July 2018 book review

SODOM AND GOMORRAH, by Marcel Proust
As volume 4 of Proust’s masterwork opens, our narrator spots his friend Baron de Charlus flirting outrageously with one of the male servants. OMG! Whatever next? Then, as the book progresses and we watch the relationship between our hero and his paramour Albertine develop, he becomes increasingly paranoid that she might be harbouring lesbian, or bisexual tendencies. For, in Proust’s world, Sodom refers to the male homosexual, and Gomorrah to the other thing.

There is a well known adage about A La Recherche which goes: “Remember, in Proust, all the girls are boys”. Marcel was himself gay, but made the decision to make his narrator both fascinated and horrified by what he calls ‘inverts’. What he never explains is just why the very idea drives him into an hysterical panic, though in Albertine’s case it is partly because he is terrified lest she leave him for a woman. And as he spends half the book talking about how much she bores him, this does seem a little odd. Whatever.

FIT FOR A PURPOSE, by Diana Gruffydd Williams
A young girl is struck by a car, leaving her with several injuries, some obvious, others less so. As she grows, two things emerge: 1. She is exceptionally bright. 2. She is exceptionally odd. She is given a number of diagnoses (a sure sign that the professionals actually had no idea what was wrong with her), and as a result given all the trendiest treatments available in the fifties and sixties. So distressed by her mental aberrations was she, she even lobbied for a lobotomy. Thank God they wouldn’t go there, though they tried pretty much everything else- innumerable drugs, abreaction, group therapy, you name it. By some miracle she came out the other side, still highly gifted but at last, free of her mental demons.

Then, after a little prompting by her GP (thanks for the plug, Di) she realises she might have a calling as a healer in the Christian tradition, and her life moves into a new and wonderful phase. Meanwhile she finds the love of her life and settles down to make an idyllic family.

This, then, is a book in three parts. It is most compelling when she speaks of her mental problems and how they were addressed, and fascinating when she discovers her role as a healer. The often highly detailed description of her family are perhaps the least engaging part of the narrative, though even here she brings all the players to life in a kind of innocent, even naive style which she has made her own. On the whole, a highly satisfying read.