Days 1 & 2: Well, It's a Start...

It's day 2 of the Proustian Marathon, and I'm really excited about what I'm reading so far. I know what you're asking yourselves, and the answer is no, you won't hear anything nerdier anywhere. 

I'm only about 25 pages into Swann's Way. It's slow going at the beginning--Proust starts off with a long and somewhat dull rumination on sleep, dreams, consciousness, and imagination, ending with the famous scene where the as-yet-unnamed narrator wistfully reminisces about his mother tucking him in at night as a child. This segues, somewhat unevenly, into memories of golden summers spent at his grandparents' house in Combray, a fictional town standing in as Proust's actual childhood home in Illiers, southwest of Paris. (Illiers was later renamed Illiers-Combray in honor of ISoLT, and if I haven't mentioned it already, 99% of my research is happening on Wikipedia, as is the habit of my generation. Someday I'll tell you about the time I used Wikipedia for the factual background of my senior thesis in college. For now let's just say that I would not recommend it.)

More reminiscing. A major player in the narrator's childhood memories is the volume's eponymous Monsieur Swann, and here Proust's characters begin to rocket off the page--the narrator's family assumes that Monsieur Swann is a simple, middle-class country neighbor. In truth, the narrator cleverly reveals, Swann is a fixture in the best circles of politics and society in Paris. These seemingly incongruous facts dovetail beautifully: the narrator's family thinks Monsieur Swann should be grateful of their attention, believing him to be somewhat lower-class than themselves, and Swann graciously refrains from disabusing them of this miguided notion--and what's more, he maintains an effortless intimacy with the family despite their arrogant ignorance. The narrator's family comes across as benignly naive, while Monsieur Swann appears generous, obliging, and kind. In short, the family dynamics are fascinating. 

The narrator also mentions that at some point in the future--remember, we're still turning over childhood memories--M. Swann will make an ill-advised marriage to a woman who's "as good as" a prostitute. I'm looking forward to discovering the circumstances of the match.

I won't dip my toes in the analytical pool quite yet--I still haven't read enough to reasonably suppose I know what Proust is thinking, and far more knowledgeable readers than I have already expounded on Proust's exploration of memory and consciousness in the opening pages. 

Onward and upward....