Proust on Love

While backpacking through Europe this past winter break I read Proust's classic Swann's Way. Although the book was quite unnecessarily tedious and most specifically over the French aristocracy, obviously he had some interesting things to say about love--although it was mostly about the premature obsessive love that most of us get involved in during high school. I really enjoyed parts of it (that is Swann in Love) for that reason, for it reminded me of the self-deprecating lust that I had once experienced in my youth, he really captured it better than any other author I have read. This did however, make it quite painful to read at times for these memories for me at least are not those of childhood nostalgia.

I wanted to highlight two passages in particular, one before his all out obsession and one after to gauge what Proust does to exemplify his character's neurotic behavior.

And although Swann had never yet taken offence, at all seriously,
at Odette's demonstrations of friendship for one or other of the
'faithful,' he felt an exquisite pleasure on hearing her thus avow,
before them all, with that calm immodesty, the fact that they saw each
other regularly every evening, his privileged position in h
er house, and
her own preference for him which it implied. It was true that Swann had
often reflected that Odette was in no way a remarkable woman; and in
the supremacy which he wielded over a creature so distinctly inferior to
himself there was nothing that especially flattered him when he heard
it proclaimed to all the 'faithful'; but since he had observed that,
to several other men than himself, Odette seemed a fascinating and
desirable woman, the attraction which her body held for him had aroused
a painful longing to secure the absolute mastery of even the tiniest
particles of her heart. And he had begun to attach an incalculable value

to those moments passed in her house in the evenings, when he held her
upon his knee, made her tell him what she thought about this or that,
and counted over that treasure to which, alone of all his earthly
possessions, he still clung. And so, after this dinner
, drawing her
aside, he took care to thank her effusively, seeking to indicate to
her by the extent of his gratitude the corresponding intensity of
the pleasures which it was in her power to bestow on him, the supreme
pleasure being to guarantee him immunity, for as long as his love should
last and he remain vulnerable, from the assaults of jealousy (excerpt taken from page 170 from Project Gutenberg).

Those of us that know the end product of Mousiour Swann and Odett's relationship can no doubt fail to appreciate the candor and skill at which Proust sets up their relationship's eventual outcome. Immune to jealousy, pshaw! It seems to me that Proust is using love as a means of transcending and blurring class lines and forcing friction and conflict between the different classes.

Meanwhile, Odette had shewn signs of increasing emotion and uncertainty.
Although the meaning of his tirade was beyond her, she grasped that it
was to be included among the scenes of reproach or supplication, scenes
which her familiarity with the ways of men enabled her, without paying
any heed to the words that were uttered, to conclude that men would not
make unless they were in love; that, from the moment when they were in
love, it was superfluous to obey them, since they would only be more in
love later on. And so, she would have heard Swann out with the utmost
tranquillity had she not noticed that it was growing late, and that if
he went on speaking for any length of time she would "never" as she told
him with a fond smile, obstinate but slightly abashed, "get there in
time for the Overture." (184)

This showcases the switching of perspectives of our two characters. In which Odett is no longer the naive youth but the controlling mistress, Swann a marionette on a string.

I also find it interesting some things my professor was saying about Romanticism and its influence on Modernism. Romanticism was preoccupied with studing humans in certain enviroment's (in love, Paris) and time (late 19th century) as opposed to Classicism which worried about universal motifs. This explains, at least in my mind, the ability for Proust to have his characters change power positions in their relationship.

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