Swann's Way Part 1 (up to p139 in the Wordsworth Edition)

This is the edition I'm reading, incidentally

Having abandoned the plan to read Recherche on the Kindle – although the books are hefty and I can’t bring the volume I’m reading to places with me, but it allows me to see where I am by putting a bookmark in where Swann’s Way ends. Also, I am enjoying being able to write in the book and highlight parts of it, I know you can do this on the Kindle but I’ve never really got comfortable with it so far – I have been reading the first part. 

Firstly, I don’t think that it is really a book written with the comfort of the reader in mind. If you’re looking for a thrilling plot, don’t read this. It has no real plot, just a series of recollections about the narrator’s youth. Unlike Les Mis, which has a very controlled structure of books and chapters, Proust doesn’t seem to believe in breaking up the narrative in a way that would make it easier to read, no, there are long rambling parts with nary a break let alone some sort of chapter. This makes it quite difficult to decide on a point where to stop reading. I tend to try to finish the topic of the anecdote. I also don’t know whether I’m trying to read it too quickly, I have read some advice that says that you should read it slowly but I want to build up a momentum. I’m scared if I stop for too long that will be it and I will end up giving up. 

Although it’s not the sort of book that you sit down and devour and it’s even more digress-y than Hugo with long rambling sentences and points that seem to be going nowhere, I am finding it pleasurable and even quite relaxing to read. There is something very soothing about reading about a small French town, family life and the various characters that cross the narrator’s path. Even more soothing are the descriptions of sensory experiences such as the famous taste of the Madeline cake dipped into lime blossom tea, evoking religious parallels along with long-forgotten memories. 

I am not really trying to analysis it too closely, it is enough that I am reading it and enjoying it and it’s hard to drag yourself away to the realms of theory when you are trying to get lost in the prose. I have looked a little at the portrayal of women as I’ve noticed that in this first part (I’m not up to the end of the first chapter yet), of the social hierarchy (which the narrator is slightly obsessed by) and personalities  of M. Swann and the narrator, as all are linked.

We are not really sure when the first part takes place or how old the narrator it, there is a sense of journeying back via dreams and small incidences that happened during the narrator’s life.

The narrator is a sickly young boy who tries to spend as much time as possible reading and is very strongly attached to his mother; waiting up for her kiss and associating it with a religious experience much like communion. She suggests to him that he has a nervous condition when he makes a servant take her a note so that she will come up to kiss him and gets into a state.

 He is also lives with his father and grandfather, who are somewhat distant figures (his father attempts to make the narrator a bit more manly and to stop him from being quite so obsessed with his mother), his great-aunt Leonine who is a bit of a joker, and with his grandfather’s sisters, Flora and Celine. Francoise, Leonine’s servant is also around.  There is a sense that the house is full of women and the father is exasperated by the son, he seems distant and strict. 

M. Swann is a frequent visitor as his father was a friend of the narrator’s grandfather. One of the first things that we learn about him is that he has made an ‘unfortunate’ marriage, although we don’t know why this is and the narrator’s parents seem to think that he is not in love with her anymore. He lives a fashionable life consorting with the aristocracy although he has come from quite a modest background as the son of a Jewish stockbroker and he likes in an area which the great aunt considers beneath him. Both his parents are dead. He has a reputation for liking pictures and antiques, which is another sign of his culture and upward mobility. He has a daughter, but so far she has not appeared and she is not from the unfortunate wife, her mother is dead.  

Aunt Leonine has a tendency to tease Swann as she teases most of the family, particularly the narrator’s grandfather and grandmother. He brings gifts to the family which the other great aunts try to thank him for in a rather confusing indirect way. It’s like they can’t directly say anything and they seem to disappear after the first part. Leonine, on the other hand continues, but after she is widowed she gradually shuts herself away to the point where she stays in bed, fancying herself unwell but spying on the goings on of the village through the window and by talking to Eulalie, a woman who pays visits to the sick. Like the narrator’s mother, Leonine is strongly associated with religion with her sick table which is like an altar and her false hair where the bones show like a crown of thorns or a rosary.  

There is also Uncle Adophe whom the narrator anecdotally visits but whom the family has never spoken to since the visit. He introduces the narrator to the concept of ‘fast’ women. The narrator is obsessed with the theatre and Adolphe associates with actresses who are considered to be of low morals, one of whom the narrator meets and becomes infatuated with at his uncle’s house. He admits this to the family and this subsequently causes such a rift that the uncle never speaks to the family again. Nevertheless, this all seems to point to the way that the narrator will react to women in the future. 

Both the family and the narrator seem to have a kind of obsession with class and social hierarchy (despite calling himself ignorant) and the narrator seems to look down particularly on the maids. Although Francoise is named and some of her tasks and impact on the family is described, there seem to be a series of nameless kitchen maids (in particular the one who becomes pregnant and gives birth with as little description as the narrator mentioning that the cat had had kittens) who merit very little description and remain invisible to both the narrator and the reader. 

The narrator becomes friends with Bloch who encourages the author to read an author called Bergotte’s work (Bergotte is fictional but probably based on either Anatole France or Paul Bourget). Swann’s daughter is very friendly with Bergotte, who is a prominent author who seems to not be to everybody’s taste.

 This provokes questions about ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ in relationship to art. The narrator feels that the emotions of characters in novels are more understandable than those of’ real’ people, that we can only share emotions with characters. Bloch is disliked by the grandparents and father for acting inappropriately towards their hospitality. He encourages the narrator to feel that poetry is finer if it is meaningless, ideas which cause the narrator to feel physically unwell. He also greatly influences the author’s ideas about women: ‘...no women thought of anything but love, and that there was not one of them whose resistance a man could not overcome.’ (p104). He also tells the narrator that his great-aunt once lived a ‘gay life’ and was a ‘kept’ woman (p105).

Other than the family the narrator also encounters Legrandin, and engineer who has a holiday house in Combrey. He is a writer in his spare time but claims to hate the aristocracy and snobs. The family think that he is a gentleman. He upsets the family by ignoring them one day when he is with a married lady, then acting as if nothing has happened the next. He behaves is quite an obsequious way towards the lady, and denies everything, including that he knows any of the ladies of Guermantes (the local aristocracy) and the narrator identifies what a horrendous hypocritical snob he is. There is also M. Vinteuil and his ‘boyish’ daughter who act quite snobbishly towards Swann.

So, I am up to p138 which is where I thought I ought to stop and reflect. I’ve passed the fifty page mark and the one hundred page mark and I haven’t given up yet! So far, I’ve met some intriguing characters and mysteries. Was Leonine really a kept woman?Why is Swann's wife so unfortunate? Hopefully these mysteries will be answered.