In Search of Lost Time 2-10-2022

I brought Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time to my appointment with my podiatrist. He saw the book and asked me, “What’s it about?” I paused, and said, “Nothing yet. Just exposition.” I said that after reading about 90 or so pages. It’s true. Not much plot line has really happened. There’s a 10-page passage about falling asleep, a one-minute meeting with his wealthy Uncle Aldophe and his new flame that lasted about six pages, 10 pages about reading, a long passage about being outside and waiting for Swann, an eight-page description about the church and it’s place in town, where he explains time as a dimension which the church has moved through, and it’s all fascinating. But nothing has really happened. The two most substantial conflicts so far are the narrator’s young self waiting for and trying to con his mother into giving him a good night kiss and Bloch, a friend who introduce him to the the writings of Bergotte, not being “invited to the house again” (92). And now I think the novel title should be In Search of Lost Plot 😁

. . . 

Not only does the narrator not have a name, but neither do his mother, father, or grandparents. And the narrator makes fun/notice of this when his Uncle Aldophe introduces the narrator to the uncle’s new woman of the moment when the narrator writes, “She looked at me, smiling, my uncle said to her, ‘My nephew,’ without telling her my name” (77), and this made me laugh. Now, I think the novel title should be In Search of Lost Names 😆

. . . 

Today’s word of the day is: licorice water (page 91). I can’t really find anything about it, except it’s good for hair and skin care. I wonder what it tastes like. I keep thinking black licorice Sambuca.

//