50 Pages of Proust: Swann's Way, pt. iv
It’s taken 176 pages, though the first glimmerings of the plot have finally shown up! I’m not expecting them to be mentioned elsewhere in this volume, but it’s relieving— it’s so relieving — to know they’re there. I was thumbing through the final volume, Time Regained , in a bookstore last week and happened to find the part where everything comes together for Marcel, because he realizes what it is he’s supposed to write: In Search of Lost Time is about his path to becoming a writer; I’ve never made it past the first half-ish of Guermantes Way , which I abandoned last summer until it occurred to me how I would need to start all over again if I ever hoped to get anywhere with this novel, though it seems these several thousand pages can be summed with wondering: Will he write ? How meta! These words— “And these dreams of [Mme. Guermantes] warned me that since I wanted to be a writer someday, it was time to find out what I meant to write.” — are, as far, perhaps the first with any discern...