proust combray boo

The Ridington Room has great reading chairs with an outside view, an old school room with imposing portraits and silence! The photo is a little fuzzy but that suits my opinion of the novel. I took a lot of notes, but half were just sentences I liked - I learned in class and from this novel that it’s a good practice to do this as a writer, for when you don’t know how to say something perhaps copying other authors will work. Proust talks about doing this with his favorite writer Bergotte; he liked the flow of melody, the roughness of the sad parts, etc.

I did not feel that this dry, emotionless, slow to start, snobby, story line was worth reading. This is autobiographical; Proust describing his family’s annual easter trip to see his aunt in Combray, a small provincial town in France. There is a strict class system in place with Proust one of the rich kids. Much centres around church, and going for long walks, and wondering about their slaves, as it would in that period for rich people like Proust. He calls the church a dear and familiar friend. His hobby is analysing theatre and players, rating them as would a sports fan today. He is too young to attend theatre, so relies on his imagination. This will become a repeated theme. He dreams about things but rarely sees them through to reality. I was 60 pages in at this point and weary of the unnecessary over-descriptions (Francoise as a colonel in the kitchen?!) given the lack of opinions they revealed. Proust’s tone and character depictions are written with his nose in the air and his mind actively discriminating, in stark contrast to other Spanish (?) romance writers whose eyes are a mile wide and whose racing hearts set the tone and characters flying off the page.

The best part was the duality of the Meseglise Way or the Guermantes Way for the long walks. The Guermantes Way is for longer times when pleasant weather is expected to hold, so you follow a set path (the Vivone River) observing normal things like kids playing in the water, people fishing and canoeing, iris beds to sit in. Conversely the Meseglise Way is only for short periods, you must beware of unplanned weather and experiences. He met a red-haired girl Gilberte, with whom he fell in love. He met Mme. De Vintreuil with whom he fell in love. Clearly the Meseglise Way is more exciting, but he chooses the easy (as most people do) and is content with Meseglise giving him ecstasy through memory.