Close Reading. Within a Budding Grove Pages 502-505. James McDowell 4\/30\/15<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the very first of the pages open for this close reading, 502-730, the reader re-encounters a theme that has been present to this point, and is introduced to a new character that will be important in the rest of the novel.<\/p>\n
At Balbec, with his grandmother, and despite her loving and close attention, the narrator makes great adolescent strides with girls. He has already, and repeatedly, described his thoughts as including a somewhat indiscriminate appetite for females.<\/p>\n
Andrea Allen, in her earlier close reading, has described the narrator at this stage to be \u201ca hormone-driven teenage boy.\u201d There is perhaps an allusion to this in the very title of this volume, L<\/em>\u2019<\/em>Ombre des jeunes filles en fleures.<\/em> An example, not the first, of this interest on the part of the narrator has been earlier on pages 396-397. He sees approaching \u201c\u2026one of those creatures\u2014flowers of a fine day but unlike flowers of the field, for each of them secretes something that is not to be found in another and that will prevent us from gratifying with any of her peers the desire she has aroused in us\u2014a farm girl\u2026a shopkeeper\u2019s daughter.\u201d He goes on to recall on walks along the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way \u201c\u2026when I hoped some peasant girl might pass whom I could take in my arms\u2026that all girls one met\u2026were alike ready and willing to give heed to such yearnings.\u201d And further, \u201cAs to the pretty girls who went past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be kissed,\u2026the universe had appeared to me more interesting.\u201d His interest in girls and women is overtly sensual. Later, on page 534, even music elicits a feminine comparison. \u201c\u2026these tunes, each as individual as a woman, did not reserve, as she would have done, \u2026the voluptuous secret which they contained: they offered it to me, ogled me, came up to me with wayward or wanton movements, accosted me, caressed me, as if I had suddenly become more seductive\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n That day in Balbec, on page 502, these sorts of thoughts are present. While simply \u201changing about\u201d in front of the Grand Hotel, \u201cI seemed to see charming women all around me\u2026if I was soon to die I should have liked to know beforehand what the prettiest girls that life had to offer looked like at close quarters\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Against the background of this omnivorous mindset, on page 503, the narrator first \u201csaw five or six young girls,\u201d a pregnant moment. This collection soon acquires the name \u201cthe little band\u201d (506). This term, and its female components, figure in the story for the remainder of the novel, and, and for example, do still appear many pages later in Time Regained (Le Temps Retrouv<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>)<\/em>. At first the narrator does not single out any of the members of \u201cthe little band,\u201d and he considered \u201cthem all so beautiful,\u201d and importantly, \u201cnone of my suppositions embraced the possibility of their being virtuous.\u201d (509) The narrator explicitly includes the little band as \u201can excerpt from the endless flight of passing women.\u201d (514)<\/p>\n The little band therefore fits well with the frame of mind the narrator has brought to the encounter, as described above. In his initial encounter with the \u201clittle band,\u201d he includes them all but soon singles out one. \u201cAlthough each was of a type absolutely different from the others, they all had beauty\u2026but I had not yet individualized any of them. Except for one, whose straight nose and dark complexion singled her out from the rest\u2026\u201d(505). He describes her further: \u201c\u2026 with plump and rosy cheeks and green eyes; the one with the straight nose and dark complexion who stood out among the rest:\u2026\u201d(508).<\/p>\n He wants to identify the members of the little band, in particular the girl who he has picked out from the rest. He hears the name \u201cSimonet,\u201d and this is confirmed for him by the head waiter Aim\u00e9. His fantasies race ahead: \u201cI did not know which of these girls was Mlle. Simonet\u2026but I did know that I was loved by Mlle. Simonet\u201d (528). It is through the artist Elstir that the narrator finally discovers the surname of his central interest in the little band. The name is Albertine Simonet, and on page 579 he indicates that by this time, \u201cShe certainly had no conception of what one day she was to mean to me.\u201d<\/p>\n That he has chosen Albertine from a crowd is made clear. Will she disappoint him in the end? In the past, his anticipation had sometimes led to that end. That was eventually the case with Gilberte. That was true with Berma. When he finally saw her, he was disappointed. His meeting with Bergotte was not all that he had expected. Even the much-anticipated church at Balbec was not all that he had hoped for. Albertine, however complex she is, does not disappoint, and is to play a central role for five more volumes.<\/p>\n In our class reading, it will be some time before we discover the full significance of Albertine in the story. Suffice it to say that The Fugitive (The Sweet Cheat Gone)<\/em> and The Captive,<\/em> were at one point a single volume known as \u201cLe Roman d<\/em>\u2019<\/em>Albertine.<\/em>\u201d According to Trevor Speller, her name is to appear more than 800 times in the novel. Clearly this member of the \u201clittle band\u201d the narrator has met on page 503, becomes hugely important to the story. (And, indeed, Albertine will turn out to be quite different than he at first imagined her to be.)<\/p>\n The narrator is attracted to females, in general, and his desires and fantasies are indiscriminate. From that approach, he does pick out individuals. To this point in the novel, it has been Gilberte, possibly Mme. Swann herself, Mlle. de Stermaria (from a distance in the restaurant) as described in an earlier close reading, and now Albertine. It is soon to be Mme. Guermantes, and who knows who is to follow. The scene on the beach in front of the Grand Hotel brings the narrator and his proclivities to a certain individual who will be hugely important to him for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n In the first few pages of the close reading for today, is the entry into Recherches<\/em> of a very major character. This begins with the sighting by the narrator of \u201cfive or six young girls\u201d on page 503, and singling her out by page 505. On these pages, out of the\u00a0random female fantasies of the young narrator, an obsessive, long-lasting love for one woman is born.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Close Reading. Within a Budding Grove Pages 502-505. James McDowell 4\/30\/15 On the very first of the pages open for this close reading, 502-730, the reader re-encounters a theme that has been present to this point, and is introduced… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}