Round and Flat

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

   "Babel always knows everything!" the Duchesse de Guermantes exclaimed. "I find it quite charming that there's such a thing as a country where your dairyman will supply you with really rotten eggs dating back to the year one. I can  just picture myself dipping my fingers of buttered toast into them. And I must say that it's not unknown for such things to happen at Aunt Madeleine's"---Mme de Villeparisis---"things served up in a state of putrefacation, even eggs." Then at signs of protest from Mme d'Arpajon, she added: "Come now, Phili, you know it as well as I do. You can see the chicken in the egg. I can't for the life of me think how they're well behaved enough to stay inside the shell. It's not written on the menu. It was just as well you didn't come there to dinner the day before yesterday; we had a brill poached in carbolic acid! Not exactly a hospitable table---more like a hospital for contagious diseases. I must say that Norpois pushes loyalty to the heights of heroics: he
 had a second helping!"

Proust: The Guermantes Way, 501/502

Mind you, this pungent scene came to mind partialy because it's what I'm reading now. Still, the narrator's shifting perspective, his multiple angles---from a worshipful distance to an encampment within the charmed circle---contribute mightly to the "roundness" of our image of the Duchesse. I'm halfway through "In Search of Lost Time"  so I haven't really spent that much time with Albertine. I suspect she will go through some changes.

  
 --- Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
 
Within the framework of character discussion I propose a query. Name two characters (by any author) that in your opinion represent the most obvious cases of 'roundness' and 'flatness'.