Swann's Way does not, by any means, possess a plethora of plot. In fact, it has very little plot to speak of. Let's establish that right from the start. If your inclination is towards a story that is driven by a complex and engaging plot, then this is not the book for you. You should look elsewhere. What this remarkable work does instead is to loop in and around specific topics, both in the narrator's life and in the life of Swann. It delves into these topics with such meticulous and minute detail, presented in flowing prose that seamlessly transitions from one moment to the next, continuously looping around the events under consideration. And it must be emphasized that the writing is exquisitely beautiful.

Note: The remainder of this review has been withdrawn in accordance with the recent alterations in Goodreads' policy and enforcement. You can gain an understanding of the reasons behind my decision here.

In the interim, you have the option to peruse the entire review at Smorgasbook.

This is one of those books that had remained completely off my radar until I joined Bookface. I had a passing acquaintance with the name "Proust" and the word "madeleines," but that was about it. I confess I'd always muddled Proust with Borges in my mind, thinking of them both as authors I'd never read with names I wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce. However, more recently, based on people's reviews on Bookface, this novel has developed a certain allure in my imagination.

Last night, as fate would have it, I noticed that my roommate had a copy of it on her bookshelf. Driven by some idle and perhaps slightly morbid curiosity, I picked it up, fully expecting it to be as dreadful as I had imagined. But to my utter surprise, so far (I'm only on page 26), this book is truly AMAZING. Reading the first few pages was an experience akin to doing yoga, but in a unique, turn-of-the-last-century French style, which is infinitely more appealing than the ordinary kind. Beginning this book is like stepping into someone else's half-awakened mind. It's really cool!

Perhaps the only potential drawback I can see at this point is the knowledge that it's supposed to be the start of a million and a quarter page novel. That's a rather daunting thought. However, taken on its own, this particular installment seems surprisingly awesome. But let's be honest, I'm not exactly known for my patience, especially when it comes to reading. So, we'll just have to wait and see how long this infatuation lasts.

Anyway, it has a very promising beginning. Now, of course, I'm eagerly waiting for the ACTION to start. Stay tuned!

Memory is a slippery little sucker. It is an elusive and transient cache of data. The reliability of memory decreases as the time it has been stored increases. It can even be a blatant liar. How often have we been convinced of the details of a particular memory, only to have those details questioned by new testimony? It is almost frightening how quickly and naturally the bytes of our mind can be removed and replaced by more convenient ones, ones that soothe our psyche and allow us to live at peace with ourselves.

Marcel Proust was not a psychologist, but his understanding of the fluidity of memory, especially involuntary memory, was remarkable. Although we believe that a person or place from our past remains stationary in our minds while its real-life counterpart changes and progresses, Proust shows us that memory can have a life of its own. When his narrator bites into that famous piece of sponge cake and is transported back to his French childhood, we willingly go along, not questioning the accuracy or validity of his musings. Because in Proust's world, it is the insights into human nature, memory, social customs, relationships, and more that make the journey worthwhile.

The best part of Swann’s Way is the intricate portrayal of the relationship between Swann and Odette. Their relationship is doomed from the start, based on superficialities and becoming increasingly toxic. However, the toxicity does not invalidate the love Swann has for Odette. For those who have been in such a relationship, the realistic portrayal is astonishing. For those who have witnessed a friend in such a relationship, the recognizable signs of toxicity are also striking, and it reminds us of how easily we might have said, “I wonder why he doesn’t just leave her and move on with his life?”

This book really impressed me. Despite the difficulties I expected in reading Marcel Proust, I was pleasantly surprised by its readability. Besides the perfectly constructed sentences, what I enjoyed most was the number of passages that so exquisitely peeled away the complicated layers of the human condition, exposing its unadulterated innards. Having started In Search of Lost Time in ignorance, I have no idea what to expect next, but part of me wonders if “Swann in Love” is meant to foreshadow a similar relationship between the narrator and Gilberte. We'll have to wait and see.

          Main Review Page for In Search of Lost Time

As Flavor Flav repeats over and over again in the similarly titled song, "Don't believe the hype".

After a couple of books by James Joyce, Proust's novels have gained the reputation of being unduly difficult and rest at the top of the heap of unread but much admired books published in the last hundred years. Why is this so? Is it because of the common (depending on what circles you move in, a guess) knowledge of it being a million words? Is it because it's French? Is it because it has been grouped with Joyce as being towards the high end of high modernism? Why?

Last week when I decided to make this my end of summer read, I figured I was in for a slightly painful read that I'd get through and then feel good about myself for doing, because it built character or at least gave me some kind of bragging rights over having read it. I expected something akin to Henry James at his most unbearable, long sentences filled with subordinate clauses that reflected back on themselves and made every long and arduous sentence a feat in itself to even understand. I figured there would be that and maybe even the need for some secondary literature help, like I needed with reading Ulysses to understand what was going on. I thought I would feel slightly dumb reading it.

However, I was wrong.

Swann's Way was nothing of the sort. Instead of being a difficult read, it was actually a very fun, and I might even go as far as saying a delightful book. From the structure of the book that works like a piece of classical music, with recurring'melodies' and motifs, which bring unexpected associations in the book (much in the same way that the novel Magnetic Field(s) is ultimately so satisfying for me); to the astute and comical social interactions. Proust's dismantling of turn of the century the French Bourgeoisie and their pretensions aren't different at all from what could be said of today's say hipsters. Change the reference points and you could easily be overhearing an unintentionally amusing conversation coming from a group of Williamsburg douche bags.

Granted this book isn't an easy read, but it's no more difficult than a lot of other authors. It's easier than Joyce, or Conrad. For being a look at turn of the century society, it's much more satisfying than anything I've read by James. It's actually closest to reading either of L.P. Hartley's classics.

Good literature, and a second book from the past couple of months that just might have dethroned one of my top five books of all time.

In "Swann's Way," Proust presents a complex exploration of love and its various manifestations. The story weaves together themes of art, relationships, and the human condition. Love and destruction seem to be forces that come to us unbidden, and yet the narrator questions this inevitability. Proust's characters view life through the lens of art, whether it's books, paintings, or music. This self-reflexivity adds depth to the story and makes it resonate with readers today.

The narrator's own experiences, such as his Oedipal relationship with his parents and his passion for the invented author Bergotte, are intertwined with the larger narrative. Swann, too, uses art as a touchstone for life, justifying a woman's beauty by association with paintings. However, his relationship with Odette becomes a source of both joy and pain, embodied in the little phrase from M. Vinteuil's sonata.

The book also delves into the idea of snobbery and how we all have our own preferences and prejudices. Proust's characters are not immune to this, and the narrator defends Proust against accusations of snobbery. The inclusion of the Marcel gchats adds a lighthearted and modern touch to the review, showing the narrator's friend Marcel as a complex and humorous character.

Overall, "Swann's Way" is a rich and rewarding read that invites readers to reflect on their own experiences of love, art, and life. Proust's writing is both beautiful and profound, and his exploration of the human psyche is both insightful and thought-provoking.

(Painting of Swann, by David Richardson)

As a boy, Marcel lies down to sleep, and his mind drifts. He hears the creaks in the house, the ticking of a clock.

I remember those creaks too. At times, they would remind me of ghosts and send shivers down my spine.

Over the years, I have read the first part of this book several times. But for some reason, I would always stop at a certain place and put the book down. Years later, I would pick it up again and start from the beginning, only to put it down once more.

The first few pages of this book always transport me back to my own childhood. Lying in bed, I would never think of having to go to sleep. I would listen to the sounds, just like Marcel. For me, it was the neighbors' dogs barking and the train that came through the edge of town every night, blowing its whistle. Oh, how I miss those sounds.

In the summer, I could hear the crickets chirping. During the day, I would lie in our field of wild grasses, poppies, and bachelor buttons, and listen to the twin-engine planes fly overhead. On rainy nights, I could hear a mouse chewing on the wood under my bedroom. But I only imagined it was a mouse, as I never saw it. Every time it rained, I also heard the water flowing under the house.

But on the worst stormy nights, my brother would change rooms with me, and I would sleep out on his coveted screened-in porch. It was then that I could truly listen to the sounds of the night, with my cat and dog lying on top of the blankets while I snuggled underneath.

This time, I promised myself that I would finish the book. But as I read past page fifteen, I found myself somewhat irritated with Marcel. He wasn't having a peaceful time listening to the night sounds like I thought. Instead, he couldn't sleep because he needed his mother to come up to his room and kiss him goodnight. Once, he even sent down a letter to her because she was taking too long. I realized that I couldn't understand his problem, but I thought of possible solutions.

Then there was the scene with the madeleines. His aunt brought him tea and petit madeleines, and they brought back memories to him, just as the first few pages had done for me.

“And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings, when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea…And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in the decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me, immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set…and with the house the town….the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine…the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.”

And in time, I went back to the beginning of this book but put it down before the scene with the petit madeleines. I thought, I just can't read this book as I promised myself I would. Yet, on some nights when I can't sleep, as it has been in my old age, I will pick up this book and begin reading it again. I will once again remember the dogs barking, the train whistle, and that wonderful old screened-in front porch that I took over once my brother left home for college.

Months later, I took the book back up again, with my promise to finish reading it. This time, I skipped the last few chapters of the first chapter, Combray I, because I didn't want to hear about Marcel's obsession with his mother.

I read about the women peasants wearing cloaks to mass and how they dipped their fingers into the Holy Water. Then I read his descriptions of the quiet beauty of the church, and it took me back to my school years. My friend Mary and I used to stop at the Catholic Church after school, and she taught me how to dip my own fingers into the Holy Water and make the sign of the cross. That is, until one day when we were chased out of the church by a woman, perhaps a maid. I was accused of splashing Holy Water on the floor one day when she saw me in the church. This was something I had not done. And then I thought of how over my long life, I have been accused of doing things that had never crossed my mind. But to this day, I still remember those injustices, although they no longer sting.

I thought of the scene with the Madeleine’s and wondered if I had passed it over this time. So I went back to the first chapter and read the last few pages where I had left off. After two pages, the scene with the madeleines came up. His aunt had offered him petit madeleines dipped in lime-blossom tea. When he tasted the crumbs of the madeleines, it brought him an all-powerful joy, a feeling of transcendence, an unknown state that brought him no proof of its existence, except that it was there and all other states of consciousness had stopped existing. And then the memories of his life poured into his consciousness, days of walking down the streets, running errands, memories of his boyhood, memories that brought him both happiness and sorrows. And as I read these pages, I thought of how wonderful transcendental experiences can be and how delightful those madeleines would taste dipped in lime blossom tea.

So, I purchased the tea and the madeleines, both to be delivered. I will be trying them as I continue to read this book. Then one night, I dreamed of receiving the tea in the mail. But when I opened it up, it looked like ordinary tea leaves with sprinklings of green lime tree leaves. Only these leaves were small and looked like dainty cilantro leaves. And then the following day, I received the lime blossom tea, and a couple of days later, the madeleines. The tea, made by Octavia, was delicious. As I dunked the almond-flavored madeliene in the tea, I understood why he liked this combination. Although it wasn't for me, I would buy the tea again, but not the little sponge cake madelines. I looked at the package of tea, and it didn't look like it was real lime blossoms. The package read: lemongrass, calendula petals, lemon myrtle, rose extract, essential oils of lime, orange, tangerine, and jasmine flowers. Oh, but this tea is the elixir of the gods. Still, it is not lime blossom tea, so I purchased the tea called Linden Blossom, and it too came in the mail. I made a pot of it. It tasted like an herbal medicine and not a good one at that. Perhaps what Marcel drank was more like the Octavia tea.

Marcel's days of remembrance continued with his walking down the streets of Combray, running errands. This brought back my own memories of running errands. I thought of how my sister, our babysitter, would write notes to her friend down the street and ask me to take them to her and wait for her reply. I disliked doing this, and I supposed I disliked being asked to go to the corner grocery store with yet a different kind of note. Sometimes, I kicked a tin can on the way to the store, but I was always followed by my dog, who would then sit outside of the store waiting for my return. And then on some days, I would walk to school through the alleys and get to see people’s backyards, their flowers, and the beauty of it all. I miss this walk, but it has been many years, and so I suppose it has all changed.

The chapter had soon ended, and I took up where I left off in the book, at the end of mass. He had described the steeple, much like a painting: “And on one of the longest walks we took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly onto an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire’s steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seems to be no more than sketched on the sky by the fingernail of a painter.”

Once more, I was filled with boredom over his reminisces, so I lost track of my own time. How can a book be filled with such beautiful descriptions and then be bogged down with such tedious memories? Then I picked it up with a freshened mind and realized that you had to read it as a piece of art and not just as a novel.

It picked up when he went to visit his uncle, who was entertaining an actress at his home. While noticing that his uncle wore his same jacket as on other days, he noticed the actress who wore “a pink silk dress with a great necklace of pearls about her throat.” She was just finishing a tangerine, and he fell in love with her at that moment. He knew that she was immoral, as actresses always were noted to be back then. And yet, her behavior was elegant, the same as other ladies he had seen who had visited his family. What could be more beautiful and elegant than silk and pearls?

Then he spoke of his garden with such beautiful, descriptive words, like an artist with a paintbrush. He sees everything that I seldom would. He stated that we don't need a change of scenery; we just need to learn to really see. I wish I could see as he does, but I know I never will. So while he spends time reading under one of the trees in this garden, I sit on my back porch in my moss green wicker chair on its floral pillows and read on warm summer days.

I remember the Hawthorn trees, the pink blossoms, and how much Marcel had loved them. And I understand why. I wished to buy one when I moved here to Oklahoma, but the nurseries did not carry them. Perhaps I will get one online and have it delivered.

When I had left Berkeley, I moved to the Oakland hills for a while. My landlords lived on the same property, and I had the little cottage. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Noble. I believe his wife was named Gertrude. They were from England, and she loved Charles Dickens and had antique books. When she died, she gave them to a college. She had also written a book on birds and gave me a copy. I wish that I had kept it now. It could have been published in England because I can't find it used.

Anyway, they had a pink hawthorn tree, and I thought that it was the most beautiful tree that I had ever seen. Tiny rose-like flowers collected on one bloom, everywhere. Just as Proust loves hawthorns, so do I. And just as he loved lime blossom tea, I do as well and changed to it from green tea grown in the Chinese high mountains. But I don't share his love for madeleines.

It is raining, and Marcel is taking shelter under the trees. The peace of the rain warms his heart. Today, where I live, it is also raining. I am carried peacefully back to the time of my own youth when I was 8-years old, living on a farm in Templeton, CA. I was taking a walk around the farm when it began to rain. I found a cardboard box and climbed inside for shelter, just as Marcel had taken shelter under a tree. Like him, I felt such peacefulness in doing this, so much that I have never forgotten it. Just as I have never forgotten the time that I was visiting my brother Bill, and his daughter Rebecca and I took a walk along the forest road when it began to rain. We found some large leaves that covered our heads and continued our way home. These moments in time make up a lifetime of good memories, making life worthwhile even though sometimes filled with sorrows, such as the death of my brother. To have known him as a childhood playmate and a lifelong protector has meant the world to me. And as I continued to read, I saw that Marcel was also using this moment to speak of his own aunt’s death, what she meant to him, and how the color of one’s clothing does not represent the amount of mourning that one experiences.

“We would come down to the Mall, among whose trees I could see the steeples of Saint-Hilaire, and I would have liked to be able to sit down and spend the whole day there, reading and listening to the bells.” How often church bells or any kind of bells have been relaxing to me. There was a time when churches would ring their bells during the day, but that time is mostly gone. Church bells in Celaya, Mexico still ring on-and-off all day, bringing pleasure to one’s soul. Whether you are a believer or not, bells touch us all. ~~~The End

Book Circle Reads 145

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Penguin really skimped on this one. Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is an incredibly entertaining reading experience in any language and is arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. However, since its original prewar translation, there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics is bringing Proust's masterpiece to new audiences worldwide, starting with Lydia Davis's internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann's Way. The Modern Library does a more creditable job of selling. Swann's Way tells two related stories. The first one centers around Marcel, a younger version of the narrator, and his experiences and memories in the French town of Combray. Inspired by the "gusts of memory" that surface as he dips a Madeleine into hot tea, the narrator discusses his fear of going to bed at night. He is a creature of habit and dislikes waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where he is. He claims that people are defined by the objects around them and must piece together their identities bit by bit each time they wake up. The young Marcel is so nervous about sleeping alone that he looks forward to his mother's goodnight kisses but also dreads them as a sign of an impending sleepless night. One night, when Charles Swann, a friend of his grandparents, is visiting, his mother cannot come kiss him goodnight. He stays up until Swann leaves and looks so sad and pitiful that even his disciplinarian father encourages "Mamma" to spend the night in Marcel's room.

My Review: There is truly nothing I can add to the countless volumes of verbiage-covered e-inked cyberpaper that discuss the merits and demerits (yes, there are some) of this book. I'm not overly interested in engaging in right-versus-wrong debates about books. A review is simply an opinion. My opinion of this book is that it contains luminously lovely sentences, as re-rendered by the outstanding artist Lydia Davis. These sentences wrap themselves in sinuous, supple, and sueded strands around one's neurons, creating new pathways that could never have existed without these almost unbearably mannered, overripe, narcotically slowly orgasmic images and sensations related in smooth sentences of subtle, complex, resonant crystal chiming language. It's a reading experience that is both captivating and unforgettable.

\\n  \\n
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" is a remarkable work that has been both lauded and overlooked. It is often said that it is the most famous and least read French novel, which is truly unfortunate. This novel is a memoir in disguise, filled with Proust's amazing insights into the human condition. The first volume, "Swann's Way," begins with the famous incident of the taste of a Madeleine and tea, which reawakens the narrator's childhood memories. Proust explores themes such as love, jealousy, and the power of dreams. His writing is detailed and nuanced, requiring a patient reader. In my first encounter with Proust, I learned that love can be painful and drive us to do crazy things. Whether it's romantic or familial, love is something we all crave, and when denied, our world can come crashing down. Proust's work is a testament to the complexity of the human experience and is well worth the read for those willing to invest the time.

Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.
Swann's Way ~~~ Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust incarcerates moments, recalls lives, hunts for states, develops personalities, changes the forms of art, so that the sensitivity of the senses can survive, which give birth to memories, writing miles away from the cemeteries of the resurrection of forgetfulness.

In an early dreamlike stratosphere of grandeur, he does something astonishingly original and magnificent.

He marks it with the meaning of life, which discovers a new theory of reality and steps on scandals in the search for lost time!!

I recommend that you surrender to the supreme gift of Proust.

In no way is this an incredibly difficult work that requires special abilities and talented skills to be read.

It is a journey through time that requires the ticket of the senses and drives away the stowaways who are carried with tickets of thought of present events and baggage of past fantasies.

The passengers on Proust's journey are required to understand that with him they incarcerate moments and live with memories that build the dreams of the present.

We search for the lost time that ultimately is not lost, when the memories and remembrances of the past return to our memory and fall in love with our dreams, the forgotten ones.

In fact, the entire first part, the first of the seven books of the search, "Swann's Way", familiarizes us with ideas of self-dialogue about the love of ourselves, as do all forms of dialogue.

However, paradoxically, it is written with a style of unity with the present, the story of some endless, sick and destructive love.

The insatiable longing is emphasized, a passionate, obsessive longing, for some existence or some experience that we cannot have and is similar to self-rejection.

It becomes strongly perceptible to the readers, both through the efforts of Swann and our little narrator to recreate previous moments of joy, as well as through their hopes for future pleasures, recalling the past or beyond the future, instead of appreciating the time and the moment that gives them life and is available NOW.

Thus, they are enclosed in a magical evaluation of degrees of unhappiness and self-pity.

Through Swann's destructive desire for a long-lasting, deviated love that tires and dissolves its victim, Proust gives us with great love a lesson, a commented masterpiece document on how not to love...

How beautifully allegorical and metaphorical this comment of his becomes. How unyielding and gentle the lesson that he gives us the painful reality so that we do not let ourselves be wronged through reflections that are willfully blind in front of betrayed experiences.

I don't know if I can explain it more understandably, but I think that Proust's language strategy desperately tries to keep us in the moment that is lost in the worldly details and the events that change us.

He does not ask us to experience disappointment, impressions, happiness, he asks us to feel life itself under these simplified feelings, the very reality of existence.

Through the search for lost time that simply and easily opens the door for us to a new world, we live a transcendent reading experience.

This world is absolutely convincing but also absolutely cluttered with amazing and perfectly characterized characters, heroes full of knowledge about what it means to be human, even if the human who writes it suffers from every form of neurosis and hypersensitivity as well as desires for unconscious personal preferences.

Proust captures with words and expresses with thoughts, words that express exactly what is happening in the mind of each character in his work.

We can identify ourselves in more than a hundred similar aspects of our lives.

He enters into unfathomable depths of memory up to the point of self-deception, narcissism, the orthodoxy of obsessions, one-sided, elastic love, and the desire for the insatiable, to a degree of addiction.

A warm, sweet, fragrant cookie. A holy sweet. The dreamlike Madeleine cake together with a cup of scented tea becomes a rational time machine that wakes up the past.

A man who strives to connect with the meaning of his life and discovers a new manifestation for the search for time.

Time here is not traditionally linear, it is connected with everything that does not go back.

But in reality, a genuine French delicacy can subjugate it in moments of urgent existence.

Against or in partnership with people, places, lovers, friends, art, music, the now indifferent critical society that we allow to influence our lives.

Proust's path is unsurpassable, not so much by talent as by self-confidence.

No one can shake the feeling that the search for lost time gives and leads to an absolute written work on what it means to live.

Existence within ourselves in all forms (love, beauty, other self, but also our own), is the theme that Proust promotes, without knowing when writing what plot, beginning, middle, end, literary techniques and practice mean.

There is no specific structural framework, there is a collection of sensations, memories and aspirations to live, not just to exist.

**Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time Volume I)**

This work, "Swann's Way", is the first volume of the renowned "In Search of Lost Time" series. It presents a detailed exploration of the narrator's memories and experiences. The story delves into the complex web of relationships, emotions, and the passage of time. It offers a profound look at the human psyche and the power of memory.

Note on the Translation (1981)
Note (1992) These notes provide valuable insights into the translation process and any subsequent revisions or clarifications made over the years. They add an extra layer of context to the text, helping readers better understand the nuances and interpretations.

Notes
Synopsis The synopsis likely offers a brief summary of the main events, characters, and themes in "Swann's Way". It serves as a guide for readers, giving them an overview of what to expect before delving into the full text. Overall, this volume is a rich and engaging piece of literature that continues to captivate readers with its beautiful prose and deep exploration of the human condition.

"When one is in love one has no love left for anyone"

This was an enchanting piece of writing, consisting of long and flowing sentences. It expressed, in a rather melancholic tone, the various discomforts and follies associated with love. However, the descriptions of the awkwardness of love were balanced out by the settings of the stories, which were set in the comforting and vividly描绘 landscapes of Normandy and Paris.

Proust's Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1 presents itself as an impressionistic portrayal of his autobiography. It is triggered by his involuntary memory and guided by the deeply engraved and everlasting impressions of his bittersweet past experiences. These experiences are all intertwined with a sense of nostalgia for the very same emotions.

Both the narrator and the main character are completely immersed in their thoughts and feelings. They are constantly reflecting and reasoning about external events and their personal experiences, which sometimes lead to moments of clarity. However, this disquieting process is followed by anxieties and discomforts that are caused by the narrator/main character's evocations and reflections. They spend a great deal of their time in their lonesome thoughts, rather than in the external realities, which results in an indistinguishable view between the tangible and the imagined realities.

The plot of this book is slow-paced, gradually drawing the reader in but never overindulging. There are some truly wonderful internal and external dialogues that are like a symphony, composed of several parts, moving back and forth in time. I really enjoyed these aspects. Overall, I am eagerly looking forward to reading the second volume.

Most Profound on the Tortured Mind of the Cuckold

The novel I've been reading has been a bit of a struggle, much like my experience with Moby Dick where I couldn't get past Chapter 1. The first half or more was so boring that it numbed me. I understand Proust's accurate portrayal of the depth of memories and how a simple thing like a smell, taste, or song can unleash a torrent of childhood memories. However, it was about as exciting as watching a spoiled rich kid named Marcel with mommy issues and oral fixations in his pre-teen years.

But I persisted out of my desire to read most "classics," and then something amazing happened. He began to tell the story of Swann and his fiancee, later wife, the beautiful Odette. She seduced Swann, started dating him, and then cheated on him mercilessly, always covering up her bedroom antics with lies and excuses. These two, as Mr. and Mrs. Swann, are the parents of a girl Marcel's age, on whom he had a crush.

Swann is in turmoil because he desires Odette so much. At first, he tries to ignore the obvious signs of her promiscuity. But finally, he gives in and says he will forgive her for any acts up until then if she would only give him details. He prods and pries, getting details out of her that she didn't want to give. She finally admits to having affairs, but only confirms or denies leading questions.

These characters are based on a real married couple who lived near Proust. I'm sure he was fascinated by the adult world and the history of the beautiful woman next door. This novel provides the most profound and detailed description I've ever read of the torture of a cuckold's mind. His suffering upon learning about his wife's infidelities or having to imagine them is palpable. The scenes play out in his mind, with people, places, and different events. The pain of recalling seemingly innocuous actions that were actually filled with deceit is heart-wrenching. Her subsequent admissions trigger fresh thoughts of betrayal and crush him all over again. In the end, Proust has piqued my interest anew, and I will probably now try Volume 2.

It's truly a remarkable exploration of the human psyche.