A review by likecymbeline
The Fugitive by Marcel Proust

This was the volume that came closest to being what I thought Proust would be. There was a whole stretch of pages where the words seemed to float and blend and turn into not just print on a page but some sort of gestalt. What I liked here, what I love anywhere, is that the narrator briefly realises the unknowability of a lover. It recalled to me one of my favourite passages from A Lover's Discourse:

“I am caught in this contradiction: on the one hand, I believe I know the other better than anyone and triumphantly assert my knowledge to the other ("I know you—I'm the only one who really knows you!"); and on the other hand, I am often struck by the obvious fact that the other is impenetrable, intractable, not to be found; I cannot open up the other, trace back the other's origins, solve the riddle. Where does the other come from? Who is the other? I wear myself out, I shall never know.”

Of course, I say this with the caveat that the narrator is the most obtuse and conceited and solipsistic little such-and-such so it takes a lot for him to get to a place where he actually strikes me as attaining a fair and transcendent line of thought. And it's not like he stays there. He rapidly returns to being extremely annoying.

I'll also say that this one flew by and I'm ready to dive into Time Regained and have this unreasonable masochism out of the way. I told somebody today that I haven't been happy since I started these books in June and I was only half joking.