The Fugitive

In many ways, The Fugitive contains all the emotional action and catharsis that the reader wants all throughout the Search, and the effect is surprising. Marcel, who previously in the novel would often have strong emotional reactions to small things, finally experiences real emotional trauma: first, Albertine leaves him (at the end of the Captive, then she dies, then his suspicions of her homosexual infidelities are confirmed. This is truly a bad ending to the relationship. Marcel’s reaction is surprising, though; instead of having an over-emotional reaction to much of the bad news, he instead is struck dumb and doesn’t know how to react. The effect that such a lack of a reaction causes is more emotional than his previous emotional scenes; we the readers feel stunned with the emotionally fragile Marcel, and are fully sympathetic to his feelings. This makes sense, for a typically emotional reaction to such tragedy would include Albertine’s death among a series of events that includes missing concerts in Balbec and going to see Berma at the theater. Therefore, Marcel’s anti-climactic reaction to the climactic events of the first half of The Fugitive seems much more real than the emotional reactions of previous volumes, and marks a step in Marcel’s evolution as a character and young man.
Ironically, just a few hundred pages after the total devastation of Albertine’s death etc., Marcel realizes that he is completely over Albertine and oblivious to all feelings about her. To me, this realization is more shocking than learning of Albertine’s death; Marcel claims that Albertine means nothing to him anymore because of the destructive nature of time. However, this realization makes the stakes of Marcel’s Search even higher; in regaining time Marcel is attempting to regain significance of past events in his life. Without such significance of the past, it is impossible for the character to develop and change; the lack of meaning of past events means a lack of meaning of current and future events. Therefore, while the Albertine that is long gone may mean nothing to Marcel, the Albertine in the past still does, and in his memory Marcel can find this Albertine and appreciate her significance. Nostalgia is for the developing Marcel quite important, for in recognizing where he once was he can judge where he is now. This dependence on time is of course a major if not the major theme of the novel, and it comes out even more in the next volume.
On some level, I see The Fugitive as a turning point in Marcel’s evolution as a character in the Search. Throughout previous volumes it was quite clear that the young Marcel is a fairly weak character, and that the older narrator-Marcel has a distaste for him. How, then, does the young, slightly unlikable Marcel become the older wiser Marcel? The Search is in some ways the story of a young man finding himself as a writer; something has to happen to him to make him see himself as such. In previous volumes Marcel outlines much of his intellectual and social foundation, but through most of the book Marcel is an emotionally underdeveloped person, because he is emotionally malnourished. The Captive and The Fugitive, on the other hand, provide him with quite a traumatic entrée for his emotional meal; by the end of the fugitive Marcel seems to begin to transform into another person. I have a feeling that in the final volume I will see the rest of the transformation, but the beginning of it finds its place in the action of The Fugitive.
Tonight and tomorrow through the day I am going to finish Time Regained, and tomorrow night I will write my final reflective entry for the Search. I have quite a bit of reading and writing in front of me still, but the end is certainly in sight. Now, on to the rest of Time Regained.

The Captive

The Captive and The Fugitive are the two volumes that could serve best as their own mini-novel, although I suppose that even they wouldn’t be miniature compared to anything else besides the Search. In the Captive, Marcel’s obsession and suspicion of Alberine reach ridiculous proportions. Apparently there is a movie that is roughly based on The Captive and The Fugitive, and hopefully Depauw will show it early in the semester, perhaps along with the movie adaptations of “Swann in Love” and Time Regained. Fittingly, the other section of the Search that functions best on its own is “Swann in Love” from Swann’s Way; The Captive parallels the early story in many ways. Both portrayals of love are fairly anti-romantic, and both protagonists have a weakness for jealousy. On another note, I think it’s interesting that the English translation of the title The Captive may be more meaningful than the French, since the English doesn’t have the feminine gender and can therefore imply that both Albertine and Marcel are captives in their own ways throughout the volume.
Although the feelings and actions of both Marcel and Albertine throughout the volume seem realistic if emotional, the situation of the volume does seem a bit of a stretch. Albertine’s staying with her unmarried lover alone is definitely a bold move in pre-World War I France, especially since her parents know about it. Similarly, Marcel’s parents allow the stay, even though they disapprove. In one passage in the volume, the narrator discusses the reasons why Marcel’s mother allows the girl to stay with Marcel; she feels that since the girl’s mother is alright with it, then she should allow it too. I suppose that this logic makes sense, if it isn’t quite convincing; also, Mme de Bontemps could allow Albertine to try to win a husband of a higher class by allowing her to stay with Marcel. Nevertheless, these sorts of reasoning are altogether unconvincing. In Proust’s life, however, the basis for Albertine, a man, could have stayed with him without as much open disdain. Unfortunately, the situation doesn’t transfer as well to Marcel of the Search. Nevertheless, after getting over a speck of realism, I think that The Captive was particularly moving.
Since The Captive seems to be the most straightforward volume of Proust so far, I think I will return the comparisons of Proust and Joyce that I mentioned in my first entry. Both are considered the premier modernist novelists, yet their styles are very different from each other. Still, I can see the similarities. Both the Search and Ulysses address epistemological issues about the way that we see the world and construct meaning of our lives. Ulysses does this, among other ways, by eliminating the continuity of style and perspective throughout the novel, abandoning the previous approaches to writing novels. In contrast, Proust takes the nineteenth century model for writing and extends it to its absurd extreme, incorporating three first-person narrators into the story. In winding these multiple narrators through the already snake-like story, Proust plays components of character and plot against each other, showing differences in perspective, particularly the perspective afforded by time. Both authors show perspective as an obstacle in regarding truth or reality, and both question the existence of objective knowledge. Proust’s display of these obstacles is more subtle, however; he tries to show them through the normality of one person’s life, while Joyce tries to alienate the reader to the variable perspective of one person’s day. It’s interesting that the two competing works for “greatest novel of the 20th century” try to shrink or magnify something; Ulysses magnifies a day into an epic, and the Search tries to capture a life (to a certain point) into a book. I think that the scopes of the two are similar, though; the change in size is much the point of the scope, raising epistemological questions.
I apologize for the tangent; in my entry on The Fugitive I will more directly address the relationship between Marcel and Albertine, which is a huge theme in itself. I’m just about done with the volume; it moves quickly. Tonight it’s on to Time Regained; the end is in sight, just in time for the beginning of the semester.

Sodom and Gomorrah: Second Half

As I mentioned yesterday, the second half of Sodom and Gomorrah is more appealing to the first since it deals with personal rather than public relationships. If the major theme of Sodom and Gomorrah is dark sexuality, then the book is split into two “ways”: the first half is the Guermantes way, and the second half is Swann’s way. Consequently, a large portion of the second half of Sodom and Gomorrah is spent with Marcel’s newfound doubts of his lover Albertine. His doubts strangely find their beginning in the words of Doctor Cottard, who notes that Albertine and Andree are dancing breast to breast, which, according to the doctor, implies lesbianism. To the great misfortune of the future Marcel, the Marcel at the time takes this sort of speculation to heart, and it begins to consume him. It amazes me how a few scenes from the Search seem to dominate much of the life of Marcel; this scene with Doctor Cottard is one of them, a turning point. Others include: Marcel’s goodnight kiss, his spying on Mlle Vinteuil, and his spying on M Charlus. All of the scenes listed here (there are others) are confrontations in some way or another with the nature of sexuality. So, it seems that sexuality is a big hang-up in Marcel’s life, and a major part of the Search. It certainly plays a major part, the major part in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Another pivotal scene from the second half of the fourth volume comes at the very end of the volume: the scenes in which Albertine tells Marcel that she was once quite close with Mlle Vinteuil and her “friend.” This, of course, confirms all of Marcel’s festering suspicions about Albertine’s possible lesbianism and creates an attitude of his that dominates all of The Captive. This kind of obsession seems extreme, particularly in The Captive, but it is also believable; I think that some of the more profound romantic attitudes in the Search are more anti-romantic than romantic, and Marcel’s jealousy-driven love is one of them. Like Swann in “Swann in Love,” Marcel does not decide to marry Albertine until he has fallen out of love with her, after he is convinced that she loves women. The volume ends with this resolution on Marcel’s part—his decision to marry Albertine. The volume’s end is quite a cliffhanger; I wouldn’t be able to wait the two years to read the next volume. I guess reading the Search as it comes out would be like the rabid Harry Potter fans, except with high literature. But I digress; both Marcel’s and Swann’s reactions to falling out of love with their beloveds seem rash to me. I understand that they (Marcel and Swann) are driven by jealousy rather than love, and possibly by the angst left in the vacuum formerly filled by love, but I still think their decisions extreme. Nevertheless, Marcel’s reaction at the end of Sodom and Gomorrah seems strong and heartfelt, and makes for an emotional rush of an ending.
Speaking of Albertine’s relationship with Mlle Vinteuil, I read an analysis of it that I find extremely useful. The analysis suggests that the significance of Albertine’s admitted friendship with Vinteuil cannot be understood or appreciated without knowledge of two previous episodes in the novel. The first is the goodnight kiss that Marcel demands from his mother. The second is Marcel’s observation of Vinteuil and her mistress through the window. When Marcel hears Albertine speak of Mlle Vinteuil, he thinks of the emotions from the previous two episodes and combines them with his new suspicious relationship with Albertine. But this combination is more significant than it seems on the surface; the events that comprise a life-meaning such as the one shown are spread out and removed from each other by time, just as Swann’s love in “Swann in Love” is but a series of incidents filled with love, staccato and separated over time. The only way for Marcel or anyone else to appreciate the full significance of life is through memory, that which transcends time. Memory, however, only works backward, so young Marcel spying on Mlle Vinteuil could not fully appreciate the personal meaning of what he was seeing. One’s life is limited within time, too, so one cannot fully understand everything. When Marcel sees Mme de Villeparisis, he cannot imagine that she was once beautiful, for he does not have the memory of her beauty. Art can, however, transcend time justa s memory can; we as the reader can appreciate the significance of Albertine’s admission of friendship with Mlle Vinteuil. Therefore, the very act of writing and remembering that is captured in the Search is the attempt to transcend and “Regain” time. The genius that I see in the Search is in the individual passages of philosophical observation, yes, but even more the inter-relationship of events throughout the novel, the construction of significance through memory and time. That is really neat.
I’ve finished The Captive, and I’m going to try to read The Fugitive in the next 24 hours. I should also post on The Captive tomorrow, hopefully.

Sodom and Gomorrah: First Half

In this entry I will address “Part One” and “Part Two: Chapter One” of Volume IV, Sodom and Gomorrah because Part One is so short. As I mentioned in previous entries, Sodom and Gomorrah was a relief to read after the strain of The Guermantes Way. Also, I feel that Sodom and Gomorrah was more important than its predecessor to the overarching plot of the Search, or at least the important plots involving Marcel’s relationships with Albertine and the Guermantes. Overall, Sodom and Gomorrah picked up where the end of The Guermantes Way left off, with the allusions of darkness and secrecy that lay behind the aristocratic life, and the volume then, in the second half, moves on to project this secrecy on the personal relationship between Marcel and Albertine.
“Part One” of Sodom and Gomorrah opens with the authorial persona addressing the reader like Trollope or Henry James. This narrative disruption is interesting; it is the first disturbance of such kind in the novel. This makes me wonder just why Proust decided to break the narrative so; perhaps he wanted to distance himself from the sensitive subject of homosexuality, or of sexuality in general. Whatever the reason, Sodom and Gomorrah plunges into the sexuality that lurked on the fringes of the previous volumes of the Search, and “Part One” makes an intense starting point. Proust’s likening of human and plant sexuality in the opening scene is brilliant; I would consider using the first part of Sodom and Gomorrah in teaching an English class an example of excellent prose and imagery. Nevertheless, the awe-striking revelation that Marcel has was not shared by me, for I saw it coming; perhaps I shouldn’t have read so much about the book before reading it. Even so, the way that Marcel describes and approaches Charlus and, for that matter, everyone in the book is radically different. This incident in “Part One” is therefore quite important to Marcel’s attitude in the rest of the novel, particularly in The Captive, which I am now reading. “Part One” of Sodom and Gomorrah also makes an interesting read.
“Part One” is immediately followed by “Part Two: Chapter One,” which shows how differently Marcel sees the world after his revelation. The party at the Princess de Guermantes’ is in many ways similar to the social events from Volume III, but there is one distinct difference: Marcel’s attitude throughout. Marcel seems in fact quite jaded at how superficial most of the people at the party are. Much of this attitude, of course, developed over the course of The Guermantes Way, but some of it also must surely come from the incident with Charlus. This sort of view affects Marcel’s perception of Swann with the Princess de Guermantes, and also dealings with the Duc and Duchess de Guermantes. Interestingly, this kind of skepticism seems to make Marcel more successful in the social world; this could imply that such cynicism is shared by many of the superior socialites. Marcel’s change from “Part One” is also reflected in his trip to Balbec in “Part Two: Chapter One” and his dealings with Saint-Loup. In many ways I saw “Part Two: Chapter One” of Sodom and Gomorrah as a sort of Guermantes Way revisited, with everything seeming different because of Marcel’s new perspective.
In the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah, Marcel applies his newfound suspicion to personal relations, particularly those with Albertine. Again, I like the more personal interactions more than the social aristocratic ones, so I like the second half of Sodom and Gomorrah more than the first. Nevertheless, this section was enjoyable and, once again, beautifully written.