After reading a lot of acclaimed contemporary fiction that left me thinking “wait…was that all?”, disappointed by books that felt like only half a meal, I resolved back in 2013 to read at least one “monster” book each year. My requirements were that it be long, have a reputation as difficult, and be generally considered a masterpiece. My reasoning was that if I didn’t intentionally sit down and tackle the difficult great books, the kind influential enough to seep into the culture but enough of a slog that most people have only received ideas of what’s in them, I would be missing out on whatever beauty and insight made them influential in the first place. And of course there were the egoistic reasons: it felt good, among people discoursing about the genius of Infinite Jest and/or the insufferability of its fans, to be able to lean on the cred of having actually read it. The really long books rarely get assigned in school anymore, so if you’re someone with annoying pretensions related to intellect and culture, having read them does wonders for your self-concept!
The first I read was War and Peace, the exemplar of this genre. I followed it in the subsequent years with Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment (the “easiest” of the lot), and Infinite Jest. And then, in 2017, Swann’s Way, followed by In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower the following year. And after that, the “big book” project became just the Proust project, because the early volumes gave me so much pleasure that I knew I would want to read all of them. Now I’ve completed four volumes and expect to read The Prisoner this year.
Proust’s appeal is easy to explain. As Anita Brookner put it, “he got it right all the time!” The experience of reading it is to come across very precise descriptions of particular emotional states, the kinds of specific feelings people joke should have their own German words. These feelings are exquisitely described in subtle language, and upon reading you think, yes, I have felt exactly that, and that’s just what it’s like. In addition, he’ll toss in ironic observations about human nature, and he’s right again. And then, on top of that, he’ll throw in a character sketch that is just like someone you know, that notes things about them that hadn’t occurred to you before but, on reflection, are completely true. You keep thinking: how did he know?
Of course, you’re most likely to find Proust relatable if you’re a moody, sensitive, introspective person who has a tendency to deconstruct all your feelings and question every desire you have ever felt. It also helps to be some variety of aesthete. Otherwise, you’re likely to want to tell him to just get over himself.
When it comes to its literary value, I put In Search of Lost Time in its own category of great books. Its content and structure are such that it could easily be a bad book. It takes the form of a steady stream of memories and observations, loosely chronologically structured and heavily autobiographical. You sometimes get the sense that the books were lightly edited, if at all. Marcel introduces characters and then forgets about them, or forgets to introduce them altogether before they start speaking. He promises to include certain anecdotes “later” and then loses track of them. He drops threads and gets carried away with digressions. And, in a way, all of it takes place on the surface of the words. There isn’t much in the way of symbolism or structure, not because things in his world aren’t invested with meaning and complexity but because he spells absolutely everything out, seemingly as it occurs to him. Paradoxically, in this novel of sublimated emotions, his task is not to transmute them into symbols and allegories (like in Moby Dick) but to excavate them and describe them exactly as they are. We know what the madeleine, and the painting of Jethro’s daughter, and the “little phrase” from the Vinteul Sonata mean, because he tells us, at length and in detail. He wouldn’t be able to get away with writing this way if he didn’t have his particular gifts of observation and insight.
Another factor is that — I feel confident saying this four books in — it’s all pretty much the same. If you read Swann’s Way you know exactly what you’re going to get if you keep reading. There are scenes of waiting with anticipation and dread for someone who may or may not arrive. There are aesthetic and emotional experiences which are eagerly sought after, then disappointing when finally encountered, and then alive with meaning once they pass into memory. There are interminable, boring scenes of dinner party conversation or descriptions of how people shake hands that last 50 pages and that you wish would end. There’s wondering if you’re really in love with someone or just in love with the idea of them, or the memory of them. There’s the worry that people are having fun without you, and there’s sexual jealousy. There are observations about fashion, patterns of speech, the nature of true elegance and refinement. They all come up again and again. For the same reason, it’s not especially important to remember all the details of who’s who and what happens; the plot mostly isn’t really “going anywhere” in the conventional sense. You can float along in the stream and admire the scenery.
And what scenery it is — extraordinarily, he just keeps getting it right!
I admit that his observations about the arcane rules of etiquette in Parisian high society, and the various ways people trip up on them, are a source of delight for me. I can’t get enough of his discussions of things like the “three adjective rule” or the trend for saying cheveaux vs. cheveu. It reminds me of how French novelists understand the importance of clothes in a way English and American writers often don’t: I suspect the latter have a latent moral squeamishness and perhaps a bit of self-delusion about laying out exactly how their social scenes work. There’s a particular scene I think about all the time, about top hats on the floor. Two very elegant young men enter a party in their top hats, and another less up-to-date guest doesn’t quite get what they’re up to:
Tall, slim, with golden hair and skin, utterly Guermantes in type, these two young men seemed to condense in their persons the light of the spring evening, which was flooding the large drawing room. Following a fashionable quirk of the time, they set their top hats on the floor beside them. The Fronde historian saw this as a sign of embarrassment, as if they were peasants entering the mayors chambers without knowing what to do with their hats. Feeling that he ought out of charity to come to the rescue of what he saw as their awkwardness and diffidence, he protested: “No, no, don’t leave them on the floor, they’ll be trodden on.”
A glance from the Baron de Guermantes, tilting the plane of his pupils, shot from them a sudden flash of unadulterated, piercing blue which froze the well-intentioned historian.
“What is that gentleman’s name?” the Baron asked me (Mme de Villeparisis had just introduced us).
“M. Pierre,” I whispered.
“Pierre what?”
“Pierre is his surname. He’s a highly rated historian.”
“Really? Is that so?”
I want to die of embarrassment for poor M. Pierre! A few lines later the historian tries to break the tension by making a joke about hats, “but in so faint a voice that no one heard him except me.”
If any of this sounds appealing to you, I would recommend starting not from the beginning of Swann’s Way but from the middle section of that volume, titled Swann in Love. It tells the story of the unhappy love affair between Charles Swann, erudite but somewhat shallow and aimless, and Odette, a beautiful and manipulative demimondaine. At about a third of the length of Swann’s Way it’s the size of a regular novel, and can be read on its own as a complete story. It has all of the qualities that make Proust an enjoyable read, and fewer of the longeurs and digressions. And if you like it, well, there’s a lot more where that came from.
Brookner, in addition to noting how right he usually got things, also said of Proust that his way of writing was almost damaging: “He kept himself in a state of mind so hypnotic and dangerous that one approaches rereading him almost with fear. He remained always marginal, observing. The cost was too high, when all is said and done. The periods of remaining in that childlike state of receptivity are terrifying.” Perhaps this is the reason why I’m suspicious of writers who try to imitate him: few can reach that state of pure immersion without misjudging their surroundings or letting pride and self-importance get in the way. I’m not convinced that Knausgaard is much of a substitute. I think it’s alright that we only have one Proust.
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