At the meeting on the 4th, we finally finished up In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. It was a long slog, but everyone enjoyed the second volume of the novel very much; it certainly did have a lot going on.
In our wrap-up of this volume, we discussed the differences between the first and second halves of Place-Names: The Place (such as the narrator's intense attachment to his grandmother and fleeting desire for passing girls and how that shifted to his infatuation for the little band and Elstir), the use of food as metaphor and descriptors (which becomes as prevalent as or even more than flowers), the narrator's ridiculous scheming to be introduced to the little band of girls, the narrator's meeting of Elstir and Elstir as the latest creative figure that mentors or influences the narrator (adding to Vinteuil, Berma, and Bergotte), the appearance of functionaries such as waiters and valets throughout the novel, and the narrator's deliberate attempts to find beauty in the unexplored or over-looked.
The next meeting will be on Wednesday, April 18 and we will focus on the first 150 or so pages of the third volume, The Guermantes Way.
