"...life is a dreadful business, we spend our whole time doing things that bore us..."
"...the stories I had heard...very different in this respect from what I had felt in the case of the hawthorns, or when I tasted a madeleine..."
As with a time machine of text, Proust has brought us back to his early days in Combray again. His knack for reminding us of subtle, yet important, facets of the story of a life lived shines in these instances. Much like the recent deep-sea plunge he sent me on with mention of Swann, he has again made me lean back in my chair, sigh deeply, and move on through the pages with a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of his, and thusly our, days.
The first passage above is of some significance to me. While it is the most trafficked entry on this blog (seriously! ten times as many views as any other single post), it represents a moment for me that, I realize now, was vital to the process of figuring out what I want to "do with my life." The night I read that passage the first time, back in Swann's Way, I realized how much of my own life had been a "dreadful business" and how wrong that is. I finally realized that the dull ache I felt when I worked so many hours in a week that I had no time for any serious personal interests or pursuits came from a very real, shared sentiment in humanity. I am not the only one to have thought: "There's got to be more than this..."
Like Proust's first taste of a madeleine dipped in tea, reading that first passage in its first instance awakened my senses. Never again could I trudge through my days with this gnawing, pestering, annoyance at the way of things without remembering my own first taste of a certain variety of existential madeleine dipped into an existential tea. So, tonight, as Proust remembered his first taste of a delightful baked good, I remembered my first taste of a knowledge I cannot recant.
And as said by the Duchess on page 537, "It's lovely, isn't it?"
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