Allow me to review Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. This was the first piece of modern literature I ever had the pleasure to peruse. Never before was I uplifted with such a psychological yet truly sensational feeling that whetted my palate for more by this great author.
The beginning of Swann's Way begins with the narrator (Marcel) having insomnia and reminiscing over the fragmented memories that seem to materialize in front of him between the realm of somnolence and consciousness. Of course, how can I go on without also commenting on the madeleine segment, so aesthetically written was this part that I shall never disremember it.
Combray is the title of the second part, enumerating the narrator's childhood experiences with a copious amount of description of objects (the most memorable being the steeple and the flowers). Here he sees the monotony of his aunt Leonie's life due to her bedridden disease. Other characters are revealed here at Combray, like Legrandin (the profound orator/engineer) and the amenable Francoise whose loyalties are quite remarkable. I do not wish to divulge any of the plot, or rather the philosophical undertones that the book is really apt towards. Anyway, Combray also goads Marcel's love for the young Gilberte Swann, a love further delineated in the last section of this magnificent story.
Swann in Love, my personal favorite, occurs before Marcel was born. Charles Swann can be seen as a foolish man who squandered his intelligence for social status and erudition for the arts. Gradually, he accrues a relation with Odette de Crecy without any sort of justification. Such love has perilous results, and Swann ends up as paranoid as a tyrant surrounded by a revolutionary populace. Music too has never been so idyllically manifested in any works I read. The music that Swann listens to produces a connection and foundation for his love for Odette, yet it also reveals to him the desperate and deplorable state he truckles to during the course of the story.
Finally, The Place-Name:The Name consummates such a gorgeous book. Here, the little boy Marcel continues his relation with Gilberte, whom he meets at the famous Champs-Elysee in Paris. Oh, how he longs for her in that same unjustifiable ardor once exhibited by Swann himself. Her very name brings forth hope for the morrow wherein Gilberte may profess her love to Marcel.
Albeit a very small recapitulation of Swann's Way, I would like to make note on Proust's prose, which soporifically compelled me to keep reading every divine page. Every paragraph, every sentence, and every punctuation in itself is comparative to an ending of a novel. Every line has that same emotional culmination one receives by reading the last lines of a great work; however, this recurs throughout the novel and not just at the ending. Furthermore, associative memory is a key factor in Swann's Way, a psychological standpoint whereby objects confess past experiences like a caged bird being released after decades of imprisonment. This book spoke to me in ways that were surreal. And I only can hope that it speaks to you as well.
