End of an Era

Finally, I have finished Swann's Way. Although the ending was difficult reading, it was good. I started my reading with a class at the Harvard Extention School thirty five years ago. It has been a long worthwhile read of difficult but superb French. Here's a great cover for a short history. You write it, I'll read it.

From Pâques to Noël .

Today, Easter Sunday, I realized that the volume, Swann's Way, begins in Combray with Easter and ends with Noms De Pays around Christmas-New Years. This reflects the Symbolist attitude which would be contrarian. Included would be a photo I took of the children before their egg hunt. This morning I went over the passage mentioned in the last post which can be found on page 401 of Gallimard's edition.

Crutial Summation of Swann's Way

Last night I passed into probably the most important sentence of Du Côté de Chez Swann and I plan on diagramming it for this blog. This morning I copied it (all 182 words) into my blue spiral notebook. Right now I'm at the desk with my morning coffee and a breather, though, and will have to fully wake up before continuing my work.

Interesting passages.

Proust has brought me into an interesting passage where his protagonist explains his imagined letter from Gilberte and the former gift of an excerpt of his imagined author, Bergotte, from Gilberte. This concerned the motivation of Racine in writing his classical tragedies. I've read a number of these, but, unfortunately, don't remember much about them except that they are incredibly precise and beautiful examples of iambic pentameter. Included is a photograph of my current bedstead. Some nights, like last, I only go over one of his sentences, one that I've already read, and then drop off to sleep. However, slowly, ever so slowly, I am approaching the end of Du Côté de Chez Swann

Nearing the end of Swann's Way.

Well, the volume of Du Côté de Chez Swann still sits on my bedside table, but I have been making progress on it. With less than twenty pages left, I can state that I see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a fascinating book, and I don't mind pouring over it. I sometimes wake in the middle of the night and read it in accordance to the way Proust developed the story in the first few pages of Combray. Currently I'm going through the passages that cover the encounters with Gilbert when Swann has taken her to play with the protagonist. This occures after he has dragged his nanny up and down the Champs-Élysées looking for her. She has told the protagonist that she won't be able to play with him for a while, but if he shows up at the Jardin des Champs-Elysées, early the next day she may be able to be there. He is now fretting about her lack of expression of love for him and seemingly disregard for it while walking with the nanny through the streets on the way to the park. I would love to have a picture of children playing barres, the game that Gilberte and the protagonist played, but I have not found one. I've walked through the Jardin des Champs-Elysées a few times, too. Never did I notice such a game being played, either. We'll have to settle for a modern photo of the Tuilleries in the summer. All of the activity described by Proust there, though, occured in the winter.