Student Blogs

For this week’s reading by Marcel Proust, I left it feeling confused but interested as this reading challenged me. This reading included lots of run-on sentences and large amounts of detail which was sometimes hard to wrap my head around. The long sentences did aid in explaining the characters and scenes well but often would […] read full post >>

The first thing that struck me when reading Proust’s Combray was how smooth, continuous, and flowing the prose was. While many books are cut up quite finely by short sentences, paragraph breaks, and general changes in topic, Combray reads like one smooth flow. It features very long sentences and paragraphs, and it moves through descriptionContinue reading "Combray – A Childhood Proust’s Stream of Consciousness" read full post >>

Hello viewers (in James May’s voice). I did a quick scroll on the blog page and so far almost every post about Proust has been negative. I share similar feelings, so I will try to explain it. The story starts by reminiscing the childhood of the protagonist on a sleepless night. The child is a […] read full post >>

[Combray] by Marcel Proust is not a page-turner. Every sentence in the book is lengthy and contains long-winded details, and every scene is, in my perspective, descriptive as the protagonist tries to depict everything he feels in the moment. One explicit example is the sentence above. In the sentence, he is trying to describe the […] read full post >>

A. Initial Thoughts My first read of Marcel Proust’s “Combray” was SO difficult. Initially, it seemed like a never-ending text of sleep and a madeleine soaked in tea. Proust starts by painting this scene where the protagonist experiences “the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in [his great aunt’s] decoction of lime-flowers…” (6), which … Continue reading Combray: Madelines and Memories (Jan 14) read full post >>

“And in the same way, also, the thoughts of the dying are quite often turned toward the aspect of death that is real, painful, dark, visceral, toward the underside of death, which is in fact the side it presents to them and so harshly makes them feel, and which more closely resembles a crushing burden, […] read full post >>

I really enjoyed reading this piece, and the more I read, the more immersed I was in the story. One thing that I want to note about the reading was how description-driven it was. If someone asked me what the plot was, it would be difficult to describe. I would probably say something about how […] read full post >>

This week’s reading, Combray by Marcel Proust, definitely challenged me. The reading was a lot different than my usual weekly school readings. It was filled with intricate details and imaginative meanings but yet I still found it hard to pay attention. Just a few pages into the reading I found myself confused about the setting […] read full post >>

My impressions of Marcel Proust’s, “Combray” were that the novel was overall intriguing, and I felt fairly engaged with the material. The use of imagery was very well articulated and even though the images created were set in dated time and caste, their presence still felt familiar.  The story glides through time in and out […] read full post >>

 I must say, from the beginning, I didn't particularly enjoy reading this novel. Proust's run-on sentences with extreme descriptions left me in a bit of a dreary state with my attention drifting in and out of the words. However, considering how th... read full post >>

 I must say, from the beginning, I didn't particularly enjoy reading this novel. Proust's run-on sentences with extreme descriptions left me in a bit of a dreary state with my attention drifting in and out of the words. However, considering how th... read full post >>

Hello Everyone, This week’s reading, “Combray” in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, was challenging but insightful for me to read. When I first started reading, I struggled to get the central story and the chronological order of the texts. I found the text to be in a dream-like flow, where the focus jumps quickly across themes […] read full post >>

Combray: Section 1 The novel opens with the narrator drifting in and out of consciousness, describing all the thoughts and memories that sneak into his mind as fatigue blurs out his rational thinking. The main story told was from his childhood, he recounted the days spent in his grandparents’ house where he was sent to […] read full post >>

Upon the first reading of the text, I did find Proust’s book to be confusing to read at first. It took me a while to do a few rereads before getting a general understanding of what is going on since I found the prose to be quite complex. Whenever I’m reading a work of fiction, […] read full post >>

Since this is my first blog, I’d like to share what I think are the highlights of my reading of Proust’s “Combray”. I’d like to focus on two broad aspects of my reading of the story: the writing style and the central theme of the novel. First of all, it is obvious that the story […] read full post >>