Pages

11.06.2009

Combray (vol I p 151 ff): Notes on week 10

  • The kitchen-maid’s confinement:: humor
  • Aunt Léonie’s nightmare: we hear what she dreams, but M is "trapped" in the doorway, in a young voyeuristic moment
  • Saturday lunches: country habits & family humor 
  • The hawthorns on the altar in Combray church: see hawthorne links; triple threat sensory metaphor, with sexual innuendo for these
  • M. Vinteuil: introduction to a semi-important character; he is a composer, we'll hear more of him, it's his "petite phrase" that tugs at Swann's heart
  • His “boyish-looking” daughter: foreshadowing; first hint of lesbian characters; more of her later & throughout the novel
  • Walks around Combray by moonlight: beautiful descriptions, sense of place, and M's mother/father psychodynamic in action (humorous & loving)