@franzsherbert I’ve heard that too, that’s funny though because it’s another case where reading the text in isolation would be very misleading (finding out later who “Mme Swann” is is like the punchline to that whole section)
@franzsherbert Also it’s impossible to really appreciate the moments of sublimity and the recovery of memory without the extreme dilation. It’s required for the effect.
Like all conventional writing advice this is only helpful for low-level students and bad if codified as a rule. There are plenty of good reasons you might prefer to use the longer, fancier word in a given context: for rhythm, register, phonetic texture, etc.