A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs

By Marcel Proust

À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs est le deuxième tome de À la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust publié en 1919 aux éditions Gallimard. Grâce au soutien engagé de Léon Daudet, le roman reçoit la même année le prix Goncourt par six voix contre quatre pour Les Croix de bois de Roland Dorgelès

• Language: Français
• Publisher: Marcel Proust
• Release date: Oct 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9786050326468

Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a French novelist. Born in Auteuil, France at the beginning of the Third Republic, he was raised by Adrien Proust, a successful epidemiologist, and Jeanne Clémence, an educated woman from a wealthy Jewish Alsatian family. At nine, Proust suffered his first asthma attack and was sent to the village of Illiers, where much of his work is based. He experienced poor health throughout his time as a pupil at the Lycée Condorcet and then as a member of the French army in Orléans. Living in Paris, Proust managed to make connections with prominent social and literary circles that would enrich his writing as well as help him find publication later in life. In 1896, with the help of acclaimed poet and novelist Anatole France, Proust published his debut book Les plaisirs et les jours, a collection of prose poems and novellas. As his health deteriorated, Proust confined himself to his bedroom at his parents’ apartment, where he slept during the day and worked all night on his magnum opus In Search of Lost Time, a seven-part novel published between 1913 and 1927. Beginning with Swann’s Way (1913) and ending with Time Regained (1927), In Search of Lost Time is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction in which Proust explores the nature of memory, the decline of the French aristocracy, and aspects of his personal identity, including his homosexuality. Considered a masterpiece of Modernist literature, Proust’s novel has inspired and mystified generations of readers, including Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, and Somerset Maugham.

Book preview

A L'OMBRE DES JEUNES FILLES

EN FLEURS

Marcel Proust

Cependant Mme Bontemps qui avait dit cent fois qu'elle ne voulait pas aller chez les Verdurin, ravie d'être invitée aux mercredis, était en train de calculer comment elle pourrait s'y rendre le plus de fois possible. Elle ignorait que Mme Verdurin souhaitait qu'on n'en manquât aucun; d'autre part, elle était de ces personnes peu recherchées, qui quand elles sont conviées à des «séries» par une maîtresse de maison, ne vont pas chez elle comme ceux qui savent faire toujours plaisir, quand ils ont un moment et le désir de sortir; elles, au contraire, se privent par exemple de la première soirée et de la troisième, s'imaginant que leur absence sera remarquée et se réservent pour la deuxième et la quatrième; à moins que leurs informations ne leur ayant appris que la troisième sera particulièrement brillante, elles ne suivent un ordre inverse, alléguant que «malheureusement la dernière fois elles n'étaient pas libres». Telle Mme Bontemps supputait combien il pouvait y avoir encore de mercredis avant Pâques et de quelle façon elle arriverait à en avoir un de plus, sans pourtant paraître s'imposer. Elle comptait sur Mme Cottard, avec laquelle elle allait revenir, pour lui donner quelques indications. «Oh! Madame Bontemps, je vois que vous vous levez, c'est très mal de donner ainsi le signal de la fuite. Vous me devez une compensation pour n'être pas venue jeudi dernier... Allons rasseyez-vous un moment. Vous ne ferez tout de même plus d'autre visite avant le dîner. Vraiment vous ne vous laissez pas tenter? ajoutait Mme Swann et tout en tendant une assiette de gâteaux: Vous savez que ce n'est pas mauvais du tout ces petites saletés-là. Ça ne paye pas de mine, mais goûtez-en, vous m'en direz des nouvelles.—Au contraire, ça a l'air délicieux, répondait Mme Cottard, chez vous, Odette, on n'est jamais à court de victuailles. Je n'ai pas besoin de vous demander la marque de fabrique, je sais que vous faites tout venir de chez Rebattet. Je dois dire que je suis plus éclectique. Pour les petits fours, pour toutes les friandises, je m'adresse souvent à Bourbonneux. Mais je reconnais qu'ils ne savent pas ce que c'est qu'une glace. Rebattet, pour tout ce qui est glace, bavaroise ou sorbet, c'est le grand art. Comme dirait mon mari, le nec plus ultra.—Mais ceci est tout simplement fait ici. Vraiment non?—Je ne pourrai pas dîner, répondait Mme Bontemps, mais je me rassieds un instant, vous savez, moi j'adore causer avec une femme intelligente comme vous.—Vous allez me trouver indiscrète, Odette, mais j'aimerais savoir comment vous jugez le chapeau qu'avait Mme Trombert. Je sais bien que la mode est aux grands chapeaux. Tout de même n'y a-t-il pas un peu d'exagération. Et à côté de celui avec lequel elle est venue l'autre jour chez moi, celui qu'elle portait tantôt était microscopique.—Mais non je ne suis pas intelligente, disait Odette, pensant que cela faisait bien. Je suis au fond une gobeuse, qui croit tout ce qu'on lui dit, qui se fait du chagrin pour un rien.» Et elle insinuait qu'elle avait, au commencement, beaucoup souffert d'avoir épousé un homme comme Swann qui avait une vie de son côté et qui la trompait. Cependant le Prince d'Agrigente ayant entendu les mots: «Je ne suis pas intelligente», trouvait de son devoir de protester, mais il n'avait pas d'esprit de répartie. «Taratata, s'écriait Mme Bontemps, vous pas intelligente!—En effet je me disais: «Qu'est-ce que j'entends?» disait le Prince en saisissant cette perche. Il faut que mes oreilles m'aient trompé.—Mais non, je vous assure, disait Odette, je suis au fond une petite bourgeoise très choquable, pleine de préjugés, vivant dans son trou, surtout très ignorante.» Et pour demander des nouvelles du baron de Charlus: «Avez-vous vu cher baronet?» lui disait-elle.—Vous, ignorante, s'écriait Mme Bontemps! Hé bien alors qu'est-ce que vous diriez du monde officiel, toutes ces femmes d'Excellences, qui ne savent parler que de chiffons!... Tenez, madame, pas plus tard qu'il y a huit jours je mets sur Lohengrin la ministresse de l'Instruction publique. Elle me répond: «Lohengrin? Ah! oui, la dernière revue des Folies-Bergères, il paraît que c'est tordant.» Hé bien! madame, qu'est-ce que vous voulez, quand on entend des choses comme ça, ça vous fait bouillir. J'avais envie de la gifler. Parce que j'ai mon petit caractère vous savez. Voyons, monsieur, disait-elle en se tournant vers moi, est-ce que je n'ai pas raison?—Écoutez, disait Mme Cottard, on est excusable de répondre un peu de travers quand on est interrogée ainsi de but en blanc, sans être prévenue. J'en sais quelque chose car Mme Verdurin a l'habitude de nous mettre aussi le couteau sur la gorge.—A propos de Mme Verdurin demandait Mme Bontemps à Mme Cottard, savez-vous qui il y aura mercredi chez elle?... Ah! je me rappelle maintenant que nous avons accepté une invitation pour mercredi prochain. Vous ne voulez pas dîner de mercredi en huit avec nous? Nous irons ensemble chez Madame Verdurin. Cela m'intimide d'entrer seule, je ne sais pas pourquoi cette grande femme m'a toujours fait peur.—Je vais vous le dire, répondait Mme Cottard, ce qui vous effraye chez Mme Verdurin, c'est son organe. Que voulez-vous, tout le monde n'a pas un aussi joli organe que Madame Swann. Mais le temps de prendre langue, comme dit la Patronne, et la glace sera bientôt rompue. Car dans le fond elle est très accueillante. Mais je comprends très bien votre sensation, ce n'est jamais agréable de se trouver la première fois en pays perdu.—Vous pourriez aussi dîner avec nous, disait Mme Bontemps à Mme Swann. Après dîner on irait tous ensemble en Verdurin, faire Verdurin; et même si ce devait avoir pour effet que la Patronne me fasse les gros yeux et ne m'invite plus, une fois chez elle nous resterons toutes les trois à causer entre nous, je sens que c'est ce qui m'amusera le plus.» Mais cette affirmation ne devait pas être très véridique car Mme Bontemps demandait: «Qui pensez-vous qu'il y aura de mercredi en huit? Qu'est-ce qui se passera? Il n'y aura pas trop de monde, au moins?—Moi, je n'irai certainement pas, disait Odette. Nous ne ferons qu'une petite apparition au mercredi final. Si cela vous est égal d'attendre jusque-là...» Mais Mme Bontemps ne semblait pas séduite par cette proposition d'ajournement.

Bien que les mérites spirituels d'un salon et son élégance soient généralement en rapports inverses plutôt que directs, il faut croire, puisque Swann trouvait Mme Bontemps agréable, que toute déchéance acceptée a pour conséquence de rendre les gens moins difficiles sur ceux avec qui ils sont résignés à se plaire, moins difficiles sur leur esprit comme sur le reste. Et si cela est vrai, les hommes doivent, comme les peuples, voir leur culture et même leur langage disparaître avec leur indépendance. Un des effets de cette indulgence est d'aggraver la tendance qu'à partir d'un certain âge on a à trouver agréables les paroles qui sont un hommage à notre propre tour d'esprit, à nos penchants, un encouragement à nous y livrer; cet âge-là est celui où un grand artiste préfère à la société de génies originaux celle d'élèves qui n'ont en commun avec lui que la lettre de sa doctrine et par qui il est encensé, écouté; où un homme ou une femme remarquables qui vivent pour un amour trouveront la plus intelligente dans une réunion la personne peut-être inférieure, mais dont une phrase aura montré qu'elle sait comprendre et approuver ce qu'est une existence vouée à la galanterie, et aura ainsi chatouillé agréablement la tendance voluptueuse de l'amant ou de la maîtresse; c'était l'âge aussi où Swann, en tant qu'il était devenu le mari d'Odette, se plaisait à entendre dire à Mme Bontemps que c'est ridicule de ne recevoir que des duchesses (concluant de là, au contraire de ce qu'il eût fait jadis chez les Verdurin, que c'était une bonne femme, très spirituelle et qui n'était pas snob) et à lui raconter des histoires qui la faisaient «tordre», parce qu'elle ne les connaissait pas et que d'ailleurs elle «saisissait» vite, aimant à flatter et à s'amuser. «Alors le docteur ne raffole pas comme vous, des fleurs? demandait Mme Swann à Mme Cottard.—Oh! vous savez que mon mari est un sage; il est modéré en toutes choses. Si, pourtant, il a une passion.» L'oeil brillant de malveillance, de joie et de curiosité: «Laquelle, madame?» demandait Mme Bontemps. Avec simplicité, Mme Cottard répondait: «La lecture.—Oh! c'est une passion de tout repos chez un mari! s'écriait Mme Bontemps en étouffant un rire satanique.—Quand le docteur est dans un livre, vous savez!—Hé bien, madame, cela ne doit pas vous effrayer beaucoup...—Mais si!... pour sa vue. Je vais aller le retrouver, Odette, et je reviendrai au premier jour frapper à votre porte. A propos de vue, vous a-t-on dit que l'hôtel particulier que vient d'acheter Mme Verdurin sera éclairé à l'électricité? Je ne le tiens pas de ma petite police particulière, mais d'une autre source: c'est l'électricien lui-même, Mildé, qui me l'a dit. Vous voyez que je cite mes auteurs! Jusqu'aux chambres qui auront leurs lampes électriques avec un abat-jour qui tamisera la lumière. C'est évidemment un luxe charmant. D'ailleurs nos contemporaines veulent absolument du nouveau, n'en fût-il plus au monde. Il y a la belle-soeur d'une de mes amies qui a le téléphone posé chez elle! Elle peut faire une commande à un fournisseur sans sortir de son appartement! J'avoue que j'ai platement intrigué pour avoir la permission de venir un jour parler devant l'appareil. Cela me tente beaucoup, mais plutôt chez une amie que chez moi. Il me semble que je n'aimerais pas avoir le téléphone à domicile. Le premier amusement passé, cela doit être vrai casse-tête. Allons, Odette, je me sauve, ne retenez plus Mme Bontemps puisqu'elle se charge de moi, il faut absolument que je m'arrache, vous me faites faire du joli, je vais être rentrée après mon mari!»

Et moi aussi, il fallait que je rentrasse, avant d'avoir goûté à ces plaisirs de l'hiver, desquels les chrysanthèmes m'avaient semblé être l'enveloppe éclatante. Ces plaisirs n'étaient pas venus et cependant Mme Swann n'avait pas l'air d'attendre encore quelque chose. Elle laissait les domestiques emporter le thé comme elle aurait annoncé: «On ferme!» Et elle finissait par me dire: «Alors, vraiment, vous partez? Hé bien, good bye!» Je sentais que j'aurais pu rester sans rencontrer ces plaisirs inconnus et que ma tristesse n'était pas seule à m'avoir privé d'eux. Ne se trouvaient-ils donc pas situés sur cette route battue des heures, qui mènent toujours si vite à l'instant du départ, mais plutôt sur quelque chemin de traverse inconnu de moi et par où il eût fallu bifurquer? Du moins le but de ma visite était atteint, Gilberte saurait que j'étais venu chez ses parents quand elle n'était pas là, et que j'y avais, comme n'avait cessé de le répéter Mme Cottard, fait d'emblée, de prime abord, la conquête de Mme Verdurin. «Il faut, m'avait dit la femme du docteur qui ne l'avait jamais vue faire «autant de frais», que vous ayez ensemble des atomes crochus.» Gilberte saurait que j'avais parlé d'elle comme je devais le faire, avec tendresse, mais que je n'avais pas cette incapacité de vivre sans que nous nous vissions que je croyais à la base de l'ennui qu'elle avait éprouvé ces derniers temps auprès de moi. J'avais dit à Mme Swann que je ne pouvais plus me trouver avec Gilberte. Je l'avais dit comme si j'avais décidé pour toujours de ne plus la voir. Et la lettre que j'allais envoyer à Gilberte serait conçue dans le même sens. Seulement à moi-même pour me donner courage je ne me proposais qu'un suprême et court effort de peu de jours. Je me disais: «C'est le dernier rendez-vous d'elle que je refuse, j'accepterai le prochain.» Pour me rendre la séparation moins difficile à réaliser, je ne me la présentais pas comme définitive. Mais je sentais bien qu'elle le serait.

Le 1er janvier me fut particulièrement douloureux cette année-là. Tout l'est sans doute, qui fait date et anniversaire, quand on est malheureux. Mais si c'est par exemple d'avoir perdu un être cher, la souffrance consiste seulement dans une comparaison plus vive avec le passé. Il s'y ajoutait dans mon cas l'espoir informulé que Gilberte, ayant voulu me laisser l'initiative des premiers pas et constatant que je ne les avais pas faits, n'avait attendu que le prétexte du 1er janvier pour m'écrire: «Enfin, qu'y a-t-il? je suis folle de vous, venez que nous nous expliquions franchement, je ne peux pas vivre sans vous voir.» Dès les derniers jours de l'année cette lettre me parut probable. Elle ne l'était peut-être pas, mais, pour que nous la croyions telle, le désir, le besoin que nous en avons suffit. Le soldat est persuadé qu'un certain délai indéfiniment prolongeable lui sera accordé avant qu'il soit tué, le voleur avant qu'il soit pris, les hommes en général avant qu'ils aient à mourir. C'est là l'amulette qui préserve les individus—et parfois les peuples—non du danger mais de la peur du danger, en réalité de la croyance au danger, ce qui dans certains cas permet de les braver sans qu'il soit besoin d'être brave. Une confiance de ce genre, et aussi peu fondée, soutient l'amoureux qui compte sur une réconciliation, sur une lettre. Pour que je n'eusse pas attendu celle-là, il eût suffi que j'eusse cessé de la souhaiter. Si indifférent qu'on sache que l'on est à celle qu'on aime encore, on lui prête une série de pensées—fussent-elles d'indifférence—une intention de les manifester, une complication de vie intérieure où l'on est l'objet peut-être d'une antipathie, mais aussi d'une attention permanentes. Pour imaginer au contraire ce qui se passait en Gilberte, il eût fallu que je pusse tout simplement anticiper dès ce 1er janvier-là ce que j'eusse ressenti celui d'une des années suivantes, et où l'attention, ou le silence, ou la tendresse, ou la froideur de Gilberte eussent passé à peu près inaperçus à mes yeux et où je n'eusse pas songé, pas même pu songer à chercher la solution de problèmes qui auraient cessé de se poser pour moi. Quand on aime l'amour est trop grand pour pouvoir être contenu tout entier en nous; il irradie vers la personne aimée, rencontre en elle une surface qui l'arrête, le force à revenir vers son point de départ; et c'est ce choc en retour de notre propre tendresse que nous appelons les sentiments de l'autre et qui nous charme plus qu'à l'aller, parce que nous ne connaissons pas qu'elle vient de nous. Le 1er janvier sonna toutes ses heures sans qu'arrivât cette lettre de Gilberte. Et comme j'en reçus quelques-unes de voeux tardifs ou retardés par l'encombrement des courriers à ces dates-là, le 3 et le 4 janvier, j'espérais encore, de moins en moins pourtant. Les jours qui suivirent, je pleurai beaucoup. Certes cela tenait à ce qu'ayant été moins sincère que je ne l'avais cru quand j'avais renoncé à Gilberte, j'avais gardé cet espoir d'une lettre d'elle pour la nouvelle année. Et le voyant épuisé avant que j'eusse eu le temps de me précautionner d'un autre, je souffrais comme un malade qui a vidé sa fiole de morphine sans en avoir sous la main une seconde. Mais peut-être en moi—et ces deux explications ne s'excluent pas, car un seul sentiment est quelquefois fait de contraires—l'espérance que j'avais de recevoir enfin une lettre, avait-elle rapproché de moi l'image de Gilberte, recréé les émotions que l'attente de me trouver près d'elle, sa vue, sa manière d'être avec moi, me causaient autrefois. La possibilité immédiate d'une réconciliation avait supprimé cette chose de l'énormité de laquelle nous ne nous rendons pas compte—la résignation. Les neurasthéniques ne peuvent croire les gens qui leur assurent qu'ils seront à peu près calmés en restant au lit sans recevoir de lettres, sans lire de journaux. Ils se figurent que ce régime ne fera qu'exaspérer leur nervosité. De même les amoureux, le considérant du sein d'un état contraire, n'ayant pas commencé de l'expérimenter, ne peuvent croire à la puissance bienfaisante du renoncement.

A cause de la violence de mes battements de coeur on me fit diminuer la caféine, ils cessèrent. Alors je me demandai si ce n'était pas un peu à elle qu'était due cette angoisse que j'avais éprouvée quand je m'étais à peu près brouillé avec Gilberte, et que j'avais attribuée chaque fois qu'elle se renouvelait à la souffrance de ne plus voir mon amie, ou de risquer de ne la voir qu'en proie à la même mauvaise humeur. Mais si ce médicament avait été à l'origine des souffrances que mon imagination eût alors faussement interprétées (ce qui n'aurait rien d'extraordinaire, les plus cruelles peines morales ayant souvent pour cause chez les amants, l'habitude physique de la femme avec qui ils vivent), c'était à la façon du philtre qui longtemps après avoir été absorbé continue à lier Tristan à Yseult. Car l'amélioration physique que la diminution de la caféine amena presque immédiatement chez moi n'arrêta pas l'évolution de chagrin que l'absorption du toxique avait peut-être sinon créé, du moins su rendre plus aigu.

Seulement, quand le milieu du mois de janvier approcha, une fois déçues mes espérances d'une lettre pour le jour de l'an et la douleur supplémentaire qui avait accompagné leur déception une fois calmée, ce fut mon chagrin d'avant «les Fêtes» qui recommença. Ce qu'il y avait peut-être encore en lui de plus cruel, c'est que j'en fusse moi-même l'artisan inconscient, volontaire, impitoyable et patient. La seule chose à laquelle je tinsse, mes relations avec Gilberte, c'est moi qui travaillais à les rendre impossibles en créant peu à peu, par la séparation prolongée d'avec mon amie, non pas son indifférence, mais ce qui reviendrait finalement au même, la mienne. C'était à un long et cruel suicide du moi qui en moi-même aimait Gilberte que je m'acharnais avec continuité, avec la clairvoyance non seulement de ce que je faisais dans le présent, mais de ce qui en résulterait pour l'avenir: je savais non pas seulement que dans un certain temps je n'aimerais plus Gilberte, mais encore qu'elle-même le regretterait, et que les tentatives qu'elle ferait alors pour me voir seraient aussi vaines que celles d'aujourd'hui, non plus parce que je l'aimerais trop mais parce que j'aimerais certainement une autre femme que je resterais à désirer, à attendre, pendant des heures dont je n'oserais pas distraire une parcelle pour Gilberte qui ne me serait plus rien. Et sans doute en ce moment même, où (puisque j'étais résolu à ne plus la voir, à moins d'une demande formelle d'explications, d'une complète déclaration d'amour de sa part, lesquelles n'avaient plus aucune chance de venir) j'avais déjà perdu Gilberte, et l'aimais davantage, je sentais tout ce qu'elle était pour moi, mieux que l'année précédente, quand passant tous mes après-midi avec elle, selon que je voulais, je croyais que rien ne menaçait notre amitié, sans doute en ce moment l'idée que j'éprouverais un jour les mêmes sentiments pour une autre m'était odieuse, car cette idée m'enlevait outre Gilberte, mon amour et ma souffrance. Mon amour, ma souffrance, où en pleurant j'essayais de saisir justement ce qu'était Gilberte, et desquels il me fallait reconnaître qu'ils ne lui appartenaient pas spécialement et seraient, tôt ou tard, le lot de telle ou telle femme.

Reviews for A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs

[bookishbunny · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though a heavy series to get through, it is worth the effort. The new translation is wonderful. Much easier to read and, I suspect, more true to the original French.

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am unsure, having just finished this, as to whether or not I enjoyed reading it more than Swann's Way. Either way, this is quite a different book, though different in it's focus of narrative, rather than in the quality of the narrative, which is much the same.This book concentrates on Proust himself, rather than Swann, with his thoughts and actions being described in every bit as much detail, if not more. This book is a bit longer than the first, and though it is perhaps a bit more pedestrian in its ambitions, it does not miss out any of the things which made the reading first one as good as it was. Perhaps if this book had been too similar to the first one it would have felt somewhat tedious to read straight afterwards, but as this book is written from the point of a young Proust, in contrast to the older Swann of much of the first book, it is refreshing to notice the change of perspective. Swann is always so sure of his ideas, his wants, and his enjoyments, whereas young Proust here shows a certain indecision, a mind not yet completely made up about things, which does not come across in most of the reflections in the first book. Some of the things that recur in this book include the importance of art and sensibility, and the characters preoccupation with love, which I am guessing will run throughout the remaining volumes. I don't know whether or not it is appropriate to recommend this book, as I normally would at the end of a review, as it would be more sensible to read Swann's Way first, and then read this too, if you enjoyed the first one. But, what I can say is that if you did read and enjoy Swann's Way, then there is not much that you are likely to dislike about this book, and you may like me even possibly prefer it.

[leonard_seet_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More than a commentary on Swann’s jealousy or M. Charlus’s homosexuality or the frivolity of the Guermantes’ sorties, Marcel Proust’s monumental work In Search of Lost Time paints the unsuccessful reconstruction of a forgone world and a lost existence from fickle memories, which like morning mists would fade with the rising sun. The narrator Marcel, longing for a past that didn’t exist but must be created, sought to experience Bergson’s continuous time rather than the fragmented and still-framed instantaneous moments by attempting to blur the boundaries between Cambray and Paris, childhood and adolescence, and Swann and himself and integrate here and there, before and after, and him and me through memory fragments of previous objects, people and sensations. As in a neural network or a mind-map, the madeleine linked his aunt to his mother, who in turn was linked to Albertine through jealousy, which also connected Marcel with Saint Loop and Swann, who, as with his (Marcel’s) grandmother, linked his childhood and adolescence. And through recollection, Marcel would try to relive the buried years and resurrect his grandmother and Albertine.But even during the narrative, Marcel realized memory’s willfulness and the variation in hues, shapes, pitch and timbre between the actual object and its mental reconstruction. When he encountered an old friend, the facial features were so different from his recollection and reconstruction, for better or for worse pregnant with all the emotions, preoccupation, biases, that he could not match face with voice.Because recollected sensation can never equate with the actual experience and time, like a patient thief, steals memories a morsel at a time until one day the owner would realize he was ruined, Marcel ultimately would fail to recapture and assemble stolen sensations and decayed seconds and in the end, must create new moments, new sensations and ultimately a new biography, through the synergy between past experiences and creative imagination. From those deceased hours and decayed memories sprouted In Search of Lost Time, not only Proust’s novel but also that of the narrator. Whether we savor Marcel’s frailness, Swann’s infatuation, Charlus’s pompousness, Franscoise’s independent-mindedness, the sorties’ frivolousness or the social revelation of the Dreyfuss Affair, we can enjoy Proust’s classic without resorting to Marxist or Freudian or Feminist critique. And the sentences, like the serpentine Amazon, seemed to flow unceasingly into the distant horizon carrying with it the sparkling sunlight. Although ascending the novel’s three thousand pages appears precipitous, the effort will be well worth the while and, at the end of the adventure, the reader can rest on the crisp apex and savor time’s transience and memory’s playfulness as if they were alpine zephyrs.

[rubyscarlett-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Exquisite prose and life musings that are more true and real than everything else I've read. Reading Proust is a delicacy that's better enjoyed as a special occasion treat but I was so taken in with Proust's world that I couldn't put this down once I'd started. Stunning work that can be enjoyed in so many ways and endlessly quotable - it often reads like a poem.

[jorgearanda_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the wonders of Proust, I begin to realize now, is his ability to reproduce the powers of insight and reflection of which his books are made of in the minds of his readers, so that their lives are transformed by his touch.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I enjoyed Marcel Proust's "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower," which is the second book in his series "In Search of Lost Time," it definitely wasn't as astounding as the first book.In this volume, our narrator focuses on his first loves -- cutting things off with Gilberte and moving on to his infatuation with Albertine. Most of the novel takes place in the seaside resort of Balbec. As in the first novel, there are plenty of gorgeous passages to savor. But Proust's general wordiness bothered me more this time around. Something about the voice didn't quite fit with the recollections as well as it did in the first volume. Still, there are plenty of snatches of brilliance along the way. This volume convinced me I need to stretch out my reading to one book every three months or so... (I had originally hoped to read all seven volumes this year.) It took nearly a month to read this one and it made me look forward to reading something a little less challenging!

[semckibbin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Spoilers throughoutThe title A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs is translated various ways. Moncrief’s Within a Budding Grove sucks. Seriously, where are the girls and the play of light? I prefer Nabokov’s more natural In the Shade of the Blooming Young Girls. My doubts about whether I am reading what the author actually wrote normally steer me away from reading translations---but I make an exception for this vast, supremely intelligent novel.On the surface this part of the Recherche covers the beautiful, rich, stylish, asthmatic, and batty Narrator’s youthful loves: Gilberte and her mother in Paris; the faces and voices of Albertine and the rest of the little band in Balbec; and Charlus (although the Narrator naively did not comprehend what was going on). They all end badly, Gilberte gets tired of him, Albertine calls for help to thwart his advances and Charlus even administers a salutary douche.I think the Narrator’s love for Odette is the most profound of them all; it is her fragrance that intoxicates, her housecoats that delight, her chrysanthemums that have special significance. She is observed down to the lining of her jacket. The mauve vision of Odette in her slow procession through the Bois is for me the most enchanting part of the novel. Accompanied by her entourage who are awed by her beauty and wealth, saluted by Princes, she is more aristocratic than the aristocrats and singularly sums up the belle epoque. And Odette is important to Proust, for, despite her mediocre intelligence, she has invented “a physiognomy of her own”---that is, she has invented herself. Proust is a subtle and penetrating psychologist and has superhuman powers of analogy. He has created images that impress themselves on my mind: the sea reflected in Balbec hotel's bookcases, the green dining room, Berma with her arm extended, the hawthorne, and of course the mauve image of Odette. As if it were an Elstir painting, Proust’s novel has the feel of a mirage in a tinted haze; just so, the bit about the letters with Gilberte is recalled by me now as perhaps letters that the Narrator dreamed he wrote to Gilberte, or maybe wrote them and didnt send them, or maybe sent them and imagined her reply, or maybe he did receive an actual response. I cant tell. Very nice effect.The other thing that keeps me coming back to Proust is the brilliant observations that appear on virtually every page. To give but two instances: he dumps on Norpois “...to repeat what everybody else was thinking was, in politics, the mark not of an inferior but of a superior mind”; and reflects on Bergotte’s genius, “...the men who produce works of genius are not those that live in the most delicate atmosphere, whose conversation is the most brilliant or their culture the most extensive, but those that have had the power, ceasing suddenly to live for themselves, to transform their personality into a sort of mirror, in such a way that their life, however mediocre it may be socially and even, in a sense, intellectually, is reflected by it, genius consisting in the reflecting power and not in the intrinsic quality of the scene reflected.” There is simply a lot to chew on.I wont talk of Proust’s larger themes (Time, Art, Memory, Self-Deception, Life’s Irony, etc.) but I do want to recommend some criticism that I found enlightening: Pippin’s essay Becoming who one is (and failing) and Landy’s excellent Philosophy as Fiction.There are a couple things that continue to puzzle me: what is the actual relationship between Bloch and Odette? is Bergotte a homosexual? Perhaps the reader might leave me a message to help me out.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second book in Proust's series In Search of Lost Time involves our narrator contemplating art in its various forms - writing, painting, acting. He is trying to discover what it is that makes works great, and is at that age when two things happen: 1, you have started to develop some taste, so you find yourself for the first time faced with things you thought you would like, but didn't, and 2, you start wondering if other people are seeing something you're missing, or if they're just toeing the party line on what is great so that they don't seem like Philistines. It's an interesting theme, of course investigated from all angles. The narrator is, predictably, also contemplating girls. The first book left him infatuated with Gilberte Swann, and we see a sort of resolution of that entanglement here. Then he goes to the seaside at Balbec and is intrigued by a group of girls who wander together and look like they're having a lot of fun. The changeable nature of adolescent love comes to the forefront, and Proust pokes at the idea that at that age, you're just looking for someone to be in love with. Circumstances can play a bigger part in actually falling in love than any quality of the loved one. Not much happens in the way of plot, of course, but I think this is an intriguing book for the time period it covers in the narrator's life. So much happens in these awkward years internally, and there are episodes where the narrator seems impossibly childish, then quite grown up, then so completely unsure of himself that I am saying out loud, "what a dolt" in reaction to something he does. It's full of warmth, humor, nostalgia, and the confusion over what might be going on in other people's heads. It has solidified my desire to keep going with this series.Recommended for: people who remember being a teenager, people who realize that every generation throughout history has said "Kids these days!"Quote: "So it is that a well-read man will at once begin to yawn with boredom when one speaks to him of a new "good book," because he imagines a sort of composite of all the good books that he has read, whereas a good book is something special, something unforeseeable, and is made up not of the sum of all previous masterpieces but of something which the most thorough assimilation of every one of them would not enable him to discover, since it exists not in their sum but beyond it."

[saraprindiville · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very little action in this book- mostly descriptions of thoughts, emotions and types of people. The author doesn't idealize "his" characters behavior- he does some imperfect things and makes no excuses. Reminds me of Tom Jones because the ending is obvious hundreds of pages before it actually happens.

[rmagahiz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This second volume in Proust's In Search of Lost Time is another sprawling, stream of consciousness work with a plot which is very much in the background. The Narrator's eye focuses on a person or object which seems to have symbolic importance, yet the meaning of the symbol is not made immediately apparent. Throughout there is a free-floating sense of time and of space, in which scenes go off on tangents and are never fully resolved, and memories and expectations intrude upon the mental image, often displacing what is immediately in front of his eyes. Similar to the motif set up in Swann's Way regarding memories retold in a moment of recollection. Sometimes the retelling takes place long after the events have taken place and sometimes not: for instance, almost immediately after the first meeting between the Narrator and Albertine he describes the way they would talk about their impressions of that first day.

The beginning and the end of the book are propelled by the pursuit of the two objects of the Narrator's romantic obsession: Gilberte Swann and Albertine Simonet. They are typically portrayed in a sketch like fashion - their hair, skin, hands, a few things they say or do - and not in a way that gives the reader a very clear picture of what makes them so fascinating. Facile as he is with words, it seems as though the Narrator may simply be unable to explain his drive to captivate these young women to the reader.

I don't think there are many true stock characters among all the ones who make an appearance. These are complex people, with secrets and the capacity to surprise. Part of it is the strength of reputation and family which sets up preconceptions about how a person is expected to comport him or herself, which frequently conflicts with the urgings of the heart.

The book ends in a quiet, reflective fashion, with the Narrator in bed almost the same way the first volume started out. If he is aware of how his words and actions have moved him in a direction that feels likely to lead to unhappiness, he doesn't appear to show it.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dense, and I’m glad I’m done with it. I would say it’s over-rated but to be fair, I think it’s in the eye of the beholder. In literature there is a spectrum of writing styles, ranging from those concentrate on action or which are full of passion at one extreme, and those that are more elegant in form at the other. Proust, Henry James, and Nabokov would all be in the latter category. There are people who clearly adore this sort of thing, and for them the book (and the series to which it belongs) is properly rated as a classic. And while I do want a lot more out of a book than “all plot”, something which becomes like a movie in print, it’s taken to such an extreme here that I would never recommend this book, despite its place in the history of literature, and despite the occasional nuggets of gold one mines out of Proust’s long passages.Proust does not show what's happening with dialog, he tells, and tells in a verbose way. You will find yourself mired in page after page of tedious descriptions of French social order or on some other tangent, with long parentheses-ridden sentences, wishing he would get on with it. Yes, he may be catching all sorts of subtleties in what he’s trying so very hard to explain, but in leaving no stone unturned, he becomes too much of a chore to read.There were some points when I thought ah, here we go, we’re settled in now, and this at last is the reason people love this guy. At the end of part one, and the beginning of part two, when he gets into the trials and tribulations of love, and in the fleeting nature of things, such as seeing and passing by the young girl at a train station, he was at his best for me. The scene where his doctor advises him to have ‘a little too much beer or brandy, so as to be in the state he called euphoria’, to have him calm down before his rail journey (much to his grandmother’s consternation), is excellent, as the state of the narrator is told masterfully through the reactions of those around him.Unfortunately these types of moments are not sustained. Just as the narrator’s reaction to La Berma, an actress who is revered, is to his disappointment lukewarm, and he is constantly searching for signs of genius in her when all of the other actresses seem to be superior, I find this is my reaction to Proust, years after having read the first volume. I feel a bit like an infidel giving him such a low rating, but I don’t think this book holds up, and I wonder whether glowing reviews are a function of his reputation, and the feat one feels for having slogged through and finished this book.Quotes:On being cruel to family, and the ones you love:“But my grandmother, noticing that I looked put out, said that, if the taking of the photograph was bothersome to me, she would not go ahead with it. I did not want her to abandon the idea, told her I had no objection, and let her titivate herself. But I thought it was pretty clever and superior of me to say a few hurtful and sarcastic words to her, so as to neutralize the pleasure she seemed to look forward to from being photographed; and though I was obliged to see her magnificent hat, at least I managed to banish from her face the signs of a joy that I ought to have been happy to share with her, but which, as so often happens while those whom we love best are still alive, can strike us a mere irritant, a mark of something silly and small-minded, rather than the precious revelation of the happiness we long to give them.”On flirtation, and wow on the ‘shed my pleasure’ bit:“As I came close to Gilberte, who was leaning back in her chair, telling me to take the letter but not handing it to me, I felt so attracted by her body that I said:‘You try to stop me from getting it and we’ll see who wins.’She held it behind her back, and I put my hands behind her neck, lifting the long plaits which hung on her shoulders, either because it was a hairstyle that suited her age, or because her mother wanted her to appear younger than she was, so as not to age too rapidly herself; and in that strained posture, we tussled with each other. I kept trying to draw her closer to me; she kept resisting. Flushed with the effort, her cheeks were as red and round as cherries; she laughed as though I were tickling her. I had her pinned between my legs as though she were the bole of a little tree I was trying to climb. In the middle of all my exertions, without my breathing being quickened much more than it already was by muscular exercise and the heat of the playful moment, like a few drops of sweat produced by the effort, I shed my pleasure, before I even had time to be aware of the nature of it, and managed to snatch the letter away from her. Gilberte said in a friendly tone:‘If you like, we could wrestle a bit more.’”On love:“Peace of mind is foreign to love, since each new fulfillment one attains is never anything but a new starting point for the desire to go beyond it.”On love unrequited:“With a woman who does not love us, as with someone who has died, the knowledge that there is nothing left to hope for does not prevent us from going on waiting. One lives in a state of alertness, eyes and ears open; a mother whose son has gone on a dangerous sea voyage always has the feeling, even when she has long known for certain that he has perished, that he is just about to come through the door, saved by a miracle, unscathed.”On love’s settings:“I rang the ‘lift’, to go up to the room Albertine had taken, which overlooked the valley. The slightest motions, the mere act of sitting down on the little seat inside the elevator, were full of sweetness, because they were in direct touch with my heart; in the cables that hauled the lift upward, and in the few stairs still to be climbed, I saw nothing but the workings of my joy and the steps toward it, materialized. In the corridor, I was only a few paces away from the bedroom inside which lay the precious substance of her pink body – the room which, however delightful the acts to take place in it, would go on being its unchanging self, would continue to seem, for the eyes of any unsuspecting passerby, identical to all the other rooms, which is the way things have of becoming the stubbornly unconfessing witnesses, the conscientious confidants, the inviolable trustees of our pleasure.”On snobbery, loved this one:“Whenever the notary’s wife and the good lady of the First President saw her at mealtimes in the dining room, they would hold up their eyeglasses and give her a good, long, insolent stare, with such an air of punctilious distaste and misgiving that she might have been a dish of pompous name and dubious appearance which, after subjecting it to a rigorous inspection, one waves away with a distant gesture and a grimace of disgust.”On women (or chasing women); this one brought a smile:“…I was on an errand with a friend of my father’s when from the carriage I caught sight of a woman walking away into the dark: the thought struck me that it was absurd to forfeit, for a reason of mere propriety, a share of happiness in this life, it being no doubt the only one we are to have, and so I jumped out without as much as a by-your-leave, ran after the intriguing creature, lost her at a crossing of two streets, saw her again on another street, and eventually ran her to ground under a lamppost, where I found I was out of breath and face-to-face with the aging Mme Verdurin, whom I usually avoided like the plague, and who now cried in delight and surprise, ‘Oh, how nice of you to chase after me just to say good evening!’”On youth:“One lives among monsters and gods, a stranger to peace of mind. There is scarcely a single one of our acts from that time which we would not prefer to abolish later on. But all we should lament is the loss of the spontaneity that urged them upon us. In later life, we see things with a more practical eye, one we share with the rest of society; but adolescence was the only time we ever learned anything.”I loved these little snippets, reflecting the times:“In those days, in that part of Paris, which was seen as rather remote (indeed, the whole city was darker then than nowadays, none of the streets, even in the center of town, being lit by electricity, and very few of the houses), lamps glowing inside a drawing room on a ground floor or a mezzanine, which was where Mme Swann’s receiving rooms were, could light up the street and draw the glance of passerby, who saw in these illuminations a manifest but veiled relation to the handsome horses and carriages waiting outside the front doors.”And this one, imagining a ‘phototelephone’, a device which will create an image of the person speaking from the sound of their voice, as opposed to transmitting video:“…her voice was like the one that it is said will be part of the phototelephone of the future: the sound of it gave a vivid picture of her.”

[leslie398 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Honestly, I liked this more than the first book, Swann's Way. However, life intervened when I was almost done & it was a struggle to finish the final 5% of the book. Proust's style of writing is lush but it doesn't appeal to me and his long, convoluted sentences make this a poor book to read when frequent interruptions occur (as was the case for me towards the end).

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Tweede deel van 7. Mme Swann als icoon; een heerlijke vakantie in Balbec-plage, fantasieën over meisjes op het strand, eerste ontmoeting met Albertine. Dit deel speelt zich bijna geheel in het hoofd van Marcel af. Soms sublieme passages, maar heel veel puberaal gezwam!

[pmtracy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This second volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is comprised of At Mme Swann’s and Place-Names: The Place.After completing the first volume and well into this second, I still had a difficult time resolving the story’s point-of-view. Are we hearing from a very mature boy or is this a man reminiscing of the past? A few references in Place-Names:The Places to future events indicates that it’s actually the later. Upon recognizing this, another story came to mind. The literati will hang me for likening a work of Proust to something so base, but I started thinking of Jean Shepherd. More correctly, his narration of the 1983 movie A Christmas Story. I began imagining the same “adult remembering his childhood thinking like an adult” voice within Proust’s work and everything clicked into place for me.In the first book, we finally reach the conclusion of the narrator’s “love affair” with Gilberte Swann. Typical of youthful relationships, he destroys any last hope of being with Gilberte by “playing games.” After a small understanding, he and Gilberte have an argument and stop seeing each other. Instead of mending fences, he adopts the belief that snubbing Gilberte will make her long for him more and she will eventually come running back to him. However, the picture that has been painted of our protagonist is one of a relatively weak, sickly and immature child. In actuality, he doesn’t have much to offer Gilberte and she readily replaces him with someone else. During this period of trying to make Gilberte more interested by staying away, he does maintain a somewhat unnaturally close relationship with Gilberte’s mother, Odette Swann. Knowing Odette’s possibly tawdry past, one wonders if she isn’t actually interested in Gilberte’s “playmate.” The book ends innocently enough however with his departure to Balbec.Once finally in Balbec, the reader is treated to more descriptive scenes of painstaking minutia. These can be a treat for today’s reader through the enjoyment of studying Proust’s use of language, but it does make progressing through the story challenging. The narrator’s time in Balbec is once again centered around the incongruous workings of the young mind. He befriends Marquis de Saint-Loup-en-Bray. At first, he sees him as “uppity” but really wants to be his friend. Once the friendship is established, we learn that Saint-Loup may be the first truly “stand up” character we’ve encountered in Proust’s cast.Finally, the narrator discovers the “little group of girls.” He repeats past mistakes by going after one to make another jealous, getting “dumped” by that one, chasing someone else and all the while missing out that another is actually interested in him. He ignores all of his other friends while pursuing the girls and eventually tarnishes the one good friendship he had with Saint-Loup.The language and time differences aside, every reader will probably recognize similar mistakes they’ve made (or continue to make) in their dealings with others. This ability to relate to the story makes In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower more approachable than the first volume, Swann’s Way.

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amidst the meanderingly precise descriptions of faces, personalities, and internal states of near-delirium, the charming but endlessly frustrating characters, the incessant dithering, the sub-clauses atop of sub-clauses all the way down, the startling unexpected observations, and the sheer weight of sentence upon sentence, I always return to one further fact: Proust can be damn funny. His comic set-pieces, such as M. de Charlus’ strange behaviour at Balbec, or M. de Norpois’ equivocal reasoning, are worth the price of admission. Of course there is far more here than I have gathered in one reading. Wonderful – I’ll read it again, and again, and its value, for me, shall increase with time.

[robertdemontesquiou · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Marcel Proust had one of the greatest pens the french language has ever witnessed. Prying into the most minutious of details about people and places and the things that surround them, he manages to bring interest to the most insignificant of details and put them at the heart of the history. This second volume (of 7 in La Recherche) begins to bring back details of the past and to examine the passing tide of time, especially in the first part concerning Odette Swann. Proust's portrayal of the end of the 19th century brings us into a world with different mores, traditions and world outlook which have been rarely equalled in world literature. Voluminous, the books which compose the series necessitate this copious literature in order to examine precisely the subject which concerns them all communally : The passing of time and the memories which haunt us. The Whole Recherche in general, and A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles in particular, show Proust's complete master of the subject matter and the minutious details that flower from his literature. Assiduous must be he who undertakes the task of completing La Recherche, but Proust never loses the readers' attention, constantly bringing in metaphors and similes that richly manipulate the story and that can stand separately as unique pieces of writing.An excellent read and the most evolved style of French literature, having for backing some six centuries of literature which Proust knows from A to Z.

[buttsy1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I am enjoying reading my way through 'In Search of Lost Time', I've got to say, after the first two volumes, the narrator is an idiot in matters romantic.

[stillatim · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's Proustiana, which means you'll either love it, or never even pick it up. If you're looking for an introduction to the best novel of the twentieth century, this is probably a solid one.