How Proust keeps us engaged with the loathsome people in Sodom and Gomorrah

Pleased to announce that I have embarked on volume 4 of In Search of Lost Time (Penguin Classic Deluxe edition; will have to check on the translator, sorry), Sodom and Gomorrah, and have some impressions obviously from the first quarter of this volume. First, it seems that the sexuality and in particular the homosexuality is more open and direct in this volume than in the previous three, where homosexuality was hinted at and alluded to but never, if I remember correctly, described so overtly - in fact the volume opens w/ Marcel observing the aristocratic bully M de Charlus making eyes at a shirtmaker, and then Marcel spies on them as they have a loud quick fuck - and all this leads to much discussion of what Proust or the translator calls "inverts," in which he distinguishes between those inverts who actually have sex and those who don't, whom he calls the solitaries, and, as the title of the volume suggest, Proust establishes or posits that a great many of the men (and a few of the women) in the blue-blood social set of Paris in the era (ca 1910?) were homosexual or lesbian. He of course won't go so far as to acknowledge his own homosexuality, but he has helped us to see his world and to interpret his relationship w/ Albertine - which gradually becomes the dominant plot motif of this volume and the subsequent 2 - in a different way, as a screen memory in a sense. Second striking thing is how much we loathe and are meant to loathe so many of the central characters; this goes far beyond the typical social satire and becomes a damnation of an entire society. Much of the 1st quarter of this volume takes place at the soiree at the home of the Prince and Princess de Geurmantes, and much of the conversation revolves around the Duc and Duchess de G., and by the end we can only feel that the whole set is not only narcissistic but actually evil: full of prejudice, hateful and contemptuous of anyone not in their circle, believing that the whole world revolves around them, not having a thought in the world for others (the Duc brushing off the news that his cousin has died as he heads off for a midnight costume ball, worried about his clothing, just one example), and finally doing nothing for anyone else, contributing nothing to the world, not working, thinking, creating, even earning, just living like parasites off their wealth and rank. The amazing thing is how Proust keeps us engaged with these loathsome people - through his wit, his trenchant observations, and his rich images and ideas.