My Years With Proust - Day 497

There had been not merely a change in the weather outside, or, inside the room, a change of smells; there had been in myself an alteration in age, the substitution of another person.  The scent, in the frosty air, of the twigs of brushwood was like a fragment of the past, an invisible ice-floe detached from some bygone winter advancing into my room, often, moreover, striated with this or that perfume or gleam of light, as though with different annular rings, in which I found myself once more submerged, overwhelmed, even before I had identified them, by the exhilaration of hopes long since abandoned.  The sun's rays fell upon my bed and passed through the transparent shell of my attenuated body, warmed me, made me glow like crystal.  Then, like a famished convalescent already battening upon all the dish that are still forbidden him, I wondered whether marriage with Albertine might not spoil my life, not only by making me assume the too arduous task of devoting myself to another person, but by forcing me to live apart from myself because of her continual presence and depriving me forever of the joys of solitude.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 19-20.

I was just swapping emails with my good friend Kathy about Proust, which is great because I've habitually failed in my attempt to find someone to meet weekly for a coffee and Remembrance of Things Past dissection.  Leaning on Heidi Burkhardt-Steiner only inspired death threats from her.  Not even the gifting of a French edition of Swann's Way to Sanford Zale could inspire him to meet me to discuss Proust.  Kathy says she's going to read Proust vicariously through my blog, and I'm happy to have the Proustian company.  This morning's email barrage centered on, not surprisingly, Marcel's fascination with Albertine.  Mainly, we were just trying to determine whether Marcel even wanted her or not.  My point was that even his descriptions of desire for her seemed more "materialistic than carnal," by which I meant that he seemed more interested in possessing her as an object, much less than possessing her sexually, and much, much less than possessing her as lovers possess each other.  While lounging in bed (again, how much of suffering is a White Privilege problem) he proposes: "Then, like a famished convalescent already battening upon all the dish that are still forbidden him, I wondered whether marriage with Albertine might not spoil my life, not only by making me assume the too arduous task of devoting myself to another person, but by forcing me to live apart from myself because of her continual presence and depriving me forever of the joys of solitude."  He wants to control Albertine, but only in such a way that doesn't interfere with the "joys of solitude."  It's like complaining that you really have bought way too many books and the bookcases are cluttering up your bedroom. When I'm invited to a house for the first time I inevitably find myself perusing/judging their bookcases, and I'm often horrified by the folks who I know are not big readers but how tons of books.  Now, on the one hand that's OK because I'm happy someone is spending money on books, but in other ways they're blatantly posing.  Now, when Proust mentions a book I know he's read it, although I'm pretty certain when he mentions Albertine he's never "read" her.  Rather, he seems to have put together an abstract of her life book, which he references quite frequently.