In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

So proud to have made it through book 2 of this epic, and now I can definitively say that I want to keep going until the end. Proust has such broad insights into universal, yet mostly unarticulated aspects of the human condition – as in Swann's way, so many small things he wrote about triggered my own memories of past relationships.

Perhaps the theme I identified with the most is Marcel's “search for truth/ beauty” - the reason he goes to see La Berma, the cathedral at Balbec, etc. and is always disappointed once he gets there. It seems that nothing ever lives up to the way someone else describes it. Yet even after seeing it and being disappointed, if someone explains what he was supposed to have experienced, he is able to reappraise and reappreciate what he saw. I've felt this way many, many times in my life and I often wonder how many of my pastimes - travel, arts, entertainment - can be attributed to searching for pure truth?

Hopefully I'll remember what happened here when I go on to read [b:The Guermantes Way 18798 The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3) Marcel Proust https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923257s/18798.jpg 40790576]. There are two parts here: At Mme Swann's, and Place-Names: The Place. I want to make some notes here to refresh my memory once the time comes.

The novel starts with a dinner w/ the Marquis de Norpois, and the visit to see La Berma, afterward spending the majority of the time describing the narrator falling into and out of love (childishly, naively) with Gilberte. He chooses to access her through her parents, who he idolizes, each in different ways, which brings about the downfall of the relationship. Much of this part is lived in Marcel's head, over-analyzing and creating stories of what she must be thinking about him, etc.

He then scoots off to Balbec for the summer, where we get more description of travel's effect on the mind, develops relationships with Mme de Villeparisis and Robert de Saint Loup, and then ignores them once he has met the “little gang” of girls (via the painter Elstir's introduction). He understands much more about love at this point, how to show interest by feigning disinterest, rather than going straight at it.

Important new characters: Elstir (the painter), the gay M de Charlus (well, he was in Swann's Way but just briefly), Albertine, Mme de Villeparisis (a member of the Guermantes clan), and the charming, lovable Robert de Saint Loup.

Four stars because it just didn't feel quite as tight and memorable as Swann's Way. Onward!