Place Names-The Name and Madame Swann at Home
“Madame Swann at Home” and “Place Names-The Name” seem like they belong in the same volume of the Search. For one, the two narrative sections fit together; the themes also seem to match well. In “Place Names-The Name,” Marcel first gets to know Gilberte, the “Mlle Swann” that he meets in “Combray” along Swann’s Way. This, to me, seems to be a proper introduction to the “budding grove” of Marcel’s adolescence than the introduction of M. de Norpois. Nevertheless, “Place Names-The Name” makes a nice transition to Within a Budding Grove and nicely returns to Marcel for the end of Swann’s Way. “Madame Swann at Home” introduces a book focused completely around Marcel, which I prefer to Swann’s Way, actually. I think that in this second volume Proust captures the emotions of adolescence as well as anyone else I have ever read, from dealings with adults to those of the opposite sex.
Speaking of relations with girls his age, a fascination with Gilberte dominates the second half of “Place Names-The Name” and most of “Madame Swann at Home.” What I really enjoy about Gilberte’s portrayal in The Search (and Albertine’s, later in the novel) is the depth of commentary on Marcel’s relations with the girls, the multiple layers of description. The relationship between Gilberte and Marcel is described on three levels. On one level is Marcel’s perspective; he is completely infatuated with Gilberte, an obsession that only an adolescent romantic can have. This level seems genuine, if a little silly (doesn’t adolescence always seem silly?). On another level is the older Marcel who is telling the story; this Marcel makes the comments that it was not Gilberte herself that young Marcel loved as much as his perception of her; this older Marcel doesn’t claim that this nullifies the love; he just acknowledges that his young love (and all love in general) is relative to the viewpoint of the lover, and sometime is more dependent on this perspective than on the beloved. The third Marcel is much more subtle; this is Marcel the author, who seamlessly weaves between the two other Marcels. Roger Shattuck explains this phenomenon much more eloquently in his book Proust’s Way; I just found it particularly apparent with the Gilberte sections.
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I haven’t read about this passage anywhere, but a couple pages of “Madame Swann at Home” seem to me particularly profound. The section is on pages 73-75, when Marcel’s father talks to Marcel about his future profession. His father’s thoughts disturb Marcel; he notes: “The second suspicion, which was really no more than a variant of the first, was that I was not situated somewhere outside Time, but was subject to its laws, just like characters in those novels who, for that reason, used to plunge me into such gloom when I read of their lives… At the top of one page we have left a lover full of hope; at the foot of the next we meet him again, a bowled old man of eighty…” (74). The meta-fiction commentary of this passage is not in particular what strikes me, although it does fit nicely with Marcel’s character, and does not detract from the narrative; what I like about this passage is that it sums up so well the protagonist’s problem within the novel. In the Search, the older Marcel is trying to regain time and transcend it; this is why he became an artist, for through art he feels he has his best shot at being above Time. Yet even within the novel the artist ages, with the inevitable death looming after the book ends. Similarly, although over the course of the novel Marcel transcends age, and is on one level all ages at once, on any given page Marcel is confined within the limits of time. In acknowledging his earthly boundaries as akin to those of fiction, Marcel also acknowledges the fictional boundaries as earthly. In other words, I really like these few pages of the book.
Overall, Within a Budding Grove is my favorite section of the book (right now I’m almost halfway through The Guermantes Way, and is it slow). I really liked “Madame Swann in Love,” but I think that I enjoyed “Place Names-The Place” even more; I’m looking forward to writing about it and the introduction of Albertine. Until next time.
Speaking of relations with girls his age, a fascination with Gilberte dominates the second half of “Place Names-The Name” and most of “Madame Swann at Home.” What I really enjoy about Gilberte’s portrayal in The Search (and Albertine’s, later in the novel) is the depth of commentary on Marcel’s relations with the girls, the multiple layers of description. The relationship between Gilberte and Marcel is described on three levels. On one level is Marcel’s perspective; he is completely infatuated with Gilberte, an obsession that only an adolescent romantic can have. This level seems genuine, if a little silly (doesn’t adolescence always seem silly?). On another level is the older Marcel who is telling the story; this Marcel makes the comments that it was not Gilberte herself that young Marcel loved as much as his perception of her; this older Marcel doesn’t claim that this nullifies the love; he just acknowledges that his young love (and all love in general) is relative to the viewpoint of the lover, and sometime is more dependent on this perspective than on the beloved. The third Marcel is much more subtle; this is Marcel the author, who seamlessly weaves between the two other Marcels. Roger Shattuck explains this phenomenon much more eloquently in his book Proust’s Way; I just found it particularly apparent with the Gilberte sections.
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I haven’t read about this passage anywhere, but a couple pages of “Madame Swann at Home” seem to me particularly profound. The section is on pages 73-75, when Marcel’s father talks to Marcel about his future profession. His father’s thoughts disturb Marcel; he notes: “The second suspicion, which was really no more than a variant of the first, was that I was not situated somewhere outside Time, but was subject to its laws, just like characters in those novels who, for that reason, used to plunge me into such gloom when I read of their lives… At the top of one page we have left a lover full of hope; at the foot of the next we meet him again, a bowled old man of eighty…” (74). The meta-fiction commentary of this passage is not in particular what strikes me, although it does fit nicely with Marcel’s character, and does not detract from the narrative; what I like about this passage is that it sums up so well the protagonist’s problem within the novel. In the Search, the older Marcel is trying to regain time and transcend it; this is why he became an artist, for through art he feels he has his best shot at being above Time. Yet even within the novel the artist ages, with the inevitable death looming after the book ends. Similarly, although over the course of the novel Marcel transcends age, and is on one level all ages at once, on any given page Marcel is confined within the limits of time. In acknowledging his earthly boundaries as akin to those of fiction, Marcel also acknowledges the fictional boundaries as earthly. In other words, I really like these few pages of the book.
Overall, Within a Budding Grove is my favorite section of the book (right now I’m almost halfway through The Guermantes Way, and is it slow). I really liked “Madame Swann in Love,” but I think that I enjoyed “Place Names-The Place” even more; I’m looking forward to writing about it and the introduction of Albertine. Until next time.
posted by Michael at 11:03 PM
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