“Without dwelling on relationships as unusual as this one,
do we not see every day that adultery, when it is based on true love, not only
does not shake family attachments and duties, but gives them new light?” (248).
“ . . .a library is still the best place to pursue the dream
of life” (315)
“ . . . for the art with which she arranged them showed that
combination of patience, ingenuity, homesickness, and the need to forget which
we see in the art of prisoners” (351-352).
“Because the wind no longer billowed in her garments,
because above all, I had cut her wings, she had ceased to be a Victory, she was
a heavy slave of whom I wished to be rid” (354).
Well,
dude that is your fault ain’t it?
“ . . . great writers have only ever written a single work,
or rather, refracted through different media single beauty which each of them
has brought to the world” (355).
“You say you’ve been looking at some paintings by Vermeer,
then you can see that they’re all fragments of a single world, that is always,
whatever the genius recreating it, the same table, the same carpet, the same women,
the same new and unique beauty, a complete enigma at this period when there is
nothing else like it, nothing to explain it, unless one tries to related him to
painters by his choice of subject, while recognizing the particular, personal
impression made by his color.” (360).
Can I be Team Albertine?
I want to be Team Albertine! I
can’t really be poor Marcel who locked a woman up, made her leave a show early,
and then went out. What did he think
Albertine would do? He wants to possess
her, it’s obsession but not love.
Albertine gets things, don’t get me wrong. Pretty things, but it is not a set relationship,
and the power imbalance is huge. It’s
strange how women are viewed in this volume.
We are not told Jupien’s niece’s name, but she gets called a slut
because she refuse to pimp for Morel.
Yet, we are suppose to feel more sorry for Charlus because of his
treatment by Morel - who seems to be the
worst type of social climber.
Sometimes I think Albertine says what she thinks Marcel
wants her to say, even if he doesn’t admit it to himself. Take for instance, the whole bit about
Albertine and Gilberte. According to Albertine,
Gilberte asked her about loving women.
This sounds like more something Marcel wished happened, if you think
about it, because he keeps thinking about Gilberte.
He is more sad about Swann instead of Bergotte. But that’s because he wants to be Swann, at
least in terms of the art loving. He
didn’t want Gilberte, he wanted Gilberte’ s placement to things – such as Bergotte
and Swann.
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