I´ve read the book “Swann`ların Tarafı” (First Volume in “Search of Lost Time” written by Marcel Proust (* 10. Juli 1871 in Paris; † 18. November 1922 ebenda).

As the title implies, it requires some time and effort to read. One must engage with it and embrace the rhythm of the work. It's not a book that you should spend hours on or read straight through. I found great pleasure in reading it at night.

The blooming gardens and the landscape bathed in sunshine are filled with a glorious light. Everything is resplendent and magnificent.

This novel is a true bildungsroman, and after reading it, one has truly gained a life experience.

It is absolutely recommendable for those who are willing to invest the time and patience to explore its rich and complex world. The detailed descriptions and profound insights into human nature and emotions make it a masterpiece that will stay with you long after you've finished reading.

So, if you're looking for a book that will challenge you and expand your literary horizons, give “Swann`ların Tarafı” a try. You won't be disappointed.

Proust is indeed immortal. He uncovered a concealed path that has the power to transform our past and, by extension, like the ancient mystics, our souls into something of enduring beauty. The past can be regained and transmuted, just as St. Teresa of Avila did with her Interior Castle. Or, as Proust so eloquently put it in In a Budding Grove, it can be like a Magic Lantern Show.

Few of us are old enough to recall Magic Lanterns. They were the original still photo projectors, developed at the turn of the twentieth century. My father had his own ancient model, which he brought from his childhood home in the mid-1920s and 30s to our first home in Ontario.

The trick was to suspend a bedsheet at the far end of a child's bedside and project these wonderful, faerie-like mezzotint images onto it. Proust believed that those of us who create, even reviews, must become that white suspended bedsheet for the reader's imaginative reading.

He described a smoky fall day many years ago when, as the Canada Geese overhead loudly sermonized about the price we would pay for not following them south, he reluctantly recommenced reading Swann's Way.

The act of picking up that beloved, contrary book always had a mysteriously autumnal aura in those days. It was a time when old summertime desires yielded painfully yet wistfully to familiar and mournful wintry regrets, but it also inevitably evoked the best of the coming winter: curling up with a book in the warm and comfortable confines of our own inner space.

Two years ago, in a rather naïve pastiche of Proust's style, I dreamily wrote. Naïve because, in my ingenuous flippancy, I rushed in like a proverbial fool to spray-paint illegible graffiti on the enduring Proustian legacy.

"Love conquers all" - but love of every kind compromises and convicts so many! This insight is at the heart of Proust's legacy, unfolding slowly and delicately throughout his opus, like an ancient Belgian town being de-shrouded by the departing mist, as described by Stéphane Mallarmé in Memory of Flemish friends.

Until it stands fully unveiled at the conclusion of Time Regained, like the naked Venus or the Gorgon. Aye, there's the rub! For when our past is finally transmogrified into suddenly-remembered monstrous forms, that's the time, according to Proust, to bring those bad memories into consciousness, depending on how much we can bear at any given moment.

This is his method. Here, as when the rainbow-hued daughter of a noted composer, "Verdurin," secretly and blackly reviles his reputation to her passionate girlfriend, Proust carefully intersperses such moments with the lighter fluff of his dreams and daily drudgery.

This is the reason my mom, the librarian, could endure his complex and endless grammatical periods for four consecutive rereadings of the entire collection of novels. She always knew that Proust's bottom line, at the end of her nightmares, was the redemption of her soul in a state of pure release.

That final state is the pure epiphanic moment - the Aleph, as Borges calls it - or the center from which the universal totality may be viewed. The Timeless Extended Moment that Henry James exultantly celebrates in his masterpiece, The Ambassadors.

And for the noted Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, as revealed in his Aion, that Aleph is Christ. The heart of the opus itself is slowly and casually presented, especially in Swann's Way, where, by biting into a Madeleine, the now fully temporally-redeemed narrator reveals the golden key to unlocking our scotomized memories.

Yes, the magic lantern totality of our childhood memories that seems lost but is eternally present, on memory rolls, as George Gurdjieff says. And they can be fully recovered in rêverie. Many readers, including myself, have imitated the Proustian modus operandi to recover our own Time Past.

The bottom line is: yes, we can unlock our past. But in doing so, we will open a veritable Pandora's Box of complex issues. Do we really want to go there? It's all secreted deep in our subconscious if we dare! And with good-hearted faith, we can survive the utter turbulence of its revelations by a slow, patient meditation on the Truth, which will then reveal the real, universal epiphany beneath our dreams, clearly, for the first time, and for all time.

Marcel Proust is a remarkable weaver. He masterfully weaves his narration together using the rich tapestry of memories from the past, dreams that float through his consciousness, and threads of irony that add depth and complexity.

His memories of childhood are a vivid and detailed account. They include relatives, the dynamics within the family, the whispers and gossips that circulated, the life of the neighbours, the routine of going to church, the perambulations in the country, and the books he read, along with their correlation to reality.

Kith and kin were an important part of his life, as were the visitors who came and went. One of the frequent visitors was Swann, a connoisseur of art, a socialite who moved in high society, and a true man about town.

Swann had his own peculiarities when it came to women. He didn't bother to convince himself that the women he spent time with were pretty; instead, he simply spent time with those he already knew were. And these were often women of a rather vulgar beauty. The physical qualities he unconsciously sought were the direct opposite of those he admired in the works of his favorite masters.

Odette, a woman of the demimonde, had her eyes set on Swann and was actively trying to win him over. She only attracted him initially because of her resemblance to Zipporah in a painting by Botticelli. However, their relationship evolved, and soon Swann found himself falling deeply in love. But the tables quickly turned, and Odette became cold, leaving Swann hopelessly infatuated.

When one falls in love with an ideal and then discovers that the object of one's passion is quite different from that ideal, one is doomed to suffer beyond reason. This is the tragic reality that Swann experiences, and it is a theme that Proust explores with great depth and sensitivity in his work.

A book can be a masterpiece for someone either because they found parts of themselves within it, or because the author was able to write a multi-layered work with timeless value, intertwined ideas, and symbols. Well, Proust achieved both in this particular book. He wrote a unique masterpiece in which I (and I believe everyone) found parts of myself.

The book (the first of the 7 that Proust wrote) is divided into 3 parts. In the first part, the narrator and renowned author describes his childhood memories from Combray. In the second part, he tells of the stormy love affair of their family friend, the aristocrat Swann, with a woman of loose morals. And in the third part, he writes about his obsessive childhood love for Swann's daughter, Gilberte.

It all starts when the narrator tries a madeleine. A traditional French sweet with a little tea that takes him back in time to the small village of Combray where he spent his summers and unlocks his memories as the narrator tries to regain the image of his life and the nature of love itself. A resurrection of the past that brings with it a mysterious and indefinite ecstasy.
Proust tries to penetrate involuntary memory through all those insignificant events that he recalls with the sweet and special taste of the madeleine. Especially in the first part, the separation of consciousness, memory, and habit occurs. As Charles Dickens said, habit arranges everything skillfully but slowly, and leaves our initial thought to suffer for weeks in a state of temporariness. Thought and habit make a house habitable. Proust combines thought with feeling. The feelings on which we build our lives and that we want. And they are so strong that many times, like the narrator, we try to prolong the anticipation of a great feeling so that the waiting becomes sweeter and from the very moment.
The kiss of the narrator's mother and its analysis prepare us for the exploration of feelings and the subconscious. With the analytical meticulousness of Proust and with surgical precision, he leads us to understand ourselves. The reader and the author psychoanalyze themselves. Thus, we understand how our social personality is the result of the thoughts of others. And not only that! We understand how our life is connected to the lives of others, the places where we lived, our experiences. We do not exist simply, but we coexist.
Characteristic is the memory of the lesbian love of the daughter of Vinteuil and her indifference to the death of her father. As a child and as an adult, the narrator sees the events through a completely different prism. Proust delves into taboo topics for his time and sketches every reality in front of which other realities fade away. As he said, "Beautiful things teach us to seek our pleasures outside the satisfactions of wealth and vanity."
The narrator's parents (mainly his mother), his grandmother, his grandfather, the housekeeper are the characters who take part in the memories from Combray. And somewhere in there is also Mr. Swann. A family friend who visited the narrator's family in the summer. Proust continues with the separation of social classes. For the accuracy of the bourgeoisie and high society. He finds the middle class annoying and pretentious and cannot justify its rise and entry into the "great salons." In contrast to Balzac, he discovers the hidden magic of the aristocracy! (Other greats like Tsvetayeva and Camus also believed in this magic). The author psychoanalyzes Swann in an attempt to understand his own psyche. His love for a "cocotte" is something inexplicable. What is it that really attracts Swann and makes his love inoperable?
Swann enters the bourgeoisie, which he finds boring and completely false, and comes out with a wound in his heart. As often happens in our lives, one cannot understand our choices. No social class understands Swann and his love for such a woman. And while the middle-class initially find Swann "presentable" for their circle, they gradually ostracize him. Odette is for them the stone of scandal. Yet Swann loves everything that surrounds Odette. There are two categories of people: the magnanimous and the others. And Swann tries to limit himself to the one he loves and to regain the time he lost with his insolent friends. Proust shows us once again the complexity of our nature. The narration of the events related to Swann's love takes place from the memories of the narrator through different stories, but often using the first-person narration to state his own presence in the lost time.
Finally, the narrator returns to his own memories and his childhood love for Gilberte. The search for lost time moves from the infantile and aimless streets of Combray to the cosmopolitan Paris and the Elysian Fields. There is the place of meeting of the two children and the beginning of love for the little narrator. All the memories are connected to Gilberte and everything beautiful is sacrificed in front of this memory. Like Japanese gardeners who sacrifice many beautiful flowers to achieve the one and only most beautiful flower.
Proust tries to describe love in all its forms. And he delves into a point that scares the reader. The young Proust is ready to throw himself into the unknown life of Gilberte, even to turn her shortcomings into reasons to love her more. What could be more beautiful for a lover than to hear the name of his beloved from others. The sounds are melodic. So the little narrator tries almost to impose on his parents to mention the name Gilberte Swann.
In conclusion, Proust's writing is compact and detailed, which gives the book a wild beauty. Every page seems inaccessible but hides within it precious spiritual treasures. The lyricism is widespread in the descriptions of places and people, while Proust's humor and sarcastic attitude towards everything and everyone, especially towards social distances, are not lacking. The author leads each sentence that ends to the one that is about to begin, sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down the cadence of the syllables, to make them fit into a uniform rhythm, something that can infuse a kind of emotional and continuous life into this book. A unique masterpiece and a unique achievement, its translation! 5/5无可争议! And the continuation follows... EDIT 1 In the book, there are many artistic references to theater, literature, music, painting, which sometimes have a relationship with the work and sometimes not. However, the images they create in the reader are magical. The translator has references for all of the above, which I do not consider necessary. Rather, it is tiring.

In this review, I'm going to share every word. I'll try to include all my experiences with Proust (some of my words might not add new information but are just for the sake of expression). Without a doubt, my hand won't hold back. A hundred days of my life were spent on this volume. I know it's unfair if I limit it to just ten lines. So, let's move on to the most precious literary experience I've had (I know it's very long, but if you read, check the titles you need. Because this review isn't just a dry and empty introduction but is intertwined with my life experiences).

How did I encounter Proust and why did I start reading him?
Actually, it all started from my favorite book blog library (yes, I don't have a negative view of this community, and I'm aware that people can be found in any field). One of my healthy hobbies at that time was to comment on his posts, and when I was in the saddest state of my life, I would browse through the books he had. Sometimes I would close my eyes and be amazed that he had so many attractive titles and was reading them. In my imagination, I didn't dare to think that one day I could buy those books. Just by thinking that someone had them and was reading them well, I felt relieved.
In that charming library, the "In Search of" series was very dearer to me than the others. I had heard of it many times, and it would make my heart tremble. It was always in the back of my mind that in the very distant years (the years of retirement), I would pick up this pen and experience it. Because it was a challenge for me that with my little knowledge, I couldn't access it so early.
One day when I had enough money in my pocket, I bought it. I carried the package with my thin body, and for several days, I would just look at the volumes one by one with a strange feeling. As if at that age, I was able to fulfill one of my wishes.
Until the time came when Niloufar wanted to start reading this game. She suggested it to me, and I initially refused. Because I didn't think I was capable of getting through it. But my friend gave me courage and restored my confidence that I didn't have. Why lie? With all my being, I wanted to read it. I remembered the promise and determination I made with myself at the beginning of the year, and despite the books I was reading simultaneously, I changed my mind and became the most beautiful writer and writing in my life. Did I have the conditions to read it? By no means. So why did I start it? Because this was the last year (figuratively) of my life, and I didn't want to leave the world without reading Proust.
We decided together that we wouldn't be in a hurry for this process. Even if we read two pages a day, but we would write about it and talk about it every day. We could search for references calmly and not turn the reading into a marathon. Because this pen and this man's love cannot be advanced with speed and must be read slowly and continuously, just as dear Marcel said, "Don't rush."
And I, with a trembling heart, started a series that reached me on one of the most painful days of my life and gave me an indescribable pleasure.

The first day of reading
The beginning was a bit out of my control, but I didn't say anything to Niloufar. The main character (whom I call Marcel) is in a state between sleep and wakefulness. He is in search and discovery of time and place. The warm glow that he feels in his sleep is actually real. But gradually, he realizes that the beauty has passed. From time to time, he dozes off again. His sick mind is confused, but he has a helper to understand the difference between day and night.
In recent years, I have tried not to include my emotions and feelings in my evaluations. But this beginning, because of the pain I was feeling and not being away from the pain of the narrator, made me feel different. I had no idea what the narrator wanted to remember. How successful or unsuccessful he would be in this matter. I only knew that the beginning of this pen coincided with my desire to revive the memories and days that I hadn't recorded anywhere. This simultaneity caused a deep connection and relationship that I improved later. As if Marcel was my dear one, not only remembering but also helping me to get through the dark and tearful days by remembering everything that had passed...

Is the intended reader Kika or the real one? This is the question.
Before anything else, the reader's task must be determined in which category they fall. So, answering who and how to read is only up to you. For this purpose, I refer to a beautiful quote to give you a little idea of which side of the story you are on and whether this series is compatible with your spirit at all.
"To a superficial reader of Proust’s work—rather a contradiction in terms since a superficial reader will get so bored, so engulfed in his own yawns, that he will never finish the book—to an inexperienced reader, let us say, it might seem that one of the narrator's main concerns is to explore the ramifications and alliances which link together various houses of the nobility, and that he finds a strange delight when he discovers that a person whom he has been considering as a modest businessman revolves in the grand monde, or when he discovers some important marriage that has connected two families in a manner such as he had never dreamed possible. The matter-of-fact reader will probably conclude that the main action of the book consists of a series of parties; for example, a dinner occupies a hundred and fifty pages, a soiree half a volume."
—Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature
What kind of reader can get through Proust and not betray him? Someone who is looking for depth, more understanding and comprehension of literature. Those who can accept new dimensions and spend a lot of time to understand just one sentence to get to the meaning behind it. The one who sits with closed eyes in the narrator's remembrance and has valued and researched the writer. Patience, perseverance, and effort are necessary for reading. If you are a superficial reader, you won't be able to endure reading it.
The writer has filled many pages with Proustian descriptions. Sentences with metaphors, unchanging similes, low-level references, and a harmonious and captivating state throughout the book. Penetration into the human psyche, the vividness of the senses, the kneading of descriptions and dialogues, the multi-dimensionality of the pen (which makes the work difficult for the one-dimensional reader), the smooth flow of the story (such that you will read the transition from one side to the other, going to the party of Swann and the general's self-pity for many pages), the unreliable narrator (such that by reading the later chapters of the book, you will only find out why he mentioned that incident), and the very cunning play of time are among the characteristics of the series (of course, this list is longer, and I only mentioned a few).
In this series, haste is not the answer, and the moment you fall in love with it, you should follow the advice of the poet:
"All the world on one side, you on the other, my dear, my dear
All the good on one side, you on the other, my dear, my dear
Slowly and continuously, kindness sits in the heart
Now my life is bound to yours, my dear"
Now, how do we know that Proust is compatible with our taste? I will mention this in the following.

What prerequisites do we need for reading?
It depends on you. I can mention different versions, but which one will affect you and be truly useful is not in my control. Many books have been written about Proust and the series, and it's enough to search for the big names. Then you will see what titles come up beside them. Art, neuroscience, music, photography, history, psychology, and many other things revolve around his pen. Depending on your needs, you can explore the dimension you want more, mention it, and study it beside or before reading. But also consider that the sources can mislead you until the end of the series. This can be annoying, and if you don't pay attention, it can be considered helpful. For example, I read the books "Literary Lectures of Europe", "Proust and I", and "How Proust Can Change Your Life", but each of them had hints until the end of the series and required analysis. Even the articles I had read about the first volume also jumped to the later volumes. In short, you either have to read with this in mind or go to them after finishing the series. There are also some辅助 books that progress with a precise division, but since I haven't read them yet, I don't know if they are confusing or not.
The best thing to do is to read a little of the book. See what state the writer's style and context give you. Because from the very beginning, it's not easy to pick up and show that I can hold you down for many pages and there's nothing in it. Long sentences that may run out of breath until the full stop, details that you ignore in daily life, and the penetration into the human being and hearing the voice and the war and the mental struggle are shown at the beginning.

Is the writer telling his own autobiography? Is the narrator the same Marcel Proust himself?
There is a lot of discussion about this. Some critics combine the creator and the creation in such a way that it seems there is no difference. But undoubtedly, this story is the writer's mental one, and like many creators, it has some commonalities.
Illness, parties and gatherings full of sparkle and shine, a deep connection with the mother, being deprived of the possibilities of a normal life, writing, and many other examples are considered among the similarities.
But it's better to listen to Nabokov's words:
"One thing should be firmly impressed upon your minds: the work is not an autobiography; the narrator is not Proust the person, and the characters never existed except in the author’s mind. Let us not, therefore, go into the author’s life. It is of no importance in the present case and would only cloud the issue, especially as the narrator and the author do resemble each other in various ways and move in much the same environment."
—Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature

Terms may be unfamiliar
A word appears throughout the book that, in my opinion, the translator's note is not enough for the meaning behind it. Proust often addresses someone as a snob and has a contemptuous meaning. To understand snobbery, I suggest you read a little of "The Notebook of Memories and Forgetting" by Mohammad Qaed Bazni and the article written under the same title.

What should we do with the references in the series?
The dear translator has pointed them out in the footnote section and also given a short explanation. I only know the Persian translation, and sometimes you can't find the original name of the work. Because sometimes there is a difference from the original story, and you will encounter difficulties in the search. It's better to have the English or French version in your hand and take a look at it while reading the book. If you take that reference to heart, you won't have a hard time drinking water and doing the exercises in the Kundalini process.
To go deeper, you can also spend more time on the references. Consider their description and analysis, read the play that is mentioned, and inject a twofold pleasure into the whole process. For example, the repeated references to Balzac, Shakespeare, France, and Stendhal can also suggest the idea of reading their works simultaneously in your mind.

The characters of the series
One of the strengths of the pen lies in this treatment. The writer introduces the characters in such a way that it's not easy to predict their actions. Because he is familiar with human nature and knows well how different our perception is from reality. Just when we think such and such an event will happen, something unexpected comes up. The people in the series are very real. We don't have a general picture of them, and only a very wide dimension of them is at our disposal. A part of the whole, just as Proust himself said in response to a friend who was speculating with him about the characters: "Actually, contrary to what you think, I created them." Therefore, we are on the side of the creator who knows what amazing things he will encounter. When we believe in the good intentions of a character, his badness becomes apparent. When something seems white, it turns out to be black burned from water. But they are earthly. A combination of evil and beauty, awareness and ignorance, happiness and sorrow.
The book analyzes in one place:
"Every person has not created a consistent nature that is the same for everyone, and he can be known as easily as a contract or a will can be read. Our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of others. Even a very simple act that we call 'seeing a person we know' is to a certain extent a mental act. The physical appearance of a person that we see is filled with all the perceptions we have of him, and undoubtedly, these perceptions play the most important role in the appearance of the general shape that we imagine. Our perceptions gradually take such a complete form in the type of person that they fit so precisely with his outline, and they form his voice so well that whenever we see his face and hear his voice, what our eyes and ears see and hear from him is those very perceptions."
Regarding the number of characters, I should say that for me, until now, it hasn't been too many, but you can take a note in the margin. Although at the end of the book, the names are specified with the page number, which is useful for review.

The narrator and the writer's microscopic view
One of the things that some people consider tiring, boring, and frustrating is these details that he doesn't pass by. This strong and captivating view of Proust has left its mark on his works. Proust was not oblivious to the tiniest things in his personal life, and he liked the paintings of Chardin because he didn't have the sparkle and shine of bourgeois lives. For this reason, I suggest you look at the paintings to understand how a worldview can pay attention to the most subtle things.
In this volume, some descriptions take shape that may seem unimportant, but they show that life is also going on behind them. Things that life passes by quickly and seems not worthy of a few moments of attention. For this purpose, I have brought a part of the book about the way of looking at a marigold so that you can understand for yourself:
"I was standing and watching the carrots that the kitchen servant had cleaned and arranged in a row on the kitchen table like little green piles; but more than anything, I enjoyed watching the marigolds that were wilted and in a sorry state, their tops had turned a reddish-purple and blue that became less colorful with a mysterious shine that couldn't be earthly until it reached the bottom, and with all this, they were still dirty with the soil. It seemed to me that this curtain of heavenly colors told of the enchanting beings that had wanted to come in the form of marigolds but from behind that soft and vulnerable body, their worthless essence showed in those fresh and overwhelming white-bodied colors, those colorful patterns, that mixing and disappearing of the evening blues, an essence that I still recognized when at night after dinner, when I had eaten marigolds with it, in the poetic and mischievous games that belonged to one of Shakespeare's plays, the prince made me laugh with a sharp odor."
So, if you are used to skimming and skipping over descriptions, reading this series will be torture for you. Because until the end, you will be faced with such detentions.

In particular, pay attention to the smell
It's better to strengthen your attention while reading because you have a job with them. Proust, in addition to his sharp vision, also has a strong sense of smell. He spreads the scent of life in his nostalgia and can return to distant years through it. He doesn't forget the color and smell of food, flowers, nature, and humans, and he describes them in such a way that it's as if we were carbon!
"When I knelt in front of the altar to leave the church, I suddenly smelled a bitter and sweet almond-like smell that came from the bushes, and I saw the spotted leaves on the flowers and thought to myself that their scent must be hidden under them, just like the smell of almond bread under its crust, and the smell of Mrs. Vinteuil's type under the lumps of her cake and crumbs."

Beyond ordinary people
The essence and core of many works are not visible to the eyes of the general public in a forward-looking view. We shouldn't be content with our own perception for improvement. If we don't have enough information, we should search and strive for a better understanding. Destroying, considering an event and an ordinary work, speaking without evidence, and imagining in the context of the series don't count.
One day, my literature teacher was talking about music. Which piece do you think is beautiful, and why do you define this beauty? Isn't the reason that instead of the work itself, you think of the memories that are associated with it, and everything takes on a color and smell that the creative spirit is unaware of? Have you ever thought about the music itself? Separated from everything that causes speculation? When you listen to it apart from your personal life, it becomes clear how long you can be touched by it. Because you are using your heart without any intermediary, and that's when it becomes eternal.
Proust's story is also like this. If you give all your attention to it, it will become so beautiful that it's impossible to take your heart away from it. Even because you have spent time for yourself, you no longer look at an ordinary person. You don't interact with Mr. and Mrs. Kootar with music and painting like an ordinary person, nor do you talk about literature like Mr. Donorpeau.
"Since people only recognize the charms, beauties, and forms of nature that have fallen into the molds of an art, and a genuine and innovative artist expels these molds, Mr. and Mrs. Kootar, who were examples of ordinary people from this point of view, found the sonatas of Vinteuil and the paintings of the painter devoid of what, in their opinion, was the harmony of music and the beauty of painting. When the pianist played these sonatas, it seemed to them that he was randomly playing some notes on the piano that did not come in the forms they were familiar with, and the painter also randomly threw colors on the canvas. If a shape seemed familiar to them in his paintings, they would frown and grimace (that is, devoid of the school of painting that even the ordinary people on the street and the alley judged based on its standards), and also far from the truth, as if Mr. Biche

This past Thursday night in Boston, on the eve of the Blizzard of 2013, my wife and I attended a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As an avid appreciator of classic music, albeit a layman, the Fifth is a piece I've heard over 100 times in my life. I can hum the first few measures of the first movement, but then my memory fades.

That particular night, witnessing a live performance of the Fifth for the first time, I heard something new. Towards the end of the second movement, there was a delicate and beautifully rendered part that I felt like I was hearing for the first time. Was it the live performance that allowed me to hear something I hadn't before?

Back at the hotel, I listened to a recording of the Fifth on Spotify but couldn't hear what I had witnessed live. Was it due to the bad recording or did my brain play a trick on me? Then it dawned on me, it doesn't matter.

Memory is an imperfect part of us, but it's all we have to remind us that we exist. I can recall reading "Swann’s Way" ten years ago, but my memories fade. Re-reading it at 42, I found new passages to love and realized how wrong I was the first time.

Proust’s scene with the madeleines and tea shows the power of memory. Whether it's the narrator's attempt to describe the ineffable or Swann's holding onto a picture of Odette, memory is the vehicle of meaning.

At the end of Thursday night, my wife and I discussed these weighty items. Does it matter if memory is accurate? Thank you, M. Proust, for reminding me that I should focus on the nostalgic emotion of the remembered experience, not its verisimilitude.

I have removed my initial three-star rating for this and settled with a blank rating.

This is because I simply cannot, in any way, express what I truly want to say about this book using Goodreads stars. I initially gave it three stars due to my indecision. When I couldn't make up my mind, it seemed like a reasonable idea to just place my rating somewhere in the middle. However, the problem is that on Goodreads, three stars means "I liked it", which, unfortunately, is not the case for me. Two stars means "it was ok", but that's also not an accurate description of the genius that went into writing this.

Frankly, Proust is undeniably a genius. It doesn't matter whether you enjoy this book or think it meets the criteria for what makes a novel "good" or "enjoyable". I dare anyone to dispute the fact that Proust's work showcases the mind of someone with an innate gift for writing. For example, I personally think that football (or soccer) is one of the most boring things on the planet, but I still appreciate the skill and hard work of the players. Here, I read the Montcrieff translation, and translations are often a somewhat simplified version of the original work. But if that's true in this case, I pity and admire anyone who has had the courage to tackle the original. Montcrieff himself deserves a medal for so perfectly capturing Proust's deep complexity across languages.

And I want to make it clear that my dislike for this book isn't just because it's a challenge. I've read many challenging books and emerged on the other side with satisfaction and the urge to recommend them to others. However, I would hesitate before recommending this one. As I mentioned in a comment below, Tolstoy wrote a lengthy book because he had a long and epic story to tell, and it kept me hooked throughout. Proust, on the other hand, has written a seven-volume novel with over 4000 pages, and the reason it's so long is because he feels the need to describe every tiny speck of dust in intricate detail. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but only slightly.

In "Swann's Way", we are told how the furniture "smells", and things and objects that are completely irrelevant to the story get a whole page of description. Why? I can't see a good reason for it. He also has the habit of going on and on poetically about every simple little everyday action. I understand why some readers will love this beautiful exploration of the simplest things, but I don't. I care so little about these things he's talking about that I suddenly realize I've read a few pages without really taking in a single word. Which means you have to go back and start again, reigniting your headache.

These volumes are a challenge that people who prefer writing over story should strive to take on. Readers who appreciate the quality of writing and the literary technique are the ones who will devour Proust. I like a good story, and I don't like stories that get lost in a sea of prose and over-descriptiveness. If you're like me, then you will probably experience the same strange mixture of admiration for Proust's ability and disappointment that one of the often-cited "greatest novels of all time" just didn't do it for you.

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

I first came across Sir Einstein's profound observation over two decades ago. It was one evening after my study session when my father shared this quote with me. I was immediately struck by the uniqueness and expansiveness of this statement. For some wonderful reason, it has stayed with me ever since. As I grew up and had the privilege of reading world literature, my perspective broadened. I was no longer limited to seeing just a small part of the world, but could envision a universal landscape with mind-boggling implications across various historical, social, cultural, political, and emotional aspects. And gradually, but surely, I realized the truth in Sir Einstein's quote. Perhaps today, if someone were to ask me to prove this thought, I would unhesitatingly hand them this book and say, 'here is the proof'.

Looking back, everything seems to magnify. And when the lens of retrospection is named 'Marcel Proust', the magnified images reveal untamed beauty. Proust cast his net of observation over the turbulent sea of nostalgia and patiently gathered the shimmering philosophical pearls in small urns of beautiful expressions. Embellishing these urns with souvenirs from the French bourgeoisie society and sewing them delicately with indigenous threads, he set a high standard for all aspiring explorers.

In this momentous work, which resembled a sparse theatre with a lonely child and a compassionate lover, he gave priority to every prop and every emotion. The transformation of inanimate props into lyrical jewels occurs in such a natural and noiseless rhythm that as a spectator, one cannot help but be surprised and then filled with awe. In the reluctance of a room to shed its nocturnal skin, in the shyness of a bud to embrace its youth, in the insistence of trees to accompany a running carriage, and in the persistence of rain to block a springy day, hordes of artistic voices sing out their hearts, giving us a palpable slice of life.

\\n  "A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as if grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal: it was the rain."\\n

The young narrator and the mature M Swann, the two protagonists, present two different pictures painted from the same palette. Their possession of this mesmerizing and identical chord determines their reactions to negligence and rebuttal, indulgence and dismissal. Both are men who alternate between bounty and dullness like the two sides of a coin, who use distance and proximity as alternate ways to extend the term of love. Both love without regret, offering their hearts to be plucked like a harp until it breaks; both vow to blissful solitude, surrendering their memories to dissolve in its deep and vicious embrace. Both live to compose panegyrics for memories and perhaps both would willingly drown in them.

\\n  "The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years."\\n

Proust leaves me in a sparkling rivulet, promising to lead me to its larger counterparts in due time. He also assures me that the ingredients of life can, at most, be discolored but not toxic if cared for with an eye that sees beauty and forgiveness. Like an artist who finds contentment in creating a painting that justifies his own vision rather than seeking external validation, we too should smooth out the rough edges of life when they arise, without seeking an audience, and capture beauty whenever we see it.

He was a man who discovered beauty in everything, and who joyfully succumbed to the intoxication of drinking this elixir from every faucet of life. \\n  

"You are afraid of affection? How odd that is, when I go about seeking nothing else, and would give my soul to find it!"

\\n

I will summarize my opinion in the following points:

This is my third reading of the first part of the novel "In Search of Lost Time" also known as "Swann's Way" by the French writer Marcel Proust.

For the record: The novel consists of seven parts in total, 4215 pages, and one and a half million words.

Although Proust's sentences and paragraphs, as in previous times, amazed me with their extraordinary length (one paragraph of the novel is about 13 consecutive pages!), yet these sentences, lines, and paragraphs still have the same ability to make me withdraw from the real world, life, and daily routine that I live every minute and hour, to another land and another life that is more like a dream.

The dream, or the "dreamy nuance" that characterizes Proust's writings, does not come because he writes about characters from another world or planet, but because he writes about all the details of daily life that he lived in Paris, but he writes about these details as if they are living beings in the face of the winds of time that erode everything they encounter, especially the weakness and death of human memory.

I always tell my friends about the relationship between music and writing, and that there are writers and musicians that we can connect their writings and melodies in a strange and affectionate way.

In order for you to feel what I feel when I read Proust, you must listen to some music by the German Johann Sebastian Bach, specifically the piece of music below, and specifically listen to the music between minute 11.02 and minute 12.53.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpYUaR...

You will gradually discover that this work grows like a tree inside you, provided that you are patient, and with the succession of pages and long sentences that sometimes require overlooking their excessive verbosity, then this tree will turn into a garden.

The novel is long, its sentences are long, its paragraphs are long, and this gives it a long tongue that you can stick out whenever you want to make fun of and laugh at the age of speed, fast food, and fast literature that we live in.

There is a young European writer who wrote a book on this subject inspired by this novel, here are my references to it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

You will feel like a "specialist in French life" after you finish reading.

A real-life experience: Telling any French person that you have read this novel will make him look at you as a globally cultured and highly educated person, and he may even invite you to dinner at his house.

The Arabic translation of the first part is very excellent.

The next step: Reading the seventh part in its entirety according to the latest English translation that was published in 2002.

The preface of the book about Proust's life was very valuable to me, especially the mention of Proust's interest in the French philosopher "Henri Bergson", whose name is associated with "phenomenology". Since I don't know much about phenomenology, it is correct that for now I will not express an opinion or postpone my final opinion until after studying about phenomenology. Besides, who can give a final opinion on a work of Henri? Never! So what comes to my mind today about the first cover of this long novel, I will write it down.

Every moment of life can be expanded
How is it possible for a person, on the day of his wife's death, to suddenly look up at the sky and the beautiful clouds and say, "Oh, how beautiful life is!" How can drinking a cup of tea with a madeleine cake take a person back to his distant past? How can hearing a musical phrase in a sonata composed by an unknown composer become a haven for a person's amorous memories?

Yes, Proust's lesson is this: a flash of inspiration can pass by our vision, sight, and hearing, and an "expansion" can occur in a moment.

But how do we perceive the world with our senses? Can a scientific explanation of how light is reflected clarify our perception of the reflection of light on the towers of an old church? Surely not! We add something of our own to it, and all of Proust's efforts are to understand how the world appears to us:

"Those who are a bit nervous, like I was, have different gears for remembering the days. Some days are mountainous and difficult, and remembering them takes an extremely long time, while others are smooth, which can be passed with full speed and the voices of the chauffeurs behind."

"During the period when I was infatuated with Gilberte, I still believed that love truly exists outside of us; that, by raising our hands and giving ourselves the permission to push aside the obstacles, its joys have a hierarchy of values that we have no choice but to change..."

"My father and mother were of no use to that additional feeling of passing that 'love' for Gilberte had given me, and I would acquire an unknown quality in everything that Gilberte did, which was like the red thread among the colors among the feelings."

"Since I thought - in the order of female coquettishness - that beauty gives equal laws to hidden ones that women have surpassed and have the ability to produce it, the appearance of their dress, their hat, and a thousand other details that I believed in them like an inner spirit that gave that passing and marginal unity to a work of art, I would accept it in advance like a discovery..."

Nothing is "special"
Why can't we expand every moment of our lives and live all of our lives in the true sense of the word? In my opinion, Proust refers to two types of encounters with life and criticizes them. One is the type of encounter that is indifferent, ordinary, and daily, which the "Françoise", the relatively rough servant of the family, represents, and the other is the encounter of the snobs, which the people of the Guermantes circle represent, and perhaps above all, Madame Guermantes, who shows a highly theatrical reaction in the face of a piece of music:

"Mr. Guermantes: 'Who wants to upset him? Maybe Mr. Swann hasn't heard this empty sonata that we have heard; we want him to play his piano rendition for us.'

Madame Guermantes interrupted: 'No, no, not the sonata! I don't want to cry as much as I did the last time and get a cold and my muscles go out of order; no, thank you very much for this gift. But I don't want it anymore. You are all healthy, it is clear that you are not afraid of staying in bed for eight days like me!'"

She represents all the vices of a snob. She only deals with special things that it is impossible for everyone to understand all of their meaning and value. She considers the Ninth Symphony as the pinnacle of human art and claims that from the intensity of the impact of a piece of music, her condition may become bad for eight days, but she has no way to the soul of art. A page or two later, we hear Swann's account of his interest in a phrase from a sonata by Vinteuil, and then he tries to pass this shift and discovery between Madame Guermantes, but she says with a smile, "Such intrigues are not customary here!" She believes that knowing the sonata by Vinteuil as "special" is enough to understand the value of art, but she does not have the ability to make music a way for the expansion of her life.

As I mentioned, the windows of expansion of Anat's life are these six senses, which art, in particular, can guide the sense of perception and hearing very well. But considering that the most famous scene of the novel is the famous scene of the "madeleine cake", in my opinion, Proust shows the sense of sight and smell even to a higher degree:

"When nothing remains of the ancient past, after the death of people, after the destruction of things, only the smell and taste remain, which are more delicate but more tenacious, less material, more lasting and more faithful, for a long time, like the soul, they remain and remind, waiting, hopeful, above all other things, they remain and carry the great building of memory, tirelessly, on their few and more or less untouched particles."

Regarding the sense of perception, he points out the importance of "description", and in an important passage, when he discovers several towers of a church from his observation, he does not reveal this discovery until he takes a pen and provides a description of them. In the course of the descriptive narrative of the novel, it is full of similes! Yes, this is the familiar, ancient, and very powerful literary art:

"My walks in that autumn were especially dear to me, which I dedicated to them after several hours of reading. When everyone had spent the morning in the salon reading and I was already tired, I would put my hat on my head and go out: my body, which had been forced to remain motionless for a long time, but had stored the movement and speed of that period within itself, like a released spring, needed to spread all that energy in every direction..."

"And sometimes in the sky after noon, the moon, white like a thin cloud, furtive, hidden, passed by, like a game that has not yet reached its time to play and wants to, for a few minutes, with its ordinary attire and dress, without noise and without anyone knowing, watch the game of its friends from the living room..."

"For Swann, with the pleasure he got from music, the feeling that he had become like a single branch of a fictional animal story that enters the world only through the sense of hearing, instead of using his logical abilities in vain to understand an alien existence with an unseen humanity, was very comforting and had a new sense of mystery."

Well, for now, all my words are over.

I invite you to review some of the readable passages of the novel, which are generally indicative of the author's type of gaze in his attempt to expand every moment of life:

"Outside that park, the River Vienne regained its speed again. How many times I have seen the rowboat and wished that when I had control of my life, I would imitate it - that it had released its oars, fallen asleep at the bottom of the boat, and had dipped it in the water, seeing nothing but the sky that slowly passed above its head, and the taste of joy and purity was evident on its face."

"We were sitting by the river among the reeds. In the idle sky, the aimless cloud asked questions for a long time..."

"This belief that someone has an unseen life that we can access by closing our hearts to it is more important for love than all the conditions it has to appear, because if this is the case, it will pass easily from the others. Even women who claim that they do not judge a man except based on his appearance see a special way of life in this appearance. From this village that they like soldiers or firemen; they do not wear a uniform that they think will make them look tough..."

"In the house, my thoughts would go to other things, and in this way, my mind (like a room full of flowers that I had picked in my walks or things that had been given to me) would be filled with many things, a stone with a glittering reflection of light on it, the ceiling of a house, the sound of a bell, the smell of a leaf, various images that for a long time, under them, a felt reality that I had no foundation to dig and discover, was dead..."

"Authentic and innovative writers are those whose smallest imperfection is disturbing because they have not yet learned to win the reader's heart and give him what his taste is accustomed to eating..."

"The inability to engage in continuous, varied, and fruitful activity was so painful for him that one day, upon seeing a swelling on his abdomen, he was truly happy that he might have contracted a fatal disease and that he would no longer have to deal with anything. That after that disease, it reigned over him and made him its plaything until the end of his life."

"So, Swann's belief that the phrase of the sonata truly existed was not wrong. Although, from a human perspective, it belonged to a set of supernatural entities that we have never seen, but when a successful discoverer of the world manages to capture one of them and bring it with him from the world of the celestial to our sky for a few moments, we recognize it and become happy. This is what Vinteuil had done with his small phrase."

"Man, who always shows a single kindness in the face of those whom he does not want to pursue his misdeeds, cannot understand how those misdeeds, of which he is unaware of their eternal growth, gradually move away from the ordinary ways of his life."

"In the past, often out of the fear of the thought that one day Odette would no longer love him, he had promised himself to be wise, and when he felt that his love for her was leaving him, it would change in him and he would hold on to it. But now, along with the weakening of his love, his desire to remain in love was also fading. Because we cannot change, that is, become someone else, and still be slaves to the emotions of the previous person who we are no longer."

"In the order of the grades of beauty, I easily gave the first place to the aristocratic charm and elegance when I saw Madame Swann in a short, fur-lined coat, a small brimless hat trimmed with a swan feather, a bunch of violets on her chest, passing by the pedestrians on the street, as if the only way to reach her house was through that street, and with a wink, she would answer the horsemen who recognized her from a distance, greeted her, and said to themselves that no one was as stylish as her."

--

I wrote the above part in Esfand 98 and read the novel again this year and enjoyed it, and now in Dey 99, I am adding these few lines. It is a kind of behavior. It is a kind of attention.

It is not bad to also point out that "André Gide", who highly praised this work himself, describes his own life as a practical example of this kind of expansion towards all those beings in the book The Fruits of the Earth and the New Fruits. For example, he writes about the pleasure of eating an orange. And those famous lines about feeling the grass underfoot. Of course, Gide's work was written before this novel. We also see such an approach in the works of other European writers of this period. For example, in "The Razor's Edge" by Somerset Maugham. I just wanted to say that we are faced with an anti-rationalist approach that mercilessly criticizes the snobs and the aristocrats of art, and in this rereading, I understood that the father's encounter with Mr. Lograndin in the first chapter - which the author describes as "merciless" - represents this anti-elitist approach. Mr. Lograndin, as one of the aristocrats of the people of Grez, who does not want his refined taste to be contaminated by common tastes, constantly tries to give answers that are natural and artistic in his encounter with the father, and the father constantly forces him to "be clear" in his speech. It is a very beautiful scene.

PART I

Spoilers

For reasons that will soon become clear, my review doesn't center on the novel's plot but rather on its style and themes. If you wish to form your own connection with these aspects of the novel, it might be best to stop reading now. This is partly why I didn't pay much attention to the excellent discussion group at Proust 2013 before writing my review. “Swann’s Way” is one of the most personal books ever written, and I wanted to define my own relationship with it, unfiltered by others' insights. I desired my reading experience to be intimate and personal, not shared and social. Until now.

Apprehended by the Suspect

I must admit that before I bought and opened the book, I regarded Proust with more apprehension than any other novelist. 18 months prior, I overcame the intimidation of “Ulysses” and discovered the joys within. I felt my initial apprehension had cheated me of pleasure. It was like starting a relationship that could have begun six months earlier if only I'd had the courage. This time, I was determined not to be deterred, so I dived in when the reading schedule was announced. In hindsight, I think this was the only way to do it. Jump in, the water's not as cold as you expect. In fact, it's like a warm bath. You won't want to get out.

Sentenced to Life

The source of my apprehension was the length of sentences and paragraphs. People who know me know I write one-sentence paragraphs. No matter what you think of my sentences or paragraphs, no one has ever had to flip through several pages to see where they end. I didn't always write this way. In secondary school, I developed a large vocabulary and a love of etymology. We were taught that good writing involved showing off our vocabulary, hopefully used correctly. I abandoned this practice when I was exposed to lecturers with different views at university. Later, newspaper editors drilled single-sentence paragraphs into me. Voilà. Meanwhile, I read a lot of Dickens and Hardy, and by the end of school, I was obsessed with Henry James, which led to my (unfulfilled) ambition to become a diplomat and work in 19th-century Europe. This background shows that I'm not averse to a long sentence as long as it's well-used.

Ex Cathedra Sentences

Right now, I consider Proust the greatest architect of sentences ever. His sentences encapsulate a single, complete thought, like mine attempt to do, only my thoughts are like parish churches and his are cathedrals. I just want you to nod (or shake your head, disagree, and argue) when you read one of my sentences. Proust forces your eyes and mind to follow a sentence as it reaches upwards to the spire of his vision. His sentences are not just tools of communication; they are architectural constructs that inspire awe and wonder. They take life and love and build a monument to them that will last through the ages, like architects before him built monuments to the belief in God. His sentences don't just convey meaning; they perpetuate meaning and beauty into perpetuity. Proust launched the most concerted effort to make the ephemeral eternal. Previously, this task was attempted by painters. Only now, when you see the damage to some artworks in the Louvre, do you realize the foresight of his choice of creative medium. People will read Proust until, at least, the temperature reaches Fahrenheit 451.

”From Marvel to Marvel”

If every sentence is a cathedral and every cathedral is a marvel, then the novel as a whole is a gallery, a galaxy of marvels. So much so that Genet could witness it and say, "Now, I'm tranquil, I know I'm going to go from marvel to marvel." I cite Genet not just to mention the marvel but to highlight the tranquility. Proust’s sentences calmed me, like a warm bath or a gentle sea. He immersed me in a sea of tranquility, a “Mare Tranquillitatis”. Proust lulled me. First, he rocked me, then he lulled me. Ultimately, he sang me a lullaby. Proust engendered tranquility in me.

Observations of a Ladies’ Man

I was worried I would react negatively to Proust. How would I, a male, react to a novel that seemingly lacked a hero, action, a battle and a victory, a seduction and a conquest? How would I react to Proust’s effeminacy? His apparent understanding of the feminine and oversight of the masculine? Moreover, was Proust just a gossip, as Edmund White put it, a “Yenta” (the Yiddish word for a female gossip)? Proust was in a unique position to document the affairs of a bourgeoisie that didn't have to work, that had inherited wealth and could survive by managing its securities and investments. In Veblen's words, it was a leisure class, and Proust’s mission was to document its leisure activities. In “Swann’s Way”, the main leisure activity is love and sex. Would it be fair to say that most men couldn't write a 440-page novel about love and/or sex? Or that the sex life of many men might not even add up to 440 minutes in their entire lifetime? To that extent, Proust understands love and sex like only a woman can.

Observations of a Man's Lady

If my interpretation is correct, then Proust deserves a large female audience. Yet, what puzzles me is that Proust, at least in this volume, only presents the male perspective, never the female's. I read the novel as a male, and during “Swann in Love” I inevitably identified with Charles Swann. All the way through, I thought, “That is so me! (I hope none of my friends guess.)” However, how will a woman react to “Swann in Love”? Do they, like me, identify with Swann? Or do they identify with Odette? Is there an antagonism between the genders? Does Proust call on us to take sides? Or does he take the side of love? Is the gender of each lover irrelevant as long as there is love? Must our perspective on love have a gender? Isn't it enough to foster love? Anyway, I wanted to know what was going on in Odette’s mind. As a first-person narrator, “Marcel” knew far too much about Swann’s inner life and too little about Odette’s. I wanted (and still want) to know what women think. Is that so unreasonable? Or is it too reasonable?

PART II

Helmet Cam-bray

The first chapter, Part I of "Combray", is 49 pages long and deals with the narrator's childhood in a home that also houses his grandmother and two aunts. Over the past couple of years, there have been a few books, most notably Murakami's "1Q84", where I started using the term "helmet cam" to describe the narrative. Although it was presumably constructed and edited by an author, it still gave the impression that a helmet cam was seeing everything in front of it, without any editorial cutting or rearrangement. It saw everything, recorded everything, and passed it all on to us. Normally, a helmet cam can't see the face of the person wearing it. Thus, it sees everything from the wearer's perspective. In "Swann's Way", the verbal description is so vivid and precise that we see the narrator himself. The Subject is also the Object. The Subject is its own Object. At least until he discovers M. Swann. Up until then, the narrator is like a juvenile crustacean, slowly building a shell but not quite there yet. He is sensitive, even overly sensitive, soft, fleshy, pink, much to the masculine disgust of his father and the embarrassment of his mother. Yet the helmet cam focuses on every element of his sensitivity and emerging sensibility. He is almost too sensitive for this world, yet he is highly attuned to its charms. He does nothing but observe, imagine, remember, and write. Like a helmet cam, however, he gives the impression that neither he nor anyone else has edited him. This is the narrator's mind recording time and place with no one pressing the pause button. Sentences and paragraphs are irrelevant to this narrative. Each paragraph is as long as an attention span requires. Only when his attention flags does the narrator need to pause and restart. Each paragraph is almost like a can of film. It captures life until there is no film left. Then you remove the film and put in a new reel. And we're off again on another flight of the mind.

The Awakening of the Author as a Young Man

The first section of the novel begins in bed and ends in bed, a cocoon, a comfort zone. The narrator is a child, still very much attached to his mother and the comfort of her love, and thus prone to separation anxiety. His experience of life depends solely on her and is therefore restricted by her, a woman. Only if he overcomes his anxiety can he venture out into the world to discover the love of others. This is a period of intense sensations and associations. It's here that Proust develops his concept of involuntary memory, an association of memories with physical sensations common to the past and the present. The act of soaking a petite madeleine in a cup of lime-blossom tea evokes powerful memories: "I feel something quiver in me, shift, try to rise, something that seems to have been unanchored at a great depth...and suddenly the memory appeared...the immense edifice of memory." The narrator describes the sensation as a "delicious pleasure". It makes "the vicissitudes of life unimportant", the brevity of time illusory: "...acting in the same way that love acts, by filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not merely inside me, it was me..." Much of the analysis of Proust focuses on the mechanism of involuntary memory. However, it's equally important, if not more so, to recognize the analogy with the workings of love. Love is an intensity of sensation. We detect everything more sensitively. We preserve it and recall it. We remember all the details of our relationship: where we met our lover, our first words, our first kiss, our first correspondence. So when Proust describes madeleines and tea, he also alludes to the precious essence of love. He is not just writing about the psychology of perception and memory; he is investigating, in a way no one had before him, the essence of the gaze, desire, lust, and love. Each moment recalled by involuntary memory is a moment in love.

The Semiotics of Desire

Over the course of the novel, both Proust and the narrator compile a list of qualities that recognize, recall, or "magnetize" desire. The narrator refers not just to madeleines and tea but also to light, perfume (or fragrance), and color. To this list, Swann adds music. He is captivated by a piece of music by the (fictitious) composer, Vinteuil. Every time he hears it, he is reminded of his love for Odette. In the last section, the narrator summarizes: "From then on, only sunlight, perfumes, colours seemed to me of any value; for this alternation of images had brought about a change in direction in my desire, and – as abrupt as those that occur now and then in music – a complete change of tone in my sensibility... For often, in one season, we find a day that has strayed from another and that immediately evokes its particular pleasures, lets us experience them, makes us desire them, and interrupts the dreams we were having by placing, earlier or later than was its turn, this leaf detached from another chapter, in the interpolated chapter of Happiness." Later, the narrator refers to "the highest sort of immediate happiness, the happiness of love". To be in love is to be happy. To love is human, to be loved is divine. These ideas are brought together in the discussion of place names: "I needed only, to make them reappear, to pronounce those names – Balbec, Venice, Florence – in the interior of which had finally accumulated the desire inspired in me by the places they designated. Words present us with little pictures of things, clear and familiar, like those that are hung on the walls of schools to give children an example of what a workbench is, a bird, an anthill, things conceived of as similar to all others of the same sort. But names present a confused image of people – and of towns, which they accustom us to believe are individual, unique like people – an image which derives from them, from the brightness or darkness of their tone, the colour with which it is painted uniformly, like one of those posters, entirely blue or entirely red, in which, because of the limitations of the process used or by the whim of the designer, not only the sky and the sea are blue or red, but the boats, the church, the people in the streets."

PART III

Swann’s Way

In the first section of the novel, Proust presents the narrator with two alternative ways of traversing the countryside: the Meseglise way and the Guermantes way. These "ways" come to symbolize the alternative approaches to life and love: "...so the Meseglise way and the Guermantes way remain for me linked to many of the little events of that life which, of all the various lives we lead concurrently, is the most abundant in vicissitudes, the richest in episodes, I mean our intellectual life." Much has been said about the alternative translations of the novel and its title. However, for me, “Swann’s Way” doesn't just represent a valid linguistic option; it hints at the way that the story of Swann’s love in the heart of the novel represents a way or method of loving that becomes an option or choice available to the narrator. In short, the novel is concerned with Swann’s way of loving and what can be learned from it. I don't think this is conveyed by a translation of the title as "The Way by Swann’s", which seems to focus on the geographical path rather than the metaphysical one.

Swann in Love

The centerpiece of the novel is the second section, “Swann in Love”. While narrated by the same character (Marcel?), it reveals a wealth of personal detail about Swann’s mental processes that only a third-person omniscient narrator could know. This quibble aside, the section is probably my favorite literary analysis of any particular character trait, in this case, the capacity for love and jealousy, which in Proust’s hands are two sides of the same coin. We witness the relationship between Swann and Odette transition through first meeting, flirtation, lust, consummation, self-doubt, suspension, reconciliation, suspicion, jealousy, oscillation, irritation, agitation, indifference, torment, unhappiness, despair, estrangement, and cessation. She has a reputation as a courtesan or kept woman, yet Swann, just as much a philanderer, falls madly in love with her. In the words of the narrator in a different context (that of Gilberte), they are “sister souls”. Witness what the equally flirtatious Odette says in her letters: "My dearest, my hand is trembling so badly I can hardly write." (This letter, Swann keeps in a drawer with a dried chrysanthemum flower.) "If you had forgotten your heart here too, I would not have let you take it back." "At whatever hour of the day or night you need me, send word and my life will be yours to command."

”Making Cattleyas”

Proust is relatively discreet about the physical consummation of the relationship. It becomes sexual, although we're not told how soon or for how long. Nor are we told why the two lovers fall out, only that Swann starts to feel jealous of other real or imagined companions. Just as words and sensations have significance for the characters, Swann and Odette develop a code for their assignations. They describe sex as “making cattleyas”, an expression that refers to the orchids that were present at the time of their first mutual seduction. So, ultimately, it's clear that we're dealing with not just love but love and sex intertwined.

Love and Jealousy

Proust shows a remarkable understanding of the flip sides of love and jealousy: "...what we believe to be our love, or our jealousy, is not one single passion, continuous and indivisible. They are composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, which are ephemeral but by their uninterrupted multitude give the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity. The life of Swann’s love, the faithfulness of his jealousy, were formed of the death, the faithlessness, of numberless desires, numberless doubts, all of which had Odette as their object… The presence of Odette continued to sow Swann’s heart with affection and suspicion by turns."

Love is Space and Time Measured by the Heart

Proust persists with the language of involuntary memory throughout the novel, only he extends it to both time and space. Time passes, and the reality we once knew no longer exists. Similarly, "the places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience." It is the task of memory to revive time and space (and therefore love) that might otherwise be lost. Our minds work like a filing cabinet of memories. Each memory is: "...a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years." Conversely, time and space are lost to the extent that they are not preserved by memory. Just as “Ulysses” is Joyce’s attempt to record and preserve an Odyssey through 20th-century Dublin, “Swann’s Way” is Proust’s attempt to perpetuate moments in love, so that we who come after him may better understand love and, in turn, experience better love, as well as perpetuate and remember our own love.

SOUNDTRACK:

Art of Noise – "(Moments in) Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co-whUj6hf8

Erik Satie - "Trois Gymnopédies"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7DBoiyBoJ8

Francis Poulenc - "Melancholie"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG_pMHOF8ME

Claude Debussy - "Golliwogg's Cakewalk"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMrdhgWR9Zk

Gabriel Fauré - "Pavane Op.50" (Du coté chez Proust)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTiOut7rBdQ

Cesar Franck - "The Little Phrase"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKxXWPcV3d8

Jorge Arri

In the search for lost time, one must read in silence and seclusion. One must be alone with oneself and become attached to the words that were probably written in silence. In the search, a great void of a book...an endless cracking of everything. Time passes slowly and people are lazy, but if you look at them from a Proustian perspective, you will see things that you have never noticed before. The elegance of people...our creations...the trees...the flow of thoughts one after another...Although reading it is very slow, I am not behind in reading it, and perhaps one day I will read its French or English version because I know that there are always weaknesses in the translation.

Proust taught me how to listen more precisely to the voice of my thoughts. :)