Marcel Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe, part 2/2 (MAR-JUN 2025)
Monday 12 pm – 1:30 pm (NY time) / 12 weeks / March 31 – June 16, 2025.
Advanced (B2) and Expert levels (C1/C2).
23 pages to read each week in average. 279 pages in total.
12 weeks. 18 hours in total.
10 students.
We will read the pocket edition published by Gallimard in the collection "folio classique”. Kindle version are also possible. This class is open to new readers of Proust and is designed for a slow and thorough reading experience. We will read the second half of the volume as we will continue with the fifth volume in July.
Monday 12 pm – 1:30 pm (NY time) / 12 weeks / March 31 – June 16, 2025.
Advanced (B2) and Expert levels (C1/C2).
23 pages to read each week in average. 279 pages in total.
12 weeks. 18 hours in total.
10 students.
We will read the pocket edition published by Gallimard in the collection "folio classique”. Kindle version are also possible. This class is open to new readers of Proust and is designed for a slow and thorough reading experience. We will read the second half of the volume as we will continue with the fifth volume in July.
Monday 12 pm – 1:30 pm (NY time) / 12 weeks / March 31 – June 16, 2025.
Advanced (B2) and Expert levels (C1/C2).
23 pages to read each week in average. 279 pages in total.
12 weeks. 18 hours in total.
10 students.
We will read the pocket edition published by Gallimard in the collection "folio classique”. Kindle version are also possible. This class is open to new readers of Proust and is designed for a slow and thorough reading experience. We will read the second half of the volume as we will continue with the fifth volume in July.
In the second half of Sodome et Gomorrhe, the narrator continues his stay in Balbec, on the Normandy coast, haunted by the persistent and obsessive memories of his first visit, as if the past were ceaselessly resurfacing. Albertine remains by his side, and within the strange dialectic of love and indifference, a new and destructive force begins to take hold of him—jealousy—sparked by the looming specter of her possible homosexuality. The misfortunes and lessons of Swann are never far from his mind, echoing like a warning—futile, of course, since one only truly learns through personal experience. One must lose time in order to regain it.
The landscapes of Normandy, the sea and nature, momentarily distance the narrator from Parisian society, immersing him once again in bourgeois circles. Yet familiar figures reappear, including the extraordinary and enigmatic Baron de Charlus, now entangled with the bourgeois “little clan” of the Verdurins. After Swann, it is now Charlus who finds himself captive to love, caught in the ridiculous yet magnificent torments of obsession and passion, within a world determined to unmask and humiliate him.
Amid this maritime setting, these endless dinners, and the often-mediocre conversations in which the narrator stubbornly wastes his time, Proust continues to astonish us with his sense of humour, impressionistic descriptions and profound reflections on the human condition—on our vulnerabilities, our masks, our cruelties. And yet, amidst this turbulence, only art and literature emerge as our true solace.
