The Sweet Smell of...

Success! I've broken the 100-page mark of Swann's Way. As you might imagine, I'm quite pleased with myself, especially considering my recent, shall we say, inattentiveness? 

I've passed the infamous madeleine scene, in which the unnamed narrator bites into a bit of cookie soaked in tea, and experiences, for a moment, something akin to religious enlightenment.

I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature.

I find a great deal of truth in this passage--the power of smell and taste to call back perceptions deeply buried. I think most of us have been pulled irresistably down the path of memory by a faint whiff of cinnamon that reminds us of our grandmother's Thanksgiving pies cooling on a counter, or a vague breeze tinged with lilies that hints of an ex-girlfriend's perfume. 

In fact, whenever I smell or taste a certain combination of marjoram and thyme, I'm called back to a tiny restaurant--it must have been Moroccan--in Paris, where, as a relatively unworldly 15-year-old, I tasted couscous and lamb tagine for the first time. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant or approximate location within the warren that is the Latin Quarter, but the memory of that first taste has remained strong in my memory for more than a decade. To this day I can replicate that dish based on smell and taste alone. And each time I do, for the briefest sliver of a moment, I can almost believe I'm back in that restaurant, not far from the Seine, doubly cocooned in the wonder of Paris and the giddiness of adolescence, tasting an exotic dish for the first time. 

***

After the famous madeleine, we are further familiarized with the oh-so-French quaintness that is Combray. Anchored by the steeple of its cathedral, Combray is a town with a small and well-established population of "peasants" and bourgeois landowners, where an unknown visitor is a remarkable occurrence, and where town gossip travels faster than the speed of light. We are also introduced to the narrator's aunt Leonie, who gave the narrator his first taste of those madeleines soaked in tea, and whose neuroses clearly point to a hereditary anxiety disorder. (I say hereditary because, as you'll recall, the narrator likewise spent roughly the first 60 pages in hysterics over a missed opportunity to kiss his mother goodnight. Yes, yes, he's probably at the height of a childhood Oedipal complex, and anxiety disorders are certainly no laughing matter, but am I the only one who found the entire kiss-goodnight scenario a tad bit excessive? Just a wee bit over the top? Or, oh dear god, are children really that needy?)

Nonetheless, I do believe that Proust's abilities as a writer are underestimated when it comes to his stunning characterization. The characters who inhabit the fictional world of Combray are so incredibly lifelike that I can see brushstrokes of these characters in people around me, in my very real world. It is a remarkable thing to consider. So far, however, we have not had much in the way of dialogue or action, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Proust pulls it off. 

100 pages down, 2900 to go!