This installment, sadly, is one I read mediante evidente bursts of precious free time
I continue onesto find the romantic entanglements of these characters to be verso high-school level of ridiculous
Per those exhausted but relieved hours at home, mediante those stolen wedges of at-work bookwormery, con whatever few minutes were spent in quiet solitude, I clung to Proust with the desperation of verso booklover con the throes of both sistema-related burnout and the dreaded reader’s slump. And while verso frantic heart may not be the best way esatto approach words that are ideally enjoyed at per leisurely stroll, I do believe the Narrator’s burgeoning sense of humor and need onesto slowly drink in his surroundings kept me grounded during chaotic times. While S&G may not have been my favorite installment, it is the one that affected me the deepest.
Among the revolving door of agreable obligations and self-indulgent Ordine postale delle spose cinese observations that seem puro occupy the majority of Fictional Marcel’s abundant free time, I found myself most invested mediante his delayed reaction sicuro his grandmother’s death. Having never known the magnitude of a transgenerational love like that which Narrator shared with his maternal grandmother, I felt his palpable grief just as keenly as the slow-arriving but in nessun caso less heartrending clarity of permanent absence that hit him upon revisiting verso place that once played such an important role per demonstrating the fondness and compassion that can exist between verso grandmother and her grandson. As the Narrator contemplates how different Balbec is without his beloved grandmother, as he muses on how much his own once-young mother has taken on the visage of her own mother now that the elder woman’s death has left a role unfulfilled, as he retraces rooms that once were filled with his grandmother’s presence, the concrete reality of past time being truly lost time came thundering down against verso mostly familiar landscape that derives most of its changes from the players inhabiting it. It is odd that the grief is intense but short-lived, yes, but I couldn’t help but write it off as the Narrator’s decision onesto forge ahead with his life rather than mawkishly wallow per grief — such are the intermittences of the heart, giammai?
It is unfortunate because Proust is best savored like good wine rather than chugged like cheap beer, and I fear I spent more time drunk on his beautiful words than intoxicated by his narrative insight
It seems like so few of the relationships presented thus far in ISOLT — Swann and Odette; the Narrator and Gilberte (and also Albertine); Saint-Bar and Rachel — are healthy, mutually affectionate ones, but it could also be that I have little patience for romances, even fictional ones, that are built on a foundation of obsession and possession rather than respect and genuine fondness. And, really, the affair between Morel and Charlus isn’t anything laudable, I know, but I can’t help but find it one of the most believable examples of heady lust mediante terms of its execution and its players’ emotionally fueled behaviors. There is little else but pure attraction drawing Charlus helplessly toward Morel, who can’t help but take advantage of (or be manipulated by, depending on your vantage point) the older gentleman’s affections and gifts. Still, the greed with which Charlus tries preciso keep Morel puro himself while all but undressing him per public, the satisfaction he derives just from coaxing the younger musician into his presence is…. okay, verso bit much, yes, but also keenly evocative of an irrationally all-consuming, unrealistically intense first crush and the reluctant empathy of understanding such memories drag along sopra their wake.
