This volume of In Search of Lost Time was a bit disappointing. Up to this fourth volume, I enjoyed Proust’s narrative, the beautiful and evocative prose, and the detailed account of the French society at his time. Although this volume was continued in the same pattern, it didn’t have the same charm for me.
Sodom and Gomorrah, addresses same-sex love which was socially a taboo topic at the time Proust wrote it. Society shunned open knowledge of men and women with homosexual tendencies. Nevertheless, they were not completely ostracised depending on their social status and connections. In the case of higher ranks, society feigned ignorance or at the most, only suspicion even when the facts shouted in their face. Proust has exposed this hypocrisy wonderfully.
The narrative, so far as it focused on this theme, was interesting. But this narrative arc was often disturbed by irrelevant descriptions and the narrator’s soliloquy. These stories are lengthy volumes, and when the storyline is frequently disturbed by irrelevant details, the reader’s interest decreases to the point of tedium. That was exactly my reading experience. The story was promising, yet its delivery was dull and insipid. There was some lovely prose, but the beauty of these was marred by the tedium the story created.
A significant feature, however, stood out sharply for me. That is the power of the memory against time. How accurate the narrator’s memory in recounting the past events was a question that was constantly on my mind. Certain actions and dialogues of the narrator sounded unconvincing. If Proust was testing the memory power against the passage of time, the story in Sodom and Gomorrah has skillfully demonstrated how the time-lapse could affect one’s memory. The narrator may think his past account is accurate, but this is often blurred with his present mature thoughts. This was keenly felt throughout the story.
Also, the story ends up exciting the reader’s interest despite its overall dullness, and my curiosity was aroused enough to want to know what would happen in the next volume. That was pretty cleverly done by Proust.
In any case, I will continue reading this lengthy work despite the disappointment I felt about this volume. My reason for so doing is the fact that In Search of Lost Time is a continuous narrative, even though it was compartmentalised into 7 volumes (my edition consists of 7 volumes). In justice to the author, the readers should firmly bear this in mind before being too critical about the individual volumes.
Rating: 3/5
