What a combination of beautiful scenes, near slapstick comedy, sharp social and political insight and too often endlessly boring accounts of upper class conversations. The section describing his grandmother's death is incredibly moving, the most lovely writing in the three volumes I've read so far. His detailed descriptions of the salon is worthy of any ethnographer using the participant observation method of research. In fact, while I was working my way through the famous dinner at the Guermantes' I kept thinking of Proust as a sociologist as opposed to novelist, though the two professions are quite complementary so maybe he can wear both hats. After a bit of a well-earned break I will most definitely be forging on to volume 4. ( )

spoiler-free

Part 1:

Fran�_oise in exile ��� "The alleged 'sensitivity' of neurotic people is matched by their egotism" ��� names; symbiosis; M. Jupien ��� "What is far off may be more familiar to us than what is quite near" ��� the Duchess and the Duke de Guermantes ��� at the Op��ra: drawing rooms minus their fourth walls; Berma in Ph��dre, again ��� desire and disappointment ��� "We feel in one world, we think, we give names to things in another; between the two we can establish a certain correspondence, but not bridge the gap" ��� Mme de Cambremer; fashion differences between the Princess and Duchess ��� a wave from an opera box ��� glimpses of Mme de Guermantes's different faces ��� "the truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent" ��� at the barracks at Donci��res ��� "sounds have no position in space" ��� "the loss of a sense adds as much beauty to the world as its acquisition" ��� Mme de Guermantes's photograph; Saint-Loup's face ��� "my neighbour, ... this stranger": landscape ��� interiors ��� "what one has meant to do during the day it turns out ... that one accomplishes only in one's dreams" ��� the different kinds of sleep; sleeping and dreaming as death, awakening as resurrection ��� Saint-Loup's popularity at Donci��res ��� "the worthy Oriane" ��� Robert as Dreyfusard ��� the aesthetics of battle ��� "It has been said that silence is strength; in a quite different sense it is a terrible strength in the hands of those who are loved. It increases the anxiety of the one who waits." ��� Saint-Loup's mistress ��� the sounds of orgasms in dreams ��� Elstir's paintings "aroused my desire" ��� the Captain Prince de Borodino ��� "the two aristocracies: the old nobility and that of the Empire" ��� "sorcery"; or, speaking on the telephone with grandmother ��� return ��� "every face we love [is] a mirror to the past" ��� morning walks ��� "it is the nature of what we imagine in sleep to multiply itself in the past" ��� Giotto's "portray[al] of Envy with a serpent in her mouth" ��� Mme de Villeparisis's School of Wit ��� Legrandin's view of the aristocracy ��� "the general malady of love" ��� gardens in the suburbs of Paris all aflower ��� Saint-Loup's mistress; pear trees ��� "love, and suffering that is inseparable from it, have, like intoxication, the power to differentiate things for us" ��� public rooms/private rooms ��� "the private lives of actors"; a dancer's hands; Saint-Loup's fists ��� Mme de Villeparisis's salon; her memoirs ��� "the social kaleidoscope was in the act of turning" ��� everyone has their own personal Duchesse de Guermantes ��� the Madame's "at home"; the name Guermantes ��� paintings, flowers, blunders ��� Bloch: "one never does catch people's names when one's introduced to them" ��� "I knew at once that she couldn't have any talent when I saw those lilies!" ��� words as ne plus ultra ��� social position; opinions on Dreyfus ��� the Duchess: "society isn't my forte" ��� Mme de Marsantes; Robert ��� M. de Norpois, the Prince von Faffenheim, and the Institut ��� M. de Charlus's strange manners ��� the Lady in Pink, again ��� "the opinions we hold of one another ... are as eternally fluid as the sea itself" ��� "you were a hysterical little flatterer" ��� a gentleman's hat marked with a "G" ��� "we live in perfect ignorance of those we love" ��� "society, where every being is double"; goodbyes ��� the Baron's queer proposal ��� "There are maladies which we must not seek to cure because they alone protect us from others that are more serious" ��� male friends; rent boys; the "Open Sesame" ��� the ill body ��� "You're a real neurotic, that's what you are ... Everything we think of as great has come to us from neurotics" ��� the "Marquise" in the Champs-Elys��es

Part 2:

making the acquaintance of death ��� "Each of us is indeed alone" ��� Fran�_oise's ministrations ��� "pain is a sort of need on the part of the organism to take cognisance of a new state which is troubling it" ��� artists' reputations; Time ��� "our actual awakenings produce an interruption of memory" ��� a death in the family ��� "a change in the weather is sufficient to create the world and ourselves anew" ��� "Those who have played a big part in one's life very rarely disappear from it suddenly for good. They return to it at odd moments ... before leaving it for good" ��� the lonely sounds of the lift; an unexpected Albertine, "no longer the same" ��� "When you come to live with a woman you will soon cease to see anything of what made you love her" ��� memories of Balbec ��� photography; kisses; subject-positions; erections ��� "for the good offices of the procuress are part of the duties of the perfect hostess" ��� a dinner invitation ��� "the difficulty of attaining the object of a desire enhances that desire" ��� awaiting the arrival of Mme de Stermaria ��� bodily substitutes ��� "It was not she that I loved, but it might well have been" ��� on friendship ��� "the invisible vocation of which this book is the history" ��� fog; a revolving door ��� the Prince de Foix's circle of friends; social class ��� "The past is not fugitive; it stays put" ��� at the Guermantes' ��� Elstir's paintings as theory ��� the Princesse de Luxembourg and the Princesse de Parme ��� introductions; nicknames; the Duc de Guermantes as Louis XIV ��� the Guermantes' family genie ��� the Guermantes versus the Courvoisiers ��� the choreography of the family and its subgroups ��� salons; sacrifice ��� the Princesse de Parme's salon ��� the Guermantes wit ��� "Teaser Augustus" ��� "But why all this endless talk about Oriane ... People couldn't make more fuss about a queen" ��� "it's often difficult not to be a bit malicious when one has a great deal of wit" ��� the Duke: "As for Wagner, he sends me to sleep at once" ��� in defense of Victor Hugo ��� "the social position of so young a man as I then was" ��� Zola, "the Homer of the sewers" ��� Elstir's Bundle of Asparagus ��� "a sort of social Eucharist" ��� "I have to find a husband for my flowers": pollination likened to leaving calling cards ��� Empire furniture; art ��� "Words do not change their meaning as much in centuries as names do for us in the space of a few years" ��� the word "cousin" ��� names; pedigrees; architecture; temporality ��� Bon soir ��� a third carriage ride's epiphanies ��� internalization; assimilation ��� "The need to speak prevents one not merely from listening but from seeing" ��� the Baron's disappointment ��� a green drawing-room; "invisible music" ��� an unsealed letter; an unexpected invitation ��� distorted perspectives through windows ��� a changed Swann; a discussion about Dreyfusism ��� a red dress with black shoes ( )

As Proust's narrator grows up his narrative becomes drier and less whimsical. There is a larger focus on French society and the titles within it. We move beyond intimate portraits of individuals, but Proust is careful to let his narrator grow through the people he meets and the obsessions he develops. TI was struck by the genius of lines well delivered. For example, "Perhaps another winter would level her with the dust" (p 275). In the end I found myself asking, how do you cope with a love that is held only by the games one plays? Is this a form of emotional hostage-taking? What will become of one so enamored with another? ( )

Proust is one writer I feel like I can relax when I read him. Hoping to read the next volume soon this year, need a little break though. ( )

In the same sense as a writer's writer, a comedian's comedian, etc., Proust's unnamed narrator is a daydreamer's daydreamer. His diligent categorization of minutiae goes beyond the surface detail of simple occurrence or observation, plumbing the depths of that instant in time or a passing turn of phrase, turning the everyday into the epic. This is particularly in keeping with the third volume's theme which explores his desire to enter society, symbolized by his joining the Guermantes' salon. The narrator justifies his longing, arguing that achieving the highest social standing should surround him with a correspondingly elevated degree of intelligence and originality that he wants to maximize his exposure to, but there's a hole in his theory. Just as with prior anticipations, he imagines it will be like diving into the deep waters of Plato's land of ideals but finds himself in the kiddie pool.

I was much more conscious this time of how the narrator lays claim to perfect knowledge. Frequently he is reading minds, relating the very thoughts of others. While the story is always told in first person, there are things only an omniscient narrator could know, such as what Rachel is actually plotting or will do when the narrator is not around, and the way that he relates two separate conversations line for line in a drawing room, happening simultaneously and at opposite room ends that he could not possibly both be following. The narrator's commentary on those conversations is also flawless. He is either the most adept and insightful person in the room even at his young and inexperienced age, or we must allow he is able to combine perfect memory with carefully studied retrospection. This first person omniscient perspective makes it difficult, if not impossible, to judge or assess the narrator as a character. I do not know if he is admiring or poking fun at society, if he is being objective or being judgmental of women, etc. Consequently, I can't even say whether I like him or empathize with him. I choose to trust him as being faithful to what he is depicting, and that's as far as it goes. To the extent that he does exist as a character, I'm not entirely convinced of the means by which he gets access to this highest echelon of society. He seems a bit surprised himself, so perhaps that will emerge later.

There's not as many observations this time on the nature of memory that hit home with me; although I've had the same experience of some sound or event happening as I'm recalling something unrelated, followed by having that become a trigger to recall the same unrelated thing on another occasion. Some other observations he makes which seem deeply insightful could be taken as critiques of fiction under a thin veneer. When he observes that old loves do not actually disappear from one's life forever but tend to crop back up, that's observant of life; or it's a critique of how many novels quietly shuffle an unwanted character offstage and conveniently never feel the need to reintroduce him/her again. Where the narrator's romances are concerned, they continue to be a haunting reflection of my own experiences in a way that is almost maddening. I have to believe he is just that good, that he can write in such a way to make anyone feel it relates to whatever their own story may be.

Proust can be funny, as when Oriane speaks of her cousin: "I always ask myself, when she comes here, whether the moment may not have arrived at which her intelligence is going to dawn, which makes me a little nervous always." (Only to be surpassed later by her brother-in-law: "You offer your hindquarters a Directory fireside chair as a Louis XIV bergere. One of these days you'll be mistaking Mme de Villeparisis' lap for the lavatory, and goodness knows what you'll do in it.") Proust can also be exasperating. As the Guermantes are sitting down to dinner and are about to engage in conversation, the narrator chooses this moment to dive into a sixty page digression about their general treatment of guests and whatnot. It might be the longest dinner party every recorded in fiction. The ending is sharp: the joke with the envelope, and then the prioritization of a social event - or the shoes to be worn to one - over the death or dying of friends. This strange ordering of values was itself about to die off, and none too soon. ( )