Reading Proust - A Running Commentary

Interwoven in the telling of Swann and Odette's romantic entanglement are three important factors in its development: the Verdurins' group which starts by bringing them together and ends by coming between them; Swann's consequent exile from high society; and the importance of music, in particular Vinteuil's sonata, in their relationship. In relation to the first two of those themes, Proust's skills as a portraitist and as an observer of subtle class distinctions are illustrated in his sketches of the attendees of both the Verdurins' bourgeois and the Marquise de Saint-Euverte's upper-class salons; while, in relation to the third theme, his profound appreciation of music is demonstrated by his thoughts on the sonata which is heard in both salons. The Verdurins' circle Proust commences Swann in Love with a description of the “little clan” who attend the Verdurins' salon. Immediately, with just one quote, he renders the personality of the group...

  After the momentary respite resulting from having waited outside the wrong bedroom window, Swann's hard time immediately resumes: “his jealousy, as it had been the shadow of his love” returns, which renews his imaginings of Odette tendering her love to another ( p.81 II Scott Moncrieff, p.301 Kilmartin ). “A fresh turn was given to the screw” when he remembers a look of admiration in her eye while Forcheville had been making a scene at the Verdurins'. And soon his suspicions are revived after she fails to answer the door one afternoon despite the porter telling him he believed her to be at home. He repeats his earlier behaviour of going round the back of her house, standing beneath her bedroom window and knocking on it. On receiving no answer this time, he later returns to her front door and she lets him in, telling him she had been asleep when he had called earlier. He believes her to be lying and his suspicions are confirmed upon reading a letter which she has given him to...

  At this point the novel moves away from Marcel's memories of his childhood and Combray as he narrates an event that occurred before his birth: Charles Swann's love affair with Odette de Cr é cy. This section is anomalous in that it is the only one out of chronological sequence (which is not to say that Proust never relates some shorter episodes out of order) and it is the only one relying on third-person narration (Dickens made the same switch from first- to third-person in The Old Curiosity Shop – but for very different reasons). All of this creates a technical problem: how does Marcel have access to all the details and, in particular, to Swann's emotions and even one of his dreams? The answer is to be found at the very end of the novel and allows us to reach a conclusion about the relationship between the author and the narrator that most critics are unwilling to draw. For now, however, that will have to wait. We have already met Swann as he was a neighbour at Combra...