"In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" (Book 2 of "In Search of Lost Time"

Translated by James Grieve

In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs), Marcel Proust continues with my obsession with women and culture as planned out by certain classes of French society. The story is intriguing about the inner relationships of everyone, but of course, it is how Proust tells the tale, which is a psychedelic experience for me. A typical sentence by Proust is intense, but he slowly leaks out the intensity, and it becomes a profound meditative moment in the story. Of the two volumes I have read so far, there seem to be at least two separate parts of the book. Part one is at Mme Swann’s, and part two is Place-Names: The Place. Both sections could be read as individual pieces within the book, but there is a groove or flow that needs to be put together in one volume.

There is the myth as one gets older, things get more understandable, or one comes to terms with aspects of life. This, I find, needs to be corrected. The truth is things get more complicated, intense, and adventuresome. Perhaps not in the body, but in mind, and how one thinks as one approaches an older age is a minefield of unexpected explosions and intense feelings. With memory as his best and perhaps reliable friend, Proust is on a journey of self-knowledge. Where and how we get there is a mystery.

The narrator of the story is a mystery. I’m unsure how old he is or what people think of him, meaning the other characters. He’s liked, but one wonders about his relationship with the Mom, Mrs. Swann, who is “dating” her daughter. It seems that the narrator is closer to Mrs. Swann and seems to have respect for her husband, Mr. Swann. He has the makings of being a social hustler, but he is also very much in the powers of his obsessions. The “young girls” in the title become a focus in the book's second part.

Since elementary school, I have always been drawn to a group of girls who hang out in the playground, and then later, as a teenager, when I went to the Topanga Plaza, I would see groupings of young girls doing what they are doing. There were touches of eros, but also something very pleasing to witness, and not always in the sexual sense. But my awareness of the sensuality of groupings has always been part of my DNA makeup, and I’m attracted to those types of groups. But also I like to be outside of such social gatherings. When one is let in such a group, it has a heady sensation, which I forgot about until I read In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. I have always been reflective in my thoughts and action, and Proust, so far, conveys the philosophy of such behavior I find in myself.

ISBN: 978-0-14-303907-5