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Indigo bear

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Indigo bear is Currently Reading

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A Latine Outdoor Experience: Remembering, Resisting, and Reimagining

by Olivia Aguilar

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Jul 11, 2026 04:05PM

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Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

by Thich Nhat Hanh

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Jun 10, 2026 02:24PM

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Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)

by Marcel Proust

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in March 2024

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Indigo bear said: " ***Spoilers follow***

This novel has three main parts. The first follows the life of the narrator (Marcel, I think his name is later revealed) as he grows up in high society in France in the 1800s or early 1900s. We learn about his family, his intelle ***Spoilers follow***

This novel has three main parts. The first follows the life of the narrator (Marcel, I think his name is later revealed) as he grows up in high society in France in the 1800s or early 1900s. We learn about his family, his intellectual interests, his ambition to become a writer, and some of his relationships with peers. The second part is about Charles Swann, which is mostly about him obsessing about Odette, a love interest. The third part returns to the narrator's life once Charles Swann is finally with Odette and has a child with her who is around the narrator's age. This part is about some of the narrator's musings and experiences with Charles's and Odette's daughter and of his life in general.

About 50% of this book is very weak obsessive thought and action - Charles Swann is obsessed with Odette, it’s an unrequited love situation for most of the obsessive period. That all became quite tedious. Somehow he ends up with her in the end but how that happens isn’t exactly explained. And then the narrator also gets obsessed with Swann’s daughter, when they are both kids. Interesting I guess how this often happens. But it became a bit tiresome when it went on for such an incredibly long time in Swann’s case. It was, however, interesting to see this Swann that we come to know so deeply compared with the narrator's impressions of him in the third part of the book. We see how someone can look one way from an internal perspective and another way from an external perspective. Which, for me, made up for all the weak obsessive musing part. All of that was interesting when thought about in the third part of the book, where the narrator considers Swann as a respectable normal high-society person. One wouldn't know that he had such an emotionally turbulent few years. This comparison of perspectives was interesting.

I also appreciated that the book is a study in “cultural capital”, meaning all of the manners, ways of speaking, and subtle behavioural and personal clues that are part of class distinction. Not many novels go into so much precise detail on cultural capital.

The book discusses homosexuality and I was unsure exactly what Proust's opinion of homosexuality was since most of the characters who think about it in the book are worrying about it and do not have a favourable impression of it. But apparently Proust was gay, so that is apparently why there are many ways that the book juxtaposes homosexuality with the surrounding heteronormative social structures. ...more "

Dec 22, 2024 05:19PM · see review

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Indigo bear’s Quotes

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
― Nelson Mandela

tags: perseverance

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