Student Blogs

Reading this was not as easy as I thought it’d be, I felt as though I was fighting to get through sentences at some points. There are so many details in the writing I was becoming overloaded with information, so much so I’d often re-read and find myself dreaming of a cup of coffee or … read full post >>

HITHERTO, I had not a complicated novel in a single day. read full post >>

Before I begin this post, I want to preface that I enrolled in this class late and read up to the end of the first chapter (like the syllabus suggested). As a result, the thoughts I will be sharing are preliminary (until I finish the entire work by the Wednesday discussion). Upon reading, a number […] read full post >>

Reading Combray felt less like reading a traditional story and more like slipping into someone else’s consciousness. What struck me most is how little actually “happens” on the surface, and yet how emotionally dense the book feels. Proust lingers on moments that most novels would rush past such as falling asleep, waking up confused, or […] read full post >>

Hi all! To be honest, reading Proust, I definitely got lost sometimes due so I’d re-read the sentences quite often. Again, that might be just because I haven’t read something like this in a while. One thing that stood out to me is the way the narrator describes the character’s fascination with the architecture and […] read full post >>

Memory, sensation, and reconstruction as an art read full post >>

My name is Marianah, but when it comes to last names, I never really know what to say. I come from a deeply multicultural family: a German grandfather, an Italian grandmother, a Colombian mother, and a Canadian father, so you can imagine how peculiar my family reunions are. This mix of cultures and histories that […] read full post >>

It was a bit difficult for me to get into the groove of this book at first. It felt sort of personal reading this. I know we were reading from the narrator's point of view, but I felt like I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Ma... read full post >>

It was a bit difficult for me to get into the groove of this book at first. It felt sort of personal reading this. I know we were reading from the narrator's point of view, but I felt like I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Ma... read full post >>

WOW this text was hard to read. I found myself getting lost and having to re-read sections an embarrassing amount of times. As I mentioned in my introduction, I don’t pick up books written before the 1980s so staying attentive the whole time and trying to navigate Proust’s long, winding sentences within this book was […] read full post >>

Honestly, picking up this novel was quite intimidating, especially after not having read one in a while. Right off the bat, I found it difficult to follow, and I ended up rereading sentences in an attempt to figure out what exactly was going on. At some point, though, I realized I was actually making steady […] read full post >>

Why is Proust considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century? I would like to talk more about this in class, and the themes of Combray. While at times I couldn’t understand what was being said, I could still get a sense of it. For example: […] read full post >>

As I have expected (from having seen glimpses of the book here and there in my distant past), this is one of the most beautiful texts that I have encountered, and, with every line, I feel that keen jolt of … Continue reading → read full post >>

For me, this whole novel lost me at many parts, but the moments where I did pay attention, it gave me one specific feeling: nostalgia. Proust shows nostalgia exactly as it feels, like being immediately pulled away into the past without choosing to. First of all, I want to answer the lecture’s questions. What do […] read full post >>

  There’s one common thread in existing discussion about “Combray” that I saw: the book’s difficulty in reading. I agree, it’s a challenging read in the forever long sentences and vivid descriptions of everything and constantly shifting focal points. And as the lecture and conversation video mentions, the story is temporally vague. While there is […] read full post >>