirkkoa ei ole laisinkaan meren äärellä, vaan meri onkin yli viiden virstan päässä Ranta-Balbecissa ja kirkko taas vanhassa Balbecissa, joka on sisämaassa.
Ja kirkko � tunkeutuessaan mieleeni kahvilan rinnalla, mukanaan ohikulkija jolta minun oli kysyttävä tietä, kannoillaan asemarakennus minne kohta palaisin � oli yhtä ympäristönsä kanssa, vaikutti sattumanvaraiselta lopuillaan olevan iltapäivän tuotteelta, missä pehmeäpiirteinen, taivasta kohti kumpuava kupukatto oli kuin hedelmä, jonka ruusunvärinen, kultainen, mehukas pinta kypsyi samassa valossa, missä talojen savupiiputkin kylpivät.
Huone Balbecin Grand-Hôtelissa tuntuu alkuun ankealta, mutta pian kertoja alkaa tarkastella sieltä hotellivieraiden ja paikallisen elämän pikkumaisia hierarkioita. Isoäiti tapaa vanhan tuttavansa madame de Villeparisis’iin, joka edustaa korkeinta aristokratiaa, ja tämän kautta kertoja kohtaa madamen sukulaisia: aikaisemmista osista tutun paroni de Charlusin ja nuorempaa sukupolvea edustavan aristokraatin Robert de Saint-Loupin. Tämä jälkimmäinen varsinkin paljastuu kertojan kannalta keskeiseksi tuttavuudeksi.
Tärkeitä ovat myös ne kukkaan puhkeavat tytöt. Kertoja aloittaa nuorten kauniiden naisten ihastelun jo junamatkalla, katsellessaan pienellä juna-asemalla maitokahvia kaupittelevaa maalaistyttöä (”Hänen aamuauringon purppuroimat kasvonsa olivat ruusuisemmat kuin taivas.�), ja Balbecissa varsinkin kiinnittää huomionsa lokkiparven lailla rannalle lehahtaneeseen tyttöjoukkoon. Saint-Loupin kautta kertoja tutustuu arvostettuun taidemaalaariin Elstiriin, joka tuntee nämä tytöt ja maalarin kautta muodostuu yhteys tyttöparveen, jonka kanssa kertoja viettääkin sitten onnellisesti loppulomansa.
Jakaantunut tai pikemminkin jakamaton, sillä useimmiten kaikkea mikä minusta oli ihanaa, erilaista kuin kaikki muu, sellaista mikä alkoi käydä minulle niin rakkaaksi että toivo kohdata se uudelleen seuraavana päivänä oli elämäni suurin ilo, kaikkea sitä edusti pikemminkin näitten nuorten tyttöjen ryhmä kokonaisuudessaan rantajyrkänteellä vietettyjen iltapäivien kehyksissä, tuulisten tuntien kuluessa, nurmikaistaleella jolla nämä mielikuvitustani kiihottavat hahmot, Andréen, Albertinen, Rosemonden kasvot olivat tarjolla; ja niin että minun oli mahdotonta sanoa, kuka heistä muutti nämä maisemat niin kallisarvoisiksi, ketä heistä halusin eniten rakastaa.
Loman alkuvaiheissa kertoja on vielä kovin tiukasti isoäidissään kiinni, mutta loman lopulla kiinnittyy jo kovasti tyttölaumaan ja sitä myöten ulkopuoliseen maailmaan. Lopulta kesä päättyy ja lomakauden loppuessa hotellit suljetaan talveksi. Kertojankin on lopulta jätettävä Balbec.
Arvostan, että Kukkaan puhkeavien tyttöjen varjossa on suomeksi jaettu kahteen osaan. Jako on luonteva, sillä osat ovat selvästi erillisiä. Yhtenä niteenä tämä olisi tyrmäävän mittainen, lähes 700 sivua. Nytkin kirja on sen verran pitkä, että sen parissa kului aikaa � Proust on hidasta luettavaa, kuten nostamistani sitaateista on helppo nähdä. Toisaalta tämä tuntui muuten vähän aikaisempia osia helpommalta. Keskittyminen elämään Balbecissa, vaikka se heijasteleekin kaikenlaista muutakin, tekee tästä yksinkertaisemman. Odotan mielenkiinnolla, mitä seuraava osa tarjoaa.
---
The second part of "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" unfolds as the narrator embarks on a summer sojourn in Balbec, where they immerse themselves in the nuances of high society. His encounters with figures like Baron de Charlus and Robert de Saint-Loup offer glimpses into aristocratic life. At the same time, his fascination with a group of young beach girls adds depth to his experience.
As the narrative progresses, the narrator's initial attachment to his grandmother gradually gives way to a growing affinity for the vibrant world around him. Amidst the closing of hotels and the end of the summer season, the narrator reluctantly bids farewell to Balbec, marking the conclusion of this captivating chapter of his journey.
The book's division into two parts in Finnish allows readers to delve into the intricacies of Balbec's life without feeling overwhelmed by its extensive length. Focusing on the rich tapestry of characters and experiences in Balbec, this segment sets the stage for further exploration in the subsequent part of the narrative.
October 2, 2021
Último volumen de la primer parte de “En busca del tiempo perdido� de Marcel Proust. El autor con este volumen regresa a la historia del niño que no podía dormir en “Combray�, y también recoge pero de una forma más misteriosa al señor Swann (de quien conocíamos todo tipo de intimidad en el segundo volumen “Unos amores de Swann�).
Considero que no desentona con el grado de exactitud y genialidad literaria que tiene el autor, y de seguro que no lo hará nunca a lo largo de los 7 libros. Eso es algo propio del autor, y me genera mucha admiración, sobre todo las descripciones que cuando crees que ya fueron dadas de una forma definitiva, siempre encuentra una vuelta más para que sean más completas, empleando una frase más, una palabra, una comparación, o cualquier otro recurso. Por otro lado, es increíble como el autor emplea los signos de puntuación, llegando a tener pasajes de casi una carilla de extensión sin puntos finales, y a la vez sin volver a la lectura pesada o desordenada.
Con respecto a la trama de “Nombres de tierra: El nombre�, es ligeramente más vacía de acontecimientos, pero el autor nos muestra de una manera tan precisa el surgimiento de un amor de la infancia tan inmaduro como inocente, y en cierto modo unilateral. Así como en Combray podíamos observar la fragilidad emocional de este niño protagonista, en este podemos ver sus primeros pasos de enamoramiento, y por lo tanto sigue en la misma armonía dulzona que brota de cualquier acontecimiento relativo a la infancia.
El título de la obra es realmente muy acertado (Nombres de tierra: El nombre) porque al comienzo se comenta el interés del niño en conocer nuevas ciudades, y la importancia que tiene en él esos nombres de las ciudades, como efecto simplificador e imperial. Las ciudades cobran al ser nombradas esa individualidad digna de las personas, y pasan a ser amadas como si lo fueran realmente. Luego por algún acontecimiento desafortunado, se le impide al protagonista cumplir ese sueño de viajar, teniendo que quedarse en París donde nuevamente resurge “El nombre� Gilberta (ya lo había escuchado en “Combray�), para despertar un nuevo viaje de descubrimiento, pero un viaje introspectivo. “Gilberta� escucha, y su deseo de partir de París se anula, y desea quedarse allí pase lo que pase, con tal de estar cerca de su amada.
Por lo cual en el título se contemplan estos “Nombres de tierra�, que personifican ciudades, pero que al descubrir “El verdadero nombre� dejan de ser estimadas, para amar al predilecto.
Es un volumen más corto que los demás, y lo recomiendo por el tema en cuestión. Se analiza desde la cabeza de un adulto (lo cuenta el mismo protagonista pero desde los recuerdos que mantiene de aquellas épocas, ahora siendo adulto) el enamoramiento en la infancia, y la primer experimentación de sentimientos (tales como la ilusión, la desilusión, la pena, la dicha, etc.) que brotan de cualquier relación amorosa. Es realmente muy linda la forma en que la lleva a cabo Proust, y su lectura es relativamente ágil. Recomendado!
Considero que no desentona con el grado de exactitud y genialidad literaria que tiene el autor, y de seguro que no lo hará nunca a lo largo de los 7 libros. Eso es algo propio del autor, y me genera mucha admiración, sobre todo las descripciones que cuando crees que ya fueron dadas de una forma definitiva, siempre encuentra una vuelta más para que sean más completas, empleando una frase más, una palabra, una comparación, o cualquier otro recurso. Por otro lado, es increíble como el autor emplea los signos de puntuación, llegando a tener pasajes de casi una carilla de extensión sin puntos finales, y a la vez sin volver a la lectura pesada o desordenada.
Con respecto a la trama de “Nombres de tierra: El nombre�, es ligeramente más vacía de acontecimientos, pero el autor nos muestra de una manera tan precisa el surgimiento de un amor de la infancia tan inmaduro como inocente, y en cierto modo unilateral. Así como en Combray podíamos observar la fragilidad emocional de este niño protagonista, en este podemos ver sus primeros pasos de enamoramiento, y por lo tanto sigue en la misma armonía dulzona que brota de cualquier acontecimiento relativo a la infancia.
El título de la obra es realmente muy acertado (Nombres de tierra: El nombre) porque al comienzo se comenta el interés del niño en conocer nuevas ciudades, y la importancia que tiene en él esos nombres de las ciudades, como efecto simplificador e imperial. Las ciudades cobran al ser nombradas esa individualidad digna de las personas, y pasan a ser amadas como si lo fueran realmente. Luego por algún acontecimiento desafortunado, se le impide al protagonista cumplir ese sueño de viajar, teniendo que quedarse en París donde nuevamente resurge “El nombre� Gilberta (ya lo había escuchado en “Combray�), para despertar un nuevo viaje de descubrimiento, pero un viaje introspectivo. “Gilberta� escucha, y su deseo de partir de París se anula, y desea quedarse allí pase lo que pase, con tal de estar cerca de su amada.
Por lo cual en el título se contemplan estos “Nombres de tierra�, que personifican ciudades, pero que al descubrir “El verdadero nombre� dejan de ser estimadas, para amar al predilecto.
Es un volumen más corto que los demás, y lo recomiendo por el tema en cuestión. Se analiza desde la cabeza de un adulto (lo cuenta el mismo protagonista pero desde los recuerdos que mantiene de aquellas épocas, ahora siendo adulto) el enamoramiento en la infancia, y la primer experimentación de sentimientos (tales como la ilusión, la desilusión, la pena, la dicha, etc.) que brotan de cualquier relación amorosa. Es realmente muy linda la forma en que la lleva a cabo Proust, y su lectura es relativamente ágil. Recomendado!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2023
The story continues with the young Marcel staying at a spa hotel in Balbec.
Important life rule to remember:
- "But the important thing in life is not what you love", he began, in a knowing, commanding and almost sharp tone, "it is to love"
And this one:
“It makes me think of the room in the castle of Blois where the overseer who showed it out said: This is where Mary Stuart said her prayers; and now this is where I put my brooms.� 🤣🤣🤣
It's fun to follow Marcel exploring the group of young girls and the youth's awkward approach to love is spot on.
It can be used here today:
"She could imagine what I wanted, but without being sure, assumed that I only strove for connections that had no definite goal, in which my friend must find the delightful vagueness, rich in expected surprises, which constitutes romance."
�
Historien fortsætter med den unge Marcel på kur hotel ophold i Balbec.
Vigtig livs huske regel:
� “Men det vigtige i livet er ikke hvad man elsker», tog han fat, i en vidende, bydende og næsten skarp tone, «det er at elske�
Og den her:
”Det får mig til at tænke på det værelse på slottet i Blois hvor opsynsmanden der viste det frem, sagde: Det var her Maria Stuart bad sine bønner; og nu er det her jeg stiller mine koste.� 🤣🤣🤣
Det er sjovt at følge Marcel udforske gruppen af unge piger og ungdommens akavede tilgang til kærligheden er spot on.
Den er her kunne bruges i dag:
“Hun kunne forestille sig hvad jeg ønskede, men uden at være sikker, antage at jeg kun stræbte efter forbindelser der ikke havde noget bestemt mål, i hvilke min veninde måtte finde den liflige uklarhed, rig på forventede overraskelser, som udgør det romantiske.�
Important life rule to remember:
- "But the important thing in life is not what you love", he began, in a knowing, commanding and almost sharp tone, "it is to love"
And this one:
“It makes me think of the room in the castle of Blois where the overseer who showed it out said: This is where Mary Stuart said her prayers; and now this is where I put my brooms.� 🤣🤣🤣
It's fun to follow Marcel exploring the group of young girls and the youth's awkward approach to love is spot on.
It can be used here today:
"She could imagine what I wanted, but without being sure, assumed that I only strove for connections that had no definite goal, in which my friend must find the delightful vagueness, rich in expected surprises, which constitutes romance."
�
Historien fortsætter med den unge Marcel på kur hotel ophold i Balbec.
Vigtig livs huske regel:
� “Men det vigtige i livet er ikke hvad man elsker», tog han fat, i en vidende, bydende og næsten skarp tone, «det er at elske�
Og den her:
”Det får mig til at tænke på det værelse på slottet i Blois hvor opsynsmanden der viste det frem, sagde: Det var her Maria Stuart bad sine bønner; og nu er det her jeg stiller mine koste.� 🤣🤣🤣
Det er sjovt at følge Marcel udforske gruppen af unge piger og ungdommens akavede tilgang til kærligheden er spot on.
Den er her kunne bruges i dag:
“Hun kunne forestille sig hvad jeg ønskede, men uden at være sikker, antage at jeg kun stræbte efter forbindelser der ikke havde noget bestemt mål, i hvilke min veninde måtte finde den liflige uklarhed, rig på forventede overraskelser, som udgør det romantiske.�
January 12, 2018
Jeg elskede denne bog. Sproget er uforligneligt og helt hans eget. Jeg forundres dog jævnligt over det der foregår - hvad er det for et forhold han har til sin mormor? Hvor gammel er han? Hvad er det dog for et liv de lever? Sover til langt ud på formiddagen, hvilket dog delvist skyldes fortællerens svage helbred, går på visitter, fører de mærkeligste samtaler, hvor man oftest siger det modsatte af det man mener, er underlagt en social kodeks som der bruges meget tid på at forvalte, en masse snobberi, etc.
Og så må man simpelthen bryde ud i latter over hans beskrivelser af pigerne. Det er så råt! Der lægges ikke fingre i mellem, det er ikke særlig flatterende, og alligevel så elsker han dem jo! Men åh! hvor er han bare god, når han beskriver forelskelsen i forelskelsen, der består af 99 procents fantasier, drømmerier og projektioner.
Og så må man simpelthen bryde ud i latter over hans beskrivelser af pigerne. Det er så råt! Der lægges ikke fingre i mellem, det er ikke særlig flatterende, og alligevel så elsker han dem jo! Men åh! hvor er han bare god, når han beskriver forelskelsen i forelskelsen, der består af 99 procents fantasier, drømmerier og projektioner.
April 18, 2020
This was actually my favourite so far.
The narrator and his grandmother spend summer in Balbec. In spite of his (usual) nervousness about being away from home, the narrator fairly quickly settles and really for the first time seems to be acting fairly independently. The descriptions of the snobs in the Hotel are magnificient, not least those of the three married couples (the men being, respectively, a notary, a lawyer, and a "Président de Chambre") that are involved in their own ridicoulous fight to be seen with/invited by those they consider to be the fanciest members of royalty. I especially liked the way the couples hire a cart on Sundays in order to pretend that they're among the ones invited to visit the Camembrer's - and how one of the wives, thinking that this hiring of carts each Sunday is getting too expensive goes to bed "feeling ill" to keep up the pretense.
Anyway, back to the narrator: He (with Bloch hanging in as well) strikes up a friendship with the rather dim-witted, but excessively nice and polite Saint-Loup who belongs to the Guermantes Family. His first real friendship. Also gets familiarised with Elstir, the painter, which evidently leads to the narrator's eyes opening up to the beauty of things that he hadn't noticed before and some quite magnificient descriptions of the paintings. But mainly this volume is about the narrator's involvement with a group of young, mischiveous girls, including André and the orphan Albertine who take turns in firing up his romantic fancies. The "clou" of his constant circling around the girls being when the narrator rather embarrasingly takes a totally misguided stab at kissing Albertine, when she's is staying at the hotel before taking the train next morning.
Of course, Proust is all about the writing and the fantastic sentences, but probably it was the fact of this being connected with quite a lot going on that made this volume stick out (even if 450 pp. about a couple of months' holiday at the seaside sounds like a lot).
The narrator and his grandmother spend summer in Balbec. In spite of his (usual) nervousness about being away from home, the narrator fairly quickly settles and really for the first time seems to be acting fairly independently. The descriptions of the snobs in the Hotel are magnificient, not least those of the three married couples (the men being, respectively, a notary, a lawyer, and a "Président de Chambre") that are involved in their own ridicoulous fight to be seen with/invited by those they consider to be the fanciest members of royalty. I especially liked the way the couples hire a cart on Sundays in order to pretend that they're among the ones invited to visit the Camembrer's - and how one of the wives, thinking that this hiring of carts each Sunday is getting too expensive goes to bed "feeling ill" to keep up the pretense.
Anyway, back to the narrator: He (with Bloch hanging in as well) strikes up a friendship with the rather dim-witted, but excessively nice and polite Saint-Loup who belongs to the Guermantes Family. His first real friendship. Also gets familiarised with Elstir, the painter, which evidently leads to the narrator's eyes opening up to the beauty of things that he hadn't noticed before and some quite magnificient descriptions of the paintings. But mainly this volume is about the narrator's involvement with a group of young, mischiveous girls, including André and the orphan Albertine who take turns in firing up his romantic fancies. The "clou" of his constant circling around the girls being when the narrator rather embarrasingly takes a totally misguided stab at kissing Albertine, when she's is staying at the hotel before taking the train next morning.
Of course, Proust is all about the writing and the fantastic sentences, but probably it was the fact of this being connected with quite a lot going on that made this volume stick out (even if 450 pp. about a couple of months' holiday at the seaside sounds like a lot).
November 16, 2021
Kadonnutta aikaa etsimässä imaisee yhä vahvemmin mukaansa, kun neljäs nide pääsee kunnolla käyntiin. Nuoruuden toveruuden ja lepattavien ihastusten kuvaukset ovat luonnollisesti yleismaailmallista klassikkokamaa, mutta kyllä voiton vievät päähenkilön ja isoäidin lomareissun taustalla hyörivät lomakohteen muut asukkaat. Balbecin rantalomakohde on kansoitettu mitä herkullisimmilla ylhäisön edustajilla, jotka kiipivät hienostuneessa ja samalla raa'an primitiivisessä sosiaalisessa pelissään säälimättömästi toistensa yli.
Pitkien, aurinkoisten ja venyvien kesäpäivien kuvaukset ovat käsinkosketeltavuudessaan lähes liikaa marraskuisessa Suomessa. Pyörittelin jo seuraavaa osaa käsissäni kirjastossa, mutta laskin sen vielä takaisin hyllyyn odottamaan, sillä tämäkin annos oli jo aika tuhti ja liika on liikaa tätäkin nautintoa.
Pitkien, aurinkoisten ja venyvien kesäpäivien kuvaukset ovat käsinkosketeltavuudessaan lähes liikaa marraskuisessa Suomessa. Pyörittelin jo seuraavaa osaa käsissäni kirjastossa, mutta laskin sen vielä takaisin hyllyyn odottamaan, sillä tämäkin annos oli jo aika tuhti ja liika on liikaa tätäkin nautintoa.
November 4, 2017
Marcel is still very bourgeoisly ill. Vapors! Fits! Inopportune swooning!
Gilberte Swann is clearly “that sort of woman� in training. She’s making Marcel twitterpated. So Marcel and his dear grandmama remove to the beach at Balbec.
Promenade strolling! Dressing for dinner! More strolling!
And at last, Marcel meets Albertine, the perfect anodyne to THOT Gilberte. He longs to possess Albertine.
Glances! Notes! More stuff about hawthorn blossoms! He’s invited to her room. She’s fetchingly déshabillé, languorously draped across her bed. He thinks one thing, but Albertine has another game afoot. DENIED!
It’s the perfect jumping off point for five more volumes and 6000 more pages. On to the next one.
Gilberte Swann is clearly “that sort of woman� in training. She’s making Marcel twitterpated. So Marcel and his dear grandmama remove to the beach at Balbec.
Promenade strolling! Dressing for dinner! More strolling!
And at last, Marcel meets Albertine, the perfect anodyne to THOT Gilberte. He longs to possess Albertine.
Glances! Notes! More stuff about hawthorn blossoms! He’s invited to her room. She’s fetchingly déshabillé, languorously draped across her bed. He thinks one thing, but Albertine has another game afoot. DENIED!
It’s the perfect jumping off point for five more volumes and 6000 more pages. On to the next one.
November 7, 2020
Tähän mennessä paras osa Kadonneesta ajasta. Alan ehkä tottua Proustin kiemuraisiin lauseisiin ja siksi pystyn nauttimaan niiden kielestä. Proust käyttää ihastuttavan monipuolisia ilmauksia. Hän välttelee kliseitä kuin olisi niille allerginen ja pyrkii selvästi keksimään joka kuvaukseen ainutkertaisia ilmauksia. Se tekee tekstistä paikoitellen suorastaan runollista.
Proust kuvaa edelleen ihmisiä säälimättömän tarkkanäköisesti. Tällä kertaa hänen kärkensä kohdistuu ennen kaikkea kertojaan itseensä, joka ihastuu herkästi ja samalla unohtaa edellisen rakkautensa hetkessä. Tuollaista se nuoruus todellakin oli, muistaakseni.
Proust kuvaa edelleen ihmisiä säälimättömän tarkkanäköisesti. Tällä kertaa hänen kärkensä kohdistuu ennen kaikkea kertojaan itseensä, joka ihastuu herkästi ja samalla unohtaa edellisen rakkautensa hetkessä. Tuollaista se nuoruus todellakin oli, muistaakseni.
March 20, 2019
Ei näistä voi sanoa mitään uutta. Sen verta runollista tekstiä, että vaatii keskittymistä, mikä vaatii aikaa ja fiilistä, mitä löytyy lähinnä viikonloppuisin. Harvoin myöskään lukee kaunokirjallista tekstiä 15 sivua tunnissa, selaillen ja fiilistellen. Kirja kuvasti hienosti jälleen kerran kokemistä, niin taiteen, rakkauden kuin maiseman alalla.
Ainoa ongelma, että kun lukee naatiskellen, voi välillä unohtua juonenkäänteet. Pitää siis aloittaa sarjan lukeminen alusta, kun päässyt nyt ensimmäisen kerran loppuun. Pleaide-versiot kiinnostaisi, saisikohan niitä käännettynä.
Ainoa ongelma, että kun lukee naatiskellen, voi välillä unohtua juonenkäänteet. Pitää siis aloittaa sarjan lukeminen alusta, kun päässyt nyt ensimmäisen kerran loppuun. Pleaide-versiot kiinnostaisi, saisikohan niitä käännettynä.
January 14, 2025
Tiro a la alza con 3� porque la aparición de Albertine y las muchachas en flor y los juegos de amor del protagonista con ellas han contribuido a hacer las últimas 150 páginas bastante más amenas de la tónica general que ha supuesto para mí este libro, especialmente en contraste con la primera parte de A la sombra de las muchachas en flor. Nevertheless, muy entusiasmada con mi reto Proust, que estoy segura que lograré terminar con éxito.
May 7, 2018
Continuing where we left off, Marcel's infatuations have leapt from his mother, to Gilberte, and then Albertine. It is the story of a man discovering different kinds of love - maternal, lust, and friendship. With homosexual undertones, Within a Budding Grove further's Proust's sexual awakening and the maturity of his relationships.
April 13, 2021
In the fourth part of the epic story, the narrator Marcel, together with his grandmother, travels to the seaside town of Balbec for the summer. In Balbec, he encounters a myriad of colourfull characters (who are really the heart of this book) and becomes infatuated with a local group of girls. This felt like summer.
October 13, 2022
Què puc dir d’aquesta obra fonamental de la Hª de la literatura ? Una meravella.
La seva capacitat descriptiva és genial.
Una experiència lectora fora mida que estic segur que deixa petja per sempre.
Està clar que llegir obres d’aquest calibre et permet adquirir criteri per decidir què és i què no és, la bona literatura !
La seva capacitat descriptiva és genial.
Una experiència lectora fora mida que estic segur que deixa petja per sempre.
Està clar que llegir obres d’aquest calibre et permet adquirir criteri per decidir què és i què no és, la bona literatura !
March 19, 2023
Četvrti deo serijala U potrazi za izgubljenim vremenom.
Marsel Prust rođen je u bogatoj lekarskoj porodici i zato se kretao u modernim građanskim, umetničkim i aristokratskim krugovima. Zato u ovom drugom delu U seni devojaka u cvetu, upoznaje nove ljude, pronalazi i nove simpatije, ali opet nema sreće sa tim devojkama.
Marsel Prust rođen je u bogatoj lekarskoj porodici i zato se kretao u modernim građanskim, umetničkim i aristokratskim krugovima. Zato u ovom drugom delu U seni devojaka u cvetu, upoznaje nove ljude, pronalazi i nove simpatije, ali opet nema sreće sa tim devojkama.
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