Sodom and Gomorrah: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4 (Penguin Classics… (edition 2005)

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. ( )

I'm glad I read this, but it was not my favorite entry in the series, due to the subject matter. Marcel, the narrator, grows up - and learns way more about the sex lives of his friends than I cared to know. Also, a lot of these characters are snobs, hypocritical, and/or manipulative. Fortunately there are a few good ones in the bunch that I could cheer for.

Marcel finally goes to the Princess Guermantes dinner party (the one he was invited to in the last book). There are some funny moments there.

He talks to Swann for one last time.

He comes to terms with his grandmother's death when he travels to Balbec again - without her. He becomes a regular at the Verdurin's house (where Swann met Odette back in book #1) and he gets better aquainted with the Baron de Charlus and the baron's protege, Morel. He spends a lot of time with Albertine and struggles to figure out if he loves her or not.

I enjoyed the writing very much, as usual. Proust's descriptions are a bit long winded, but lovely. Again, I have to say that I love the way Proust shows us what people are thinking and feeling. It's easy to recognize modern day people in some of these characters.

Now, on to book #5! ( )

Another shift of focus---to homosexuality, this time. The narrator's perspective of his acquaintances and friends is transformed by the discovery of homosexuals around him. In the case of men, this gives him an opportunity to explore the layers of interaction in society, and in the case of women, cause for anxiety, as he fears his companion has proclivities that will render her ultimately inaccessible to him.

But it is just a shift in focus; the picture itself is the same. That is, same elements, same quality of insightful observations on the mind and on society, same subtle and powerful language. ( )

Volume IV of In Search of Lost Time is the continued saga of Marcel’s rise to prominence in French society. He gradually comes to realize that all those titled aristocrats he feared meeting were really quite ordinary people, with varying degrees of beauty, intelligence, charm and wit. He is pleased to receive an open invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Guermantes to attend all their social gatherings, but at the height of the social season complacently decides to leave Paris and return to Balbec, the seaside resort, to restore his diminished physical strength and vitality. At Balbec Marcel renews his friendship with Albertine and much like Mr. Swann's obsession with Odette in Volume I, he becomes obsessed with possessing her and isolating her from any temptation to stray, but it is obvious that Marcel is in for a long painful struggle.

The underlying theme of Sodom and Gomorrah is homosexuality. Marcel makes the shocking discovery that M. de Charlus is gay. Fortunately, his wealth, titled lineage, and position in the French social stratum gives M. de Charlus a degree of immunity from being ostracized. Those who suspect his inversion smile smugly and snicker behind his chubby waddling backside; a humorous depiction of how one can blindly view themselves as superior, aloof, and sophisticated when in reality they are pathetically foolish. At the other end of the spectrum, poor middle-class Albertine, who shows gay tendencies and is ridiculed for her gauche behavior, suffers a bad reputation.

Halfway through this epic masterpiece we begin to see the subtle shift in social standards. Society in general is becoming less impressed with royalty and the elite. Searching for excitement and originality the titled are willing to set snobbery aside and open their doors to a select group of professional and artistic bourgeois.

Sodom and Gomorrah is my least favorite of the series, thus far. Perhaps I am becoming jaded by the elaborate descriptions, the over the top abundance of metaphors, and the raw emotional vulnerability of the narrator. However, Proust still gets my highest praise for conveying his message with extraordinary depth and clarity. One tiny example is when Marcel feared Albertine was going to answer him “with a “no” of which the “n” would have been too hesitant and the “o” too emphatic.” Proust leaves no doubt how even a simple word like “no” was spoken. ( )

"I absolutely must marry Albertine." With these words of the narrator Marcel Proust ends the final chapter of Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume in his monumental In Search of Lost Time. Whether the narrator is sincere or not, any lack of sincerity is more than supplanted by his passion, if not love, for Albertine. Throughout this volume and especially in the final chapters the narrator has had a tempestuous relationship with Albertine both in his mind and in his life in Balbec and...more "I absolutely must marry Albertine." With these words of the narrator Marcel Proust ends the final chapter of Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume in his monumental In Search of Lost Time. Whether the narrator is sincere or not, any lack of sincerity is more than supplanted by his passion, if not love, for Albertine. Throughout this volume and especially in the final chapters the narrator has had a tempestuous relationship with Albertine both in his mind and in his life in Balbec and its environs. Some of the other themes that are prominent in the final sections of this volume are the passion of both Baron Charlus and the Prince for young 'Charlie' Morel. Morel, a reprobate and a cad who is made somewhat appealing (at least for this reader) by virtue of being a talented pianist, plays with both men without the other knowing about his liaisons much as a mouse plays with a cat. The ruling word throughout for both the narrator and other characters is passion, if not lust, in the erotic sense which pervades several relationships. The issue of the Dreyfus case is also prominent and Proust is able to convey the complicated views of both sides through the seeming necessity that most prominent characters be identified as either "Dreyfusards" or not. The overall feeling I retain from this reading is one of the cumulative effect of the layers of themes, many of which have appeared in the previous three volumes and will, undoubtedly, appear again in the final volumes of In Search of Lost Time. To some extent this is due to the influence of Wagner and the use of literary "liet motifs" by Proust and the technique of the search, in this case the search for love. That the search for love seems to devolve into an impasse of passion for the sake of sanity if not love itself is a wonder -- one of the many wonders of this continuously engaging novel. ( )