NP-Proust

[Phillip Greenlief]

It would be exceedingly difficult to miss the extraordinary strangeness of M's relationship with Albertine.  It seemed to be most intimate while she was asleep.  He's pull aside her dressing gown and gaze at her. He was too distracted by an awake self  that could observe him  to really enjoy her that way.  Their awake relationship was mostly consumed with her alleged unfaithfulness with other women--his paranoid suspicions and questioning of the poor girl.  She eventually vanishes with which the entire next book is concerned. I loved it.

P


PG:

i always had the feeling that albertine was a kind representation of the text itself, as a representation of memory, the way he apprehends her in her sleep - that stillness - reminds me of what the narrator says in the opening sequence about memory, and how when you wake up from a dream it is important not to move, so as not to scatter the thoughts/memories that are stored in the body...