The Fugitive

gore. juss. seriously - a perfect book. i am reviewing the captive and the fugitive. separately because even though modern library publishes them together in one volume, i don't want to lose this high i am on after reading the captive. what if the fugitive isn't as good!!?? i will not have the luste......more

Though these segments of Proust's novel are bundled together, I'm going to treat them as separate entities: Though there are of course great moments - the first reveal, 3,300 pages in, of the protagonist's name, which is like the sun bursting through a foggy afternoon; the cliffhanger ending; the rea......more

This is the part where Proust puts love under the scalpel. Sexual love. Proust seeks to show us that it is largely delusion. The romantic imagination acting as a magic wand. The transfiguring stardust possessing a limited shelf life. And how the romantic imagination can coax its owner into playing t......more

Proust realizes that: "The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection." Hence, he resolves to climb this steep, uncomfortable, slope throughout his novel. However, even with deep introspection, he wasn't able to ove......more

More than a year has intervened between my reading of the last volume and this one; and yet I find that my reaction to Proust has remained constant. Constant, yes, and complicated. I have this relentless back and forth, tug-of-war reaction to Proust, a mixture of the most intense admiration and absol......more