Reading Proust - A Running Commentary

 In the first half of Time Regained, as we have just seen, Marcel finds himself in wartime Paris following “long years” in a sanatorium. He then leaves the city and spends “many years” in a second sanatorium before once again returning to Paris in the final part of the novel. The trees no longer speak to Marcel. Pic: Narcisse Virgilio Diaz De La Pena On the journey back to Paris, Marcel's recurring doubts about his literary talent surface once more when the train stops in open countryside. “The sun was shining on a row of trees that followed the railway line, flooding the upper halves of their trunks with light. 'Trees,' I thought, 'you no longer have anything to say to me. My heart has grown cold and no longer hears you' ( Hudson XII p.195, Kilmartin III p.886, Enright VI p.202 ). We have already noted a similarity between Proust's reflections on immortality and Wordsworth's ode on the subject (see my 25 th post), and here again we could compare Marcel...

 The Verdurins, who figured largely in Swann in Love and then reappeared at la Raspeli è re near Balbec in Cities of the Plain (see my 23 rd post), are once more central to the narrative in this chapter. Marcel is visiting their Parisian salon in the Quai Conti and is longing to see the room where Swann used to meet Odette. His wish is disappointed when, on the way there, he learns from Brichot that the couple had frequented the salon when it was at the Verdurins' former home in the rue Montalivet, before it was partially destroyed by fire. Marcel now reveals that Swann's death, which had been briefly mentioned in passing in Cities of the Plain, had been a “crushing blow” to him and he quotes a newspaper obituary before reflecting that, as a result of his “remarkable personality in both the intellectual and the artistic worlds”, his name could survive for a while after his death. Le Cercle de la rue Royale by James Tissot. Charles Haas is furthest right. There follows a stran...

  The second chapter of Cities of the Plain sees the development of Marcel's relationship with Albertine, the commencement of the amorous entanglement of Charlus and the fianc é of Jupien's niece, and the reappearance of the Verdurins. We have already observed Marcel's duplicitous approach to relationships when he feigned indifference to Albertine and a preference for Andr é e (see my 17 th  post). Despite his now having grown closer to Albertine, he is still acting in the same manner, and has added suspicion and jealousy to this unhealthy romance. It is hard for the reader to judge the validity of Marcel's suspicions that Albertine is lying and cheating on him because we are only presented with his thought processes, not hers; he is not honest with her and is maybe not being honest in his narration; his distrust is largely the result of inferences rather than direct evidence; and the suspicions are so recurrent as to suggest he is suffering from a paranoid personali...

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...