After breaking the 500-page mark, which seemed to me to be the first major landmark in my travels, I realized that I had been "in" Within a Budding Grove for some time (in my collection, at least). As I sped through the pages, it struck me how much "faster" this book seems to be. The pacing is much more lively, the character interactions more frequent and more intense. There's also a very real depth being added to the narrator, complemented by the developments in some radiant characters made during Swann's Way.
There have been a large number of underlined phrases, bracketed portions of text, and dog-eared pages forming in my volumes. I often think, "ah, here's one for the blog!" but, by the end of the night's reading, have found so many other possibilities that it grows difficult to go back to that first thought, or even any of the first five, that grabbed me during my plod.
Inevitably, there is a wealth of analysis to be made upon this work which can, and already has been, undertaken by far more qualified readers. However; as a rather...unlearned type, comparatively, I like to imagine that my own reflections are perhaps more relatable to other people of equally "low" intellectual status (as deemed by the socialites I'm encountering in Proust's work, at least) in that I am not comparing Proust's more vivid observations with conceptual truths or other literary works, but rather, with my own daily hike through the mire, the doldrums of ordinary life.
Thusly, though, I am forced to realize that my foot is in my mouth. For if anything so far, I have learned that no part of any life is "ordinary," and that with the proper lense, every moment, every passing particle is, truthfully, extraordinary.
Post script: Oh. And to touch on a post from before, my book has now decided to lighten its page burden by 509 units. I have, in fact, fewer pages still bound in this book than in a loose pile on my coffee table. Charming.
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