We forgive Proust's flaws in the presence of his astonishing genius

Finished Marcel Proust's "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower," which ends, of course, with a series of astonishing and strange insights, as the narrator (M.) tries to kiss Albertine, is rebuffed as she calls for help, which leads him into a long series of speculations and thoughts about how he had initially thought that she was sexually experienced and now he has to reformulate all his thoughts about her, and of course therefore about her friends, and this leads to further examination of the essential theme in this work, which is the difference between our perceptions and reality, how the ideas we form in our mind are more vivid and in a sense more true than what we perceive with our senses - or, put another way, we live with our ideas and ideals but we should (or could) try to live like artists, which would mean seeing the world without any preconceptions at all - to erase our personalities so to speak - yet that way of living would e ultimately disappointing, nothing could measure up to the ideas our desires have formed - yet again that ultimate disappointment is what would prepare us for death. Hm - a rather grim philosophy, but a fitting credo for an artist who devoted his life to recollecting his memories and capturing, or regaining, these memories. On finishing the novel, I read translator James Grieve's introduction, which is a very good introduction to Proust, touching on all his major themes and difficulties (many or all of which I've discussed in this series of posts as well) as well as acknowledging some of his many flaws as a writer (carelessness about detail, inconsistency of tone, idiosyncratic plot development at best) that we forgive in the presence of astonishing genius.