Sodom and Gomorrah

'the metamorphosis of Monsieur de Charlus into a new person was so complete that... everything which had appeared incoherent to me until then, was becoming intelligible, and self-evident'

The fourth volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time extends the protagonist's journey of discovery into the social world of fin-de-siècle France. As the biblically inflected title, Sodom and Gomorrah, suggests, however, this world has taken on a new colouring. Through a succession of observations--both voyeuristic and overt--Proust's protagonist encounters and begins to appreciate the great diversity of sexual identities and proclivities that underpin human relations. At the heart of this volume that buzzes with chatter, gossip, and position-taking, is the Baron de Charlus, whose relationship with the working-class Charlie Morel is a central preoccupation of the narrative. This volume lays bare the ways in which ambitions and desires are nurtured, projected, masked, and exposed. Suffering, in love, is rarely far away.

Sodom and Gomorrah explores frictions between the social classes via the Verdurins' upward climb and the ways in which the impulses of desire can cut across society's arbitrary boundaries. The narrator recounts his retrospective devastation at the death of his grandmother, and while his connection to Albertine deepens, it is his uncertainty about the true nature of her sexual identity that binds him closer to her, leading to a fraught denouement that paves the way for the next, fateful phase of their relationship.

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