I see that my last post was in July, so I need to catch up on this blog. I read a few other things in the late of Summer and the early Fall. I read all of the "Girl who.." book by Stieg Larsson and I read Moby Dick. Further, when I went back to reading Proust I finished the first volume, due to a need to read the book in digital form, I reread the first volume again, while simultaneously reading the second volume in the traditional trade paperback format.
At this moment I am almost finished with the second volume, I should finish today, or tomorrow at the latest. I have a different impression of these books as I approach the end of this volume. Proust has opened the plot up a bit more and exposed the mind of the character as he relates directly to other characters. The dialogue, which there is more of, and the descriptive passages of the thoughts and feelings of the characters is more rich and varied. Proust, offers up a more personal vision, rather than a point of view of a particular character we get the point of view and a comment of the protagonist about this character or situation.
By far the most revealing and enjoyable passages have to do with time and the emerging awareness of sexuality. Since this revelation on sexuality is a great shift in the book I take it that something happened in the life of the author that opened his mind and heart. Possibly this shift has to do with a sense of urgency to finish the story. I know Proust became ill during the writing of the third volume ( I think this is the correct point when his health declined) and the revelations about time show a strong desire to comment on the changes in society and class structure and the personal time in the mind of the author.
TO give an example, at the opening of the first volume we are treated to a discourse about a person struggling through the night, with time implied and indirect. Three quarters of the way through the second volume we see our protagonist and Albertine going for a drive in a motor car and the description is shorter of the event and the comment on society and especially time in much greater detail.
As a final note for today, I have found that reading Proust continues to make me _feel_ out of step with my society. I do not know what to do about this, if anything needs to be done at all. I find that my perceptions of life and expectations of interaction and communication, in comparison to the world in the 21st century, are skewed by the pointed intelligence of the characters in the book(s). I know that reading these books, absorbing the style, being immersed in the beauty of this writing, has affected my efforts to write. For the first time in my life I fell free to narrate and write without the heavy handed guidance of a rule bound society pinning me into a corner of conformity.
