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

Oct 02, 2013 Mala rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-ever-enduring-appeal, 2013-the-year-of-reading-proust

The frocks that I bought for her, the yacht of which I had spoken to her, the wrappers from Fortuny’s, all these things having in this obedience on Albertine’s part not their recompense but their complement, appeared to me now as so many privileges that I was enjoying; for the duties and expenditure of a master are part of his dominion, and define it, prove it, fully as much as his rights. And these rights which she recognised in me were precisely what gave my expenditure its true character: I h ...more

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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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Mar 30, 2012 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: france

Like the previous four volumes, both the Captive and the Fugitive are a delight. The Fugitive much more so than the Captive, in my opinion.

The Captive opens with Albertine moving into Marcel's Parisian home. His parents are conveniently absent. There's a lot to love about this volume, and I especially loved the scene when M. and Albertine are passing through the streets with all the sounds of vendors in the air - the way Proust brings to life that atmosphere really impressed me, and I felt very ...more

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Sep 07, 2013 Margaret rated it it was amazing

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

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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Jul 12, 2013 Fredrik rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, proust

IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME: BOOK 6 - THE FUGITIVE

P470 :: "Yet after a certain age our loves and our mistresses are daughters of our anguish; our past, and the physical lesions within whose lines it lies inscribed, determine our future."

P407 :: "Let us leave pretty women to men without imagination."

P388 :: "What does it avail us that the hour has not yet struck, if we can do nothing to prevent what it will bring?"

IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME: BOOK 5 - THE CAPTIVE

P247 :: "…for even if everyone…had the goo ...more

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