One Year In Search of Lost Time ~ 2015 discussion

"These colorful studies in linguistic geography and its attendant camaraderie were pursued each week in the kitchen, without my deriving any pleasure from them" (~24.1%).

I liked this simile (or analogy?) of Mme Saint-Euverte looking for dinner guests as military recruitment:

Mme de Saint-Euverte had come there, that evening, less for the pleasure of not missing someone else’s party than to ensure the success of her own, to recruit the final adherents and as it were review in extremis the troops who would the next day be manoeuvring brilliantly at her ‘garden-party’.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 74). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

I still wasn't happy to see more saloon social panorama, but in this part there was at least quite some psychological and other observation to make up for it, like this:

people who laugh so loudly at what they say, when it is not funny, thereby excuse us from joining in by taking all the hilarity on themselves.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 106). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.