Swann in Love

"Swann in Love" struck me as odd from the beginning since it did not directly deal with Marcel. Nevertheless, Marcel seems to narrate the chapter; how can he know all of the things that he writes? This puzzled me, as did the attention that is paid to Swann and Odette; after all, Swann is only a neighbor of Marcel’s in Swann’s Way. After reading most of Within a Budding Grove, I now understand better why Swann is significant to the plot, but it must have been frustrating for Proust’s readers not to be able to read all of the work at once, and also frustrating for Proust to have so many critics not yet know what he is doing with the novel.
Even though such a characterization of Swann works with both the plot and the themes of the book as a whole, “Swann in Love” also functions well on its own, as a mini-novel within a novel (Swann’s Way) within a novel. Perhaps this is why someone adapted a movie of just “Swann in Love.” To me, the chapter has distinct similarities to Henry James’s The American. Both stories are concerned with Parisian social circles, both male protagonists fall prey to the wiles of society women, and each protagonist loses lots of money to the woman whom he unconditionally loves. However, there are a few notable differences between the stories that I feel say a lot about their respective themes. Firstly, while Swann is well-acquainted with French society and is actually stooping to fall in love with Odette, Christopher Newman is an American who tries to make his way into the upper-class Parisian society; this shows that the contrast in “Swann in Love” is not the contrast of nationalities and their cultural norms, but the contrast of different types of people within one social strata, with the socialite Swann sacrificing quite a bit for Odette, who is quite below his class. However, Proust does not romanticize such sacrifices but instead shows how, when love is concerned, little matters apart from the lover’s romantic perception: Odette is not deserving of Swann’s love, but that is not important to Swann. Therefore, in desiring Odette, Swann is consumed by Odette and in many ways becomes more like her, sinking to her level in some ways. Somewhere near the beginning of Within a Budding Grove, Marcel notes that in romantic relationships, the higher member often stoops to the other, whether in culture, intelligence or any other quality. “Swann in Love” is the story of making up for such differences, and while it may seem unfortunate for M. Swann, it also seems very realistic.
A second difference between “Swann in Love” and The American again pertains to Proust’s unsympathetic romantic ideas. In The American, the differences between American and French society are insurmountable and Christopher Newman is separated form his beloved just as he learns an important lesson about However, in “Swann in Love,” Swann and Odette marry. This plot point would seem more romantic than the separation of the lovers, but not the way that Proust weaves the story. By the end of “Swann in Love,” it seems that Swann has been beguiled, taken for a ride. Also, he doesn’t even decide to marry Odette for love, but doesn’t marry her until he has fallen out of love with her. This shows that marriage and love are not necessarily related, and in some cases have a negative relationship. At the end of The American, Newman is stung by unrequited love, but he becomes a better person for it; by the end of “Swann in Love,” Swann has fallen in and out of love, and has become a worse person. Swann’s fall obviously doesn’t say the greatest things about love, and “Swann in Love” is an emotional chapter.
One selection of “Swann in Love” that attracted my attention in an altogether different way was when the narrator briefly discusses Swann’s aesthetic beliefs: “Besides, having allowed the intellectual beliefs of his youth to languish, and his man-of-the-world skepticism having permeated them without his being aware of it, he felt (or at least he had felt for so long that he had fallen into the habit of saying) that the objects we admire have no absolute value in themselves, that the whole thing is a matter of period and class, is no more than a series of fashions, the most vulgar of which are worth just as much as those which are regarded as the most refined” (350). The context of this quote shows that Proust (or at least the narrator) probably disagrees with this type of aesthetic philosophy in the extreme. Nevertheless, the case is interesting for Swann, who is a collector and lover of art. How can he love art and claim that none is better than any other? I think that in this seeming contradiction Proust is trying to point out the absurdity of such an aesthetic philosophy, one that gained popularity as the Western world went through the twentieth century. Within the reality of In Search of Lost Time, Swann either doesn’t have such a relativistic attitude or he is wrong in appreciating Botticelli more than Gilberte’s paintings; such emphasis is lain on art throughout the book that Proust makes it difficult for anyone to agree with Swann’s philosophy. This persuasion, of course, allows us all to prefer the Search to any grocery-store romance we’re likely to encounter.
In closing, I would just like to note that something else that impressed me with “Swann in Love” is the comedy throughout. Dr. Cottard’s goofiness often brought a smile to my face, and some of the earlier dialogues between Swann and Odette were very funny indeed. Some of the charm of Proust so far is how he can make very serious themes light, and very light themes serious. This is certainly true throughout Within a Budding Grove, which I am about to finish. My entry on “Madame Swann at Home” should appear within the next couple days. Until then, I’ll start plodding along The Guermantes Way.