Python, Proust, and why it helps to read Remembrance for the 2nd time

It really helps that this is my second time through Proust's Remembrance/Recherche, as I read the Lydia Davis tr. of "Swann's Way" - Proust introduces so many people and places, and often does so in an oblique manner, with just an offhand reference mid-paragraph, so the first time you read Proust it's hard to know which characters to pay attention to and keep in your mind and which may be peripheral, like any number of the astonishing descriptions of such oddities as stalks of asparagus that make the novel the great work that it is but need not be tracked if you're hoping to discern at least the lineaments of a narrative. For example, about midway through the Combray section Marcel encounters, during walk, Swann's daughter, Gabrielle - who re-readers will know will become a major presence throughout the 7-volume series. Another example, Legrandin, the somewhat strange and threatening character we meet during another one of the Proust-family walks, will play no significant role (I think), but he does take part on a seemingly pointless discussion about whether he has family in Balbec - and re-readers will know that this seaside resort, mentioned so off-handedly, will become (in volume 2) one of the three major settings for the entire series. Reading Proust is not about following narrative lines exactly - Monty Python famously made hilarious work of the attempt to "summarize Proust" - but reading Proust can also be a challenge requiring a great deal of concentration just to parse your way through the complex sentences (where was the verb in this one?) that it does help to have a few markers to lead us along the way. More on "ways" in tomorrow's post I think.