The Way by Swann's - 1

Most nights I read in bed, usually for an hour or so before going to sleep. Last night I picked up The Way by Swann’s, the first volume in Penguin’s recent edition of In Search of Lost Time. Well, there’s the protagonist of the book (Is it Proust himself or someone else? I don’t know yet.) reading in bed. It was an amusing juxtaposition of art and real life. I immediately warmed to the book and settled into it with pleasure.

The beginning of this book is as compelling a description of the hypnagogic state as I have ever seen. Proust evokes that sensation of waking up not knowing where you are, imagining that you are in your childhood bed, say, or that you know you are facing the north wall when in fact you are facing the south wall. All very evocative and spot on with its disconcerting sensations.

But there is one image from these opening pages that really stands out for me. Proust talks about being comfortable in the sleeping state, and says that does not happen until your consciousness expands to fill the room you are in. Here is the passage, in Lydia Davis’s marvelous translation from Proust’s French: “...my mind, struggling for hours to dislodge itself, to stretch upwards so as to take the exact shape of the room and succeed in filling its gigantic funnel to the very top.” Wow. I am already in love with Proust’s mind and his way of thinking and his deep understanding of experience.