In remembrance of Proust on his birthday. Or: notes on Part 1.
Ah, first love. But how naive young Marcel's idea of regaining Gilberte's affection was. Though he has gathered and presumed the consequences, would time have allowed him to salvage the love he knew very well he could lose?
Proust, once again, and his languid prose, left me in no hurry to turn the pages. Reading him was like basking in sunshine: the warmth, the heat making me feel fuzzy, relaxed, napping, in and out, with dreams or without, making me forget time.
A few unforgettable passages on love (there are innumerable), from the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation:
When we are in love, our love is too big a thing for us to be able altogether to contain it within ourselves. It radiates towards the loved one, finds there a surface which arrests it, forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this repercussion of our own feeling which we call the other's feelings and which charms us more then than on its outward journey because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves. [p. 214]
So it is that the different periods of our lives overlap one another. We scornfully decline, because of one whom we love and who will some day be of so little account, to see another who is of no account today, whom we shall love tomorrow, whom we might perhaps, had we consented to see her now, have loved a little sooner and who would thus have put an end to our present sufferings, bringing others, it is true, in their place. [pp. 234-235]
After all, not as daunting as I initially thought. The only thing needed to read Proust is time. Lazy, leisurely time.
More Proustian birthday treat at Nonsuch Book.
8 comments:
Once again, this inspires me. "Lazy, leisurely time." I'm going to find it some day!
Mmm, lovely passages. I started the 3rd volume today, and it seems like it's going to be darker than In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower - that book is so perfect for the summer. I hope you enjoy the rest of it. :)
It is a perfect summer book, isn't it? And Claire, you will certainly tempt some with that lovely photo and well-chosen quotes. Guess I should go write that post now.
I love that cover. I haven't read any Proust although I do have The Way By Swann's.
I love the quote about being charmed by the returning radiations of one's own love, unrecognizable as having originated with oneself. All of your posts about Proust make me want to re-read!
As I had a "lazy, leisurely" morning, I finished part 1--and pulled the very same quote on love you cited first! (in my edition, it's pp. 252-3)It is the perfect summer read, and you have to smile at young Marcel's so hopeful, so unrequited love. On then, to part 2...
"Reading him is like basking in sunshine..."
Hmm, maybe I should try Proust after all. That cover is beautiful!
I've always wanted to read Proust and I'm glad to hear he is not daunting but just needs time.
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