From the Bookshelf of The Year of Reading Proust…

Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)

Marcel Proust,

C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator)

Start date: February 25, 2013

Finish date: April 28, 2013

Discussion: Within a Budding Grove, vol. 2

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 10 topics — 1,132 comments total

Within a Budding Grove, vol. 2

Second book: difficulty staying interested
By Angnus · 8 posts · 83 views

last updated Jun 23, 2020 06:00PM

Through Sunday, 28 Apr.: Within a Budding Grove
By Kris · 66 posts · 182 views

last updated Jan 10, 2016 06:53AM

What Members Thought

Apr 17, 2013 Mala rated it really liked it

Shelves: modern-fiction, 2013-the-year-of-reading-proust

A character, the Marquis de Norpois, quotes a fine Arab proverb- The dogs may bark; the caravan goes on. And so the ISoLT saga continues– Marcel has a meandering tale to tell and he will take his fine time telling that–fall in line or else, vamoose!

A lot happens in the second book– new characters, new themes are introduced. Old characters & old themes are expanded upon. Marcel gets to share the interior lives in the Swann household but can he ever know/understand the inner workings of Gilberte & ...more

23 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2012 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: france

I didn't think Budding Grove is a bit weaker than Swann's Way but still, its like saying Breyer's isn't as good as Friendly's - like, ok, but it's still ice cream! So pretty much it's still great.

I WILL SAY: this one has more plot, and it's really the introduction to Marcel as our narrator. Plus so much happens and yet doesn't happen. M. tells his family that he wants to be a writer, which they think is kind of absurd but they're okay with it, but instead of writing he pretty much just daydreams I didn't think Budding Grove is a bit weaker than Swann's Way but still, its like saying Breyer's isn't as good as Friendly's - like, ok, but it's still ice cream! So pretty much it's still great.

I WILL SAY: this one has more plot, and it's really the introduction to Marcel as our narrator. Plus so much happens and yet doesn't happen. M. tells his family that he wants to be a writer, which they think is kind of absurd but they're okay with it, but instead of writing he pretty much just daydreams/stalks Mme. Swann and her daughter Gilberte. These are the first women our narrator fall in love with, and represent his first illusions of love lost. He becomes really obsessed with Gilberte and has a break with her, and he is consumed with this jealousy when she doesn't respond to his letters or invite him over. He's eventually cured of this melancholy by being brought to Balbec, where he becomes obsessed with a "little gang" of girls, including Andre and Albertine who he falls in love with at different times.

Running parallel with this story of abandoned illusions about love, is the likewise lost illusions of art. M. values are very much, and even as a youth/adolescent he has a sophisticated taste in literature and paintings and theatre. His idols in these fields (Bergotte, Elstir, and Berma) are all taken down a peg through his introduction into society (esp. in volume three), and he sort of comes to terms with popular opinion of art.

M. also meets the Baron de Charlus who I think is hilarious in a creepy, socially awkward, high-brow, society kind of way. He's basically this flamboyant society man who is kind of an asshole to M. and then creepily stares at him, and then pretends like he was never an asshole, and then is kind of an asshole again. He's pretty entertaining.

This book also marks Marcel's first foot in the door of society, as represented by the Guermantes family. We meet Robert Saint Loup, Charlus, and Mme. Villeparisis who all play a pretty important role in getting him invited to things like parties and creepy late night rendezvous and stuff later on. The key take away from this book is that everyone is insane. Society people, insane. Girls, insane. Artists, insane. Marcel, deluded and maybe a little sociopathic? Insane.

5/5 ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2013 Shelley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fic-realism, favourites, geo-europe-france

Volume 2 of ISOLT spans the adolescence of M.. Just as adolescence functions as the watershed between childhood and early adulthood, so Volume 2 is the watershed between the two côté of the Swanns and the Guermantes.

The first part, "Madame Swann at Home", centers itself on the family that M. knows from his childhood, his obsession for Gilberte a mirror of Swann's passion for Odette. His gaze is still directed inwards. In the second part concerning Balbec, we see M. growing up, almost imperceptib Volume 2 of ISOLT spans the adolescence of M.. Just as adolescence functions as the watershed between childhood and early adulthood, so Volume 2 is the watershed between the two côté of the Swanns and the Guermantes.

The first part, "Madame Swann at Home", centers itself on the family that M. knows from his childhood, his obsession for Gilberte a mirror of Swann's passion for Odette. His gaze is still directed inwards. In the second part concerning Balbec, we see M. growing up, almost imperceptibly but surely. His gaze turns firmly outwards.

We are introduced to new characters "of the society", including Saint-Loup and M. de Charlus, and the mysteries of their behaviours. The image of the Albertine Simonet and her posse, as crass, vigorous, and middle-class as Nabokov's nymphets, impinges rudely on the world of Mme Villesparisis. But more impressively, almost disconcertingly, we are suddenly confronted with the historicity of the era. Consider, for instance, the image of the Grand Hotel as "an immense and wonderful aquarium against whose glass wall the working population of Balbec... pressed their faces to watch the luxurious life of its occupants gently floating upon the golden eddies within". The glass wall certainly does not protect the occupants: pages later, a restaurant full of the same aristocratic crew is likened to "a giant fish-tank of bow-net in which a fisherman has collected all his glittering catch". The accompanying soundtrack--the quintet of Franck or the waltzes of Lehar--is almost identical to that of The Radetzsky March --written around the same time. Although it is a recounting of the adolescent M.'s experiences, the perspective is almost certainly that of the mature M. who has full knowledge of the Great War.

Against this backdrop, M.'s budding love for Albertine is almost a gentle comedy of manners. The scene in which Elstir gives his famous speech "[W]e must not repudiate [the follies of our youth]" to M.--while M. is busily plotting to secure an introduction from Elstir to the girls without having the appearance of doing so--is one of the funniest I've ever read. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 19, 2013 Fredrik rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, proust

P178 :: "I must confess I am particularly grateful to dear friends who are kind enough to make room for me in their carriage. Having no Jehu myself, I must say it's too good an offer to decline."

P174 :: "She's as fly as a bunch of monkeys."

P63 :: "Our desires interweave with each other; and in the confusion of existence, it is seldom that a joy is promptly paired with the desire which longed for it."

bruited (p88) ("…an event that should be bruited abroad.") To tell everyone a piece of news; pe ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 08, 2013 Nick Short rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2014

Maybe the best literature I'll ever find. The story is simple, the aesthetic and psychological descriptions and observations bar none.

I wish I had the intellect to absorb it better, some sentences might last 3 pages or so, and could contain a description that can only be understood when read at a certain pace, one to be read slower with patience, or read faster which makes the effect during reading kind of very in focus/transcendent. All from just a sentence describing a person's face when they ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 08, 2012 Kekuni Minton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I loved this book. Really captures the psyche of a young man entering the world of teenage love: filled with hormones, mistakes, hopes and dreams. A beautiful "gang" of girls enters the world of man/child who has barely been able to leave the home of his mother for a vacation at the ocean. ...more

Like · see review