Hi friends,
You did it! You finished Part One of Swann’s Way! And if you haven’t finished yet, save this and come back to it when you do. You have time! If you missed my email from earlier this week, I announced the addition of a little pause in the reading schedule this week, to give folks time to catch up and take a breather before we get into Part Two.
In lieu of assigned reading, I’ll be sending out some discussion questions/food for thought, which I invite everyone to respond to in the comments! Consider it a little appetizer for our Part One discussion on August 24th.
This is definitely a marathon vs. a sprint, but I’m proud of all of us for sticking to it and seeing it through! This post is a longer one to tide us over, so feel free to revisit as needed and let me know if anything resonates as something worth exploring further.
Summary
This week’s section was divided into two parts: Swann’s Way (or, the Méséglise way) and the Guermantes Way. These are the two paths that Marcel’s family takes for their walks during their time at Combray, and each of them comes to characterize two entirely separate genres of discovery for the young narrator. For a book where nothing much happens, these sections are pretty jam-packed with thoughts, emotions, and expressions of these emotions. In fact, the very helpful ‘Synopsis’ section in the back of my book devotes two full paragraphs to the two Ways, which I’ll share here instead of trying to repurpose it myself:
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