In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (Modern Library Classics)

published	February 16th 1999 by Modern Library
first published	1923
binding	Paperback
isbn	0375753109 (isbn13: 9780375753107)
pages	784
description	Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. While watching the pollination of the Duchess de Guer-mantes’s orc...more [close] Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. While watching the pollination of the Duchess de Guer-mantes’s orchid, the narrator secretly observes a sexual encounter between two men. “Flower and plant have no conscious will,” Samuel Beckett wrote of Proust’s representation of sexuality. “They are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust’s men and women . . . shameless. There is no question of right and wrong.” For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989). [close]
date added	01-12-07 edit book

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Patrick rated it:

02/28/08

bookshelves: proust-books

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: Diana

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Fairly enjoyable in parts, and the "plot" of the overall novel is finally starting to come together in the nature of the narrator's relationship with Albertine. But, as always with Proust, there were plenty of tangential episodes along the way to figuring that out. There are numerous scenes in this book where Proust is bitingly funny in his depiction of his numerous characters and their interaction with each other. There are also several long digressions throughout this book into P...more Fairly enjoyable in parts, and the "plot" of the overall novel is finally starting to come together in the nature of the narrator's relationship with Albertine. But, as always with Proust, there were plenty of tangential episodes along the way to figuring that out. There are numerous scenes in this book where Proust is bitingly funny in his depiction of his numerous characters and their interaction with each other. There are also several long digressions throughout this book into Proust's ideas about, say, sleep, or the origins of the names of French towns, where I found it really hard to stay focused.

Some oddities: St. Loup, who such a key figure in the last two books, barely appears here. The "little clan" crowd of Mme Verdurin from Swann's Way is back, with some new members. I really enjoyed two neat scenes in this book in which the narrator encounters an early airplane flying over the coast as he takes a nature walk, and a longer sequence in which he and Albertine are chauffered about the Balbec region in a "motor-car." Proust is perceptive enough to realize that these two forms of transportation are going to change people's daily experience, especially the automobile, and he comments on it briefly. He made similar comments in an earlier book about the telephone.

Two frequent themes particularly stand out in the prose, which from my early 21st century American perspective were quite jarring: there is a lot of vitriol directed toward Jews, including a sequence near the end of the book in which a main character makes some very insulting statements about Jews in general. In addition, as one can likely infer from the title of this volume, the underlying theme for the entire book is homosexulaity, which Proust refers to as "inversion," which seems to be have a popular term of his day. Proust is constantly critical of homosexual people and homosexual acts, and it seems like the first 75 pages or so he went all out to condemn both (frequently comparing homosexuals to Jews during this part of the book).

Up until this volume, I have recognized that Proust was writing a satirical look at the people and relationships of the upper class Parisians of his day (and their servants). I often find it funny, though many scenes seem far too drawn out and I recognize I miss the full humor of many of the best lines because I don't know much about the period he is writing about.

But Sodom and Gomorrah seems like a pretty hateful book, even given the fact that Proust was probably simply reflecting the prevailing attitudes of his day.

The difference seems to me to be that, in previous books, most of the negative steretypes depicted in the text were presented as an expressed point of view by one character or another, or else the narrator mentions or implies that this point of view by a specific person or type of people, but does not claim those views for his own...he is merely an observer, recording what he sees.

But at the beginning of this book, as the narrator discusses the perversity of homosexuality, and demeans it by equating it with some of the worst stereotypes of Jews, the narator presents all of this very matter-of-factly, as if this were all simply a matter of beliefs that everyone agrees with, including the types of people he is writing about. The narrator settles down on this issues after a while, but when he starts to believe that his 'beloved" albertine might be a lesbian, he switches right back into this mode.

Despite the fact that I don't care for how Proust does this, I'm not going to knock the book or the author for this until I finish the whole damn thing (only 1600 more pages to go!).

But I am reminded of a reaction to this entire novel by Nobokov (I am pretty sure it was Nabokov, but will check and confirm later), to the extent that the first half of the entire A La recherche du temps perdu was the best novel ever written, but that the second half was crap. I wonder if the start of Sodom and Gomorrah was where he made the distinction between the two parts of this novel?...less

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Jeff rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039318)

05/30/08

Read in May, 2008

Shortly after the middle of this volume was the point where I first noticed that on occasion I lose track of what happens in which volume. It is here that the weaving of themes reaching backward and forward among all the volumes (including coming volumes I haven't yet read, since some future directions and details are spelled out clearly in advance) becomes delightful. It is partially the narrator's (or the author's), if not often unsympathetic, then extremely unflattering portrayal of homosexu...more Shortly after the middle of this volume was the point where I first noticed that on occasion I lose track of what happens in which volume. It is here that the weaving of themes reaching backward and forward among all the volumes (including coming volumes I haven't yet read, since some future directions and details are spelled out clearly in advance) becomes delightful. It is partially the narrator's (or the author's), if not often unsympathetic, then extremely unflattering portrayal of homosexual characters (and the very unsympathatic portrayal of the straight characters who interact with them), often making homosexuality appear to be synonymous with criminality, and occasionally evolving the theme into small typical comical situations, which make this volume quite differnt from the pervious ones, although the observations are still overloaded with human elements and analogies which are as poigniant, relevant, accurate, Proust-like, etc, as before. But even more, it is the changes (for the worse) in the narrator's life caused by not only this theme, but a few others as well, that make this novel different. Though it can be difficult to recognize a turning point until that particular point is some time in the past, this volume appears to be one, and I'm curious to continue to the next.

Going back to the interwoven nature of the themes across volumes, I've been reading the synopsis material for the ones which I've already read, and I come across people and events that I don't recall. I have a good friend starting on the 3rd volume, a co-worker who is in the middle of the 1st, and I have just finished the 4th. Given the amount as well as the density of themes, I would enjoy something like a "Proust rounde", to have interactive reader discussions about previous volumes while I read my current one, though it would be difficult to manage, because it would have to be one-directional so that no one would hear spoiler material from readers who are farther along than themselves....less

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In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (Modern Library Classics)

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