The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6) in The Year of Reading Proust

Aug 30, 2015 Sue rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: france, fiction, classics, proust

alternately beautiful and frustrating, as all of Proust seems to be. Gorgeous descriptions, occasionally humorous anecdotes, angst-filled cries from Marcel, followed by heartless thoughts. quite a book.
Full review to come...

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Aug 31, 2013 Richard Magahiz rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-in-2013

I finished this book a week ago but it's taken me this long to start to organize my thoughts and feelings about this part of the seven volume saga. Our Narrator has learned certain lessons from his years among the smart society and when he acts on them he experiences first-hand how much real unhappiness they can bring. All the characters at the salon (in this book, the one hosted by the Verdurins, but also those which occupied central place in the previous volumes) are touched by insincerity in I finished this book a week ago but it's taken me this long to start to organize my thoughts and feelings about this part of the seven volume saga. Our Narrator has learned certain lessons from his years among the smart society and when he acts on them he experiences first-hand how much real unhappiness they can bring. All the characters at the salon (in this book, the one hosted by the Verdurins, but also those which occupied central place in the previous volumes) are touched by insincerity in one way or another, making it plausible for the Narrator to do the same himself. At the same time he witnesses in the example of the Baron de Charlus how powerless an individual who is in the grip of this sort of life can be.

The relationship between the Narrator and Albertine is heavy on ambivalence, where he alternately lavishes expensive gifts on her and gives in to extreme fits of jealousy made worse by ambiguous things she says that can be interpreted as lies. The plot points are simple: a lazy morning spent contemplating his mistress with a mixture of boredom and obsession, a manipulative conversation, a trip to a salon to understand the attraction it has for Albertine, a quarrel. And yet underneath the collection of hidden motives, of mistrust, of emotions concealed and misrepresented, these are what give the story heft. It is hard to understand why he even cares what kinds of things Albertine does apart from himself, except from an insane kind of possessiveness.

These sketches of the story of Albertine actually go all the way back to the early part of Proust's writing life, but were only published after his death without benefit of a final edit by him. It still stands as a remarkable series of episodes where the main character's folly is made clear to the reader but not to himself. There are echoes throughout on themes and images we have seen before as preoccupations of this era before the first World War, which had already begun to fade into the past when this was published in 1922. ...more

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Sep 07, 2013 Margaret rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature, 20th-century-literature, french, proust-2013, read-fall-2013, translation

It's a classic story: boy meets girl, boy gets bored of girl, boy meets another girl, another girl is mysterious and maybe bisexual, boy gets obsessed with that girl, girl gets creeped out and leaves (view spoiler).

In The Captive and the Fugitive after much pining for Gilberte and now for Albertine, our Narrator has got himself a girlfriend! Albertine has moved in with him in Paris, and things are supposed to be going swimmingly.

Then It's a classic story: boy meets girl, boy gets bored of girl, boy meets another girl, another girl is mysterious and maybe bisexual, boy gets obsessed with that girl, girl gets creeped out and leaves (view spoiler).

In The Captive and the Fugitive after much pining for Gilberte and now for Albertine, our Narrator has got himself a girlfriend! Albertine has moved in with him in Paris, and things are supposed to be going swimmingly.

Then why does it feel like I am amazingly dirty reading how the Narrator worries that Albertine does not like him all that much (or anyone with a penis)?

For all the emphasis on art and intellect, these two volumes are our Narrator discovering what it means to be in a real, serious, occasionally physical relationship with another human being. In some ways the possessive Narrator we've all come to know is still here, the same snarky child that wouldn't be able to sleep without his mother who would find ways of making sure she would pay attention to him. In others, the Narrator has become extremely insecure. In discovering that gay people 1) exist and 2) have fairly open relationships (not hiding in the countryside not quite avoiding Françoise's gossip tentacles), the Narrator's insecurities become very problematic for Albertine.

It almost reads as a manual for how to destroy a relationship. Become suspicious that you are not enough, moreover you are not enough because she's cheating on you with another woman. Start being possessive in a way that makes me think of murderers and abusers and people who dig graves in their back yard for their significant others. Eventually she'll get the message. It made me feel disgusting reading it, but that's one of the things that great literature does. It makes me see what it must be like being someone completely different from a different time and place, and that's fun. Also creepy, but fun in retrospect.

And then, once Albertine leaves (view spoiler) it becomes an amazing outpouring of grief and trying to figure the whats and why of the whole relationship. Then, as if a way of sealing this part of the Narrator's life and moving on, an old friend comes back and ends up marrying another one. It's some of the most frustrating piece of plot that occurs outside of the Narrator's troubled relationship.

The Captive and The Fugitive are the Narrator's coming of age and a change of pace in the whole narrative. Secondary characters are returning and growing up too, setting the stage for the deeply reflective Time Regained. ...more

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Oct 30, 2013 Edward Creter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: gay-fiction, classics, controversial-literature, chunky-books, french-classics, love-stories, challenge-reads, world-travel

Marcel Proust's fifth book in the Search for Lost Time series is actually two books in one. The Captive tells how Marcel (the character) continues his obsessive quest for the ravishing Albertine, who ma dump him for another woman. How sad! The Fugitive ends it in the worst way as Albertine dies midway, and poor Marcel tosses and turns about missing her, ultimately deciding: it ain't worth it. So Marcel may have to try new avenues of romance. How does the babes who did Alby sound? Yeah, right, dr ...more

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