Cherlize wrote:

"I wondered why M cried at seeing the airplane. It was poetic and strange all rolled into one. I would have been less surprised if the horse had bolted. Did the airplane send an Albertine ripple through him? "
---------------------------------

I just discovered it wasn't an Albertine ripple, it was an Agostinelli ripple! I was looking through my boxes of books last night- the ones I can't squeeze onto the book cases, because there's no room there, so the poor, lonely little 'second-raters' have to go in boxes and sit in the dark. Anyway, I noticed Boorstin's The Creators in there and wondered if there was a chapter about Proust. Bingo! Apparently, Agnostinelli and his wife worked for Proust and Agnost(ic?)nelli took slight advantace of Proust's monetary generosity, since P adored him and tolerated the wifey. As far as I can glean, they didn't have a physical relationship. At least this book doesn't say they did. Agnostinelli became obsessed with airplanes and started taking lessons (paid for by Proust). P warns A that if he crashes the plane he won't be supporting the poor widow. Second solo flight out, Agnostinelli "plunged into the sea and so ended Proust's greatest love." "... Agnostinelli played posthumous roles as Albertine."

Sehr interessant, no?

I think so.

Another spoiler....


PS: I haven't seen one hint to the Bobette/Robert lover in my edition. Is that in volume VI?

You want to know the answer to that? He might be teasing at this point- tease a little, prod a little, dive for cover, abuse a little. He's a trip. The whole time I was wondering why she would take it, but then what opportunities does she have to advance herself? And you remember the whole thing about lacking a chaperone, back in vol. 2? That still bothers me. She's living with this man during an age when marriageable young ladies didn't, if they knew what was good for them. She's blowing every chance she has, wasting her life on this man who would rather pet her for years on end than marry her. It makes my blood boil and I'm not even a feminist, strickly speaking. So what's the deal with this chick? What was it they used to say.... 'if this is a problem, then our God is not big enough?' That's a Fr.Fraser quote. I think it applies to Marcel. If this is a problem, then our idea of Marcel isn't full enough. He must be very, very loveable and kind and intelligent. His good must outshine his aweful. I think he makes Albertine want to be a better person, and therefore she's kind of trapped by the better image of herself- the new intelligence she's gained,the piano playing, the refinement, the dress, the whole package. She just finds it hard to live up to it, to maintain that new self-image, and maybe she longs to rebel now and then and leg the bad girl out of the bag.

So, that's my mini pin-the-tail-to-the-donkey game. As for MOREL. Grrrrr. He's beyond oportunistic. He's that kid on the playground you're just praying someone will beat up. What a great character though, because he inspired us to take pity on Charlus, and that seemed like an imposibility. Imagine, poor Charlus! Didn't you love the scene when princess what'shername snubbed everyone and took Charlus by the arm and walked out? She gave him his dignity back in that moment. I thought that was a great scene. The part I don't understand, looking back, is why did Charlus attack Marcel so outlandishly in the last volume? Remember, he offered him a nice little business deal then tore him a new one? Did he think Marcel was gay and that was a proposition? The only thing that makes me think it was one was the fact that he asked him about his beard or something about 'why do you shave that way?', and he took him by the chin to examine him. He did the same thing later with Jupien (or was it Morel?). I thought that was odd. And then he exploded to such an extent that it must have been a cover for hurt feelings. I still don't understand how Marcel could right himself and carry on without resentment towards him. For that alone I give him credit. He gains points toward later character flaws. And it does seem like the author provides a full, rounded picture of Charlus. You can see his wild, fierce intelligence, his dignity, his pety self-importance, his meanness, his vulnerability, all of it. I don't think I remember ever seeing so many sides of a character before.
I do love these flawed, obscene, irritating people.

**spoiler** maybe
So M just told Albertine that he wants to break up with her and would she kindly leave the house tomorrow. Is this true or will he change his mind in the morning because he doesn't want her to see anyone else? I'm surprised she didn't just leave him then and there.

Ed, I find it hard to believe that Morel will turn out to be a nice guy. He's an opportunistic s/o/b in my opinion right now. I actually felt bad for old Charlus, even though I know he had it coming.

Cherlize wrote: "That Morel, what will we do with him? Great beauty, great maliciousness, inadequacy, spitefulness, sparks of genius, flamboyant flair, these people don't fit in my paradigm.


I'm going to g..."

Musical but not nice...

All I can say about Chuckie Morel is he is nicer than Alex in Burgess's Clockwork Orange (or Kubrick's); I despise the way he treats Charlus, and the women he enjoys ruining. However, he becomes a grand man towards the end of the book. Not the only character to emerge from an unseemly background--actually a constant theme, that.


NICE ZEPLIN!

Ed wrote: "Anybody notice how the technology is accelerating as the years pass? Airplanes, telephones, automobiles. First as minor asides in passing, then more and more in the substance of daily life. The ..."

Did he not mention dirigibles or Santos-Dumont? I think he did, but I can't find it. Maybe Alberto was in the aeroplane.

That Morel, what will we do with him? Great beauty, great maliciousness, inadequacy, spitefulness, sparks of genius, flamboyant flair, these people don't fit in my paradigm.


I'm going to go back and read this section again with you.

Ed wrote: "Guys keep reading! I just reached the part where the newly uncovered septept by Ventueil is first performed with Morel and other musicians at the Vendurins under the sponsership of the baron de Ch..."

I am just coming up to this part now -- I can't wait!

Yep, it's true. It varies from one minute to the next. Impressions keep changing. It's weird and wonderful and a little on the sick side.

I'm still debating whether I want to die from an overdose of peanut butter or a big wad of bubblegum. Will they let me snack in art galleries?

Okay< I'm kind of getting the smothering thing now. Albertine does her own thing, but when M says jump she says how high. But at the same time, he still seems to be buying her affection. I'm confused.
I just got the part with Bergotte and the Vermeer. I guess if I had to choose the way to go that wouldn't be too bad. Art makes one immortal.

Suzanne wrote: My impression is that Albertine knows she has M wrapped around her finger and is trying to use that for as much as it's worth.

She did do this, particularly at the beginning of their relationship and maybe when she holds out for the next trinket or shiny-something that he promises, dangles in front of her hopes then refrains from delivering. I keep hearing Dr.Phil in my head, "You TEACH people how to treat you!"

I get that impression too. He has this big blank spot in his understanding of love. He never really correlates Love & Art, does he? He sometimes views her as art, admirably at a distance, but then he can't seem to access the eternal through his love. Odd. And all along he seems to pursue eternal qualities or states of being but can't make the connection. We all do this to some extent. We have our blind spots. We're probably ahead of the game just by recognising we have them.

As for Albertine, half the time I thought she was manipulating him for money and the rest of the time I thought she was very fond of him. I feel sorry for her now, near pg 700. If she has been misunderstood, then she's wasted a good hunk of her life with a messed up individual, but she did end up with a lovely wardrobe (I suppose if she were truly money-grubbing she would have held out for the yaught and Rolls). This situation is probably a very common theme in relationships of the day. What surprises me more is how common the average man frequents the brothels!

Ed wrote: ""he swings between wisdom and idiocy"

Yep.

Sure does.

I think this is in a similar vein to the movies where the audience (or maybe you) are way ahead of the "smartest" character. (In many cases..."


Smothering for her? Really? I'm not getting that at all (yet). My impression is that Albertine knows she has M wrapped around her finger and is trying to use that for as much as it's worth. Again, this is just from what I've read so far.

"he swings between wisdom and idiocy"

Yep.

Sure does.

I think this is in a similar vein to the movies where the audience (or maybe you) are way ahead of the "smartest" character. (In many cases the screen writer too.)

He does this deliberately. Love makes you stupid. And after it is all over, he concludes it too. He follows this pattern many times over: letting you discover things and then allowing himself (as the protagonist) realize them.

The lez thang is not mere paranoia (reading ahead). I think you will conclude that the evidence is at least 90% certain on this, it keeps mounting up. Not that I care, nor did he expect the sophisticated reader to care (I think he did expect to shock the contemporary unsophisticated reader.) Point is, he cares, which he knows to be absurd, but there it is.

After reading the entire thing, I do conclude that he really did love Albertine, not in a wholesome, or even sane way, he was mad about her--and he could not admit to himself how far gone he was. And although he was convinced that he had to trap and bribe her, I conclude also she was very fond of him. Not maybe in love with him but very fond, enough to actually care about how he was hurting himself.

Of course this relationship was totally smothering for her....

Really? This is my favorite so far, because there are so many little tugs in philosophical directions. I'm in the Fugitive now, and I think he's completely fabricating the whole lesbian shmesbian side of Albertine. Now I have my doubts about the whole thing, because he based it all on Dr. Cottard's comment while she was dancing with Andree. What if the whole thing isn't even true? What if he's just believing his own paranoia. He is very slappable in this book, but I still love the spin-offs. He writes a couple letters that are so jeuvenile I couldn't even believe his lack of insite. What the heck? He can't be THAT stupid. That's probably why he keeps us interested, he swings between wisdom and idiocy. I'm just dying to know how it will pan out!

Cherlize wrote: "Struck down by art! What a great way to go, actually. Perhaps there are no dividing lines. I'd like that.

I want to know every last detail that you think about C & F as you read it. I've never ..."

My new book says that this volume is the most tedious to get through. I am finding M and Albertine tedious right now; does he love her or not? Does he just not want her to be with anyone else regardless of his feelings for her? It seems that they both know that the relationship is going nowhere but neither are willing to be the one to break it off and as a result are playing each other's game. Would fit in to a modern day reality show, really.

Struck down by art! What a great way to go, actually. Perhaps there are no dividing lines. I'd like that.

I want to know every last detail that you think about C & F as you read it. I've never been so stimied by any book in my life.

Cherlize wrote: "They did?! Did they say rt killed Bergotte or he was instantly enlightened and dropped dead or a combination of both?"

My impression from the article (a review of a Vermeer painting exhibited at the Met in New York) was that he was so struck by the beauty of the painting that he just keeled over. I haven't got to that point in the book yet so I don't exactly know how accurate that is.

They did?! Did they say art killed Bergotte or he was instantly enlightened and dropped dead or a combination of both?

Ed wrote: "You know, when I mentioned the Leitmotiv, I was thinking about the whole Wagner subtheme, and started to write about it, but then I thought I was stretching it. But then it hooks up.

Oh man so mu..."

Bergotte and Vermeer got a mention in last week's New Yorker!

Ed wrote: "There are passages in which it is described how he brings he himself into his work, others where it describes how he makes the sky sea and land all one, an affect that perhaps can exist for an obse..."

Alright, I give up. I'm going to print these off and glue them into my book, into one very long flip out addendum.

Hey, I have a question. When Marcel was listening to the new Vinteul piece and talking about it for ump-number of pages (which were very lovely), was he also talking indirectly about his own sonata- the book? I have notes all pages 339- 347 mod.lib edition, but it didn't fully dawn on me until 346 where he says, "...I caught a hint of another phrase from the sonata, still so distant that I scarcely recognised it, hesitantly it approached, vanished as though in alarm, then returned, intertwined with others that had come, as I later learned, from other works, summoned yet others which became in their turn seductive and persuasive as soon as they were tamed, and took their places in the round, the divine round that yet remained invisible to the bulk of the audience [!!!!:], who, having before their eys only a dim veil through which they saw nothing, punctuated arbitrarily with admiring exclamations a continuous boredom of which they thought they would die" etc. etc. Did he know he would bore his audience to tears now and then and did it on purpose?! This is part of a masterplan, even the weariness? That is truly amazing, although I can safely say that I haven't been bored a second in this most recent volume, and it's almost too good, because it makes me stop every ten minutes and take notes. I need to go back and look through the posts again, because i think you (Ed) mentioned that there was a duality in this section.

Off I go skipping with my basket of posies.

Cherlize wrote: "Ed wrote: "But is art, when experienced in full, not satori? "

Ahhhh. That is the question."
...........................................
I have noted in the past 24 hours that there are innumerous cracks in the paint on my bedroom wall. I've also discovered why cats turn their backs to the room and stare at that wall (they're thinking!). I have come to the conclusion that satori is not art. Satori is a representation of enlightenment, of a mental state (although I suspect that enlightenment is more than just mental, and in Western terms it is being filled with the presence of God, which actually transforms the recipient). This reminds me so much of the Gesthsemini enounter between Buddhist monks and Trappists monks at the Abby of Gethsemani. Art is only an approximation, at best a good approximation. It opens a window but not a door, unless one is Bergotte of course. I've never heard of anyone really dropping dead from enlightenment, although I did hear of a priest who challenged God to strike him dead during mass and He did. (I got that from an eye-witness to boot). The only conclusion we can draw from this is that the IT behind the curtain has a sense of humor. Buddhists would say the No-thing, the No-It, but I have to disagree with them there, because Monks are just way to happy and equally criptic. "Is this art or Satori?". You know full well that he'd only laugh and say, "Who knows".

So my conclusion is this: at best we can only hope for Kensho, little glimpses into that beauty, sparks of enlightenment, and we can experience that through Art, through Proust, through Vermeer or what have you. Satori might be reserved for a few. I have no idea. If they're around, they're not living in my neighborhood. I would really pay to see someone split in half as ascend by reading Proust though. Who wants to be the first?

And back to those random intersections. I'm embroiled in a mess at my daughter's school, and the only advocate we have in authority is named SATORI.
You think God doesn't have a sense of humor?

There are passages in which it is described how he brings he himself into his work, others where it describes how he makes the sky sea and land all one, an affect that perhaps can exist for an observer, but is deliberately chosen to lift the viewer out of the literal.

Consider too, how this passage suggests bringing personal experience into perception and art:
"We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one can else can make for us, which no one can spare, us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world."

Ed wrote: "Remember his description of Elstir paintings in which much of the interest lies not in the subject itself as the formal means he uses of unifying his work?"
......................................
Where is this? I can't remember it. Page number! I should put a big diagram of P's inner life on my wall with page numbers stuck all over it.

You are kind, but really I'm just looking for clarity. I have a feeling you do know very well what you're talking about. More sparks are flying out of your head than just bunnies.

Ed wrote: "But is art, when experienced in full, not satori? "

Ahhhh. That is the question.

Cherlize wrote: "How can something exterior hinge on the workings of the mind? We link, clash and randomly generate sparks of beauty?

Let me think of something specific, because I'm not sure I'm getting it. ..."

Wow, I am not sure of what you are getting at either, but it sure is beautiful. Really.

Some prosaic and unbeautiful comments follow. The only thing I can say specifically is that Proust is a modernist. Even though his sentence structure and topics seems to have an archaic quality, and his syntax is traditional, he really is closer to the twentieth century novelists like Joyce, Woolfe, and Kerouac, or modern painting. By this I mean that rather than describing a subject, his subject is his description of a subject, and that the reader is therefore part of the completion of the work of art. Remember his description of Elstir paintings in which much of the interest lies not in the subject itself as the formal means he uses of unifying his work? And the subjects themselves are of less interest than the beautiful and evocative structure that he has built up between the passages in which he describes them. Or no, maybe that is wrong, that their interest is built up from those touches and overlays.

Despite this, I do not get the sense that Proust is engaging in arid formalism, but that his characters live and breathe, but that they live in relation and do not have a character except insofar as they exist in relation.

I am starting to think that I don't know what I am talking about, or rather, maybe I think I do, but I am not sure I am really saying it.

But is art, when experienced in full, not satori?

*************SPOILER*************

*

*


* Look away!


*


*


*

Bergotte just keeled over! Poor old Bergotte. But I don't think he died of Art. He died of Satori. That little patch of yellow wall zig zagged through his consciousness and layed himself bare, split his whole world in two and showed him what, art or himself? It was like a summation of a life and disintegration all at once. What a beautiful few pages. I had tears spilling over my reading glasses; what a dork. But those are more words to remember- 'little patch of yellow wall'. I just barely remember the one he's talking about. And you noticed it wasn't his cold intellect he thought he needed more of in his books, it was this warm, soft undulating beauty of a yellow wall. Remarkable.

You know what, this explains why I'm left with a muddy feeling sometimes. Not until I go back and really dissect what he says do I feel any satisfaction or gratitude for his art. Writing opens my pathway to appreciate. I can't do it by just reading it. Strange how that's connected. I wonder if this is why he analyzed everything in the first place. We're called to participate. Do you feel the same when you write or paint?

How can something exterior hinge on the workings of the mind? We link, clash and randomly generate sparks of beauty?

Let me think of something specific, because I'm not sure I'm getting it. OK- For instance, I was sitting on my deck one morning and I was thinking that I don't always approach my deck time with the proper awareness to reap benefit from it, but this particular morning I was in the 'zone', the sweet spot where I could perceive beauty, reguvinate from it and feel gratitude for it. That recognition prompted my mind to settle like that glass sea I mentioned earlier. I put my chin on the rail, looked into the forest at all the dazzling shimmers of color like one of those pointalist paintings by Sauret and thought, "I wonder if it's true". Almost instantly a little bird landed on the rail next to my chin. It fluffed its wings so close I could feel air move against my skin. In that moment I knew I had just accessed beauty.

What I am wondering is if Proust is suggesting that we're somehow integral to the process. Art, in his view, isn't an outward thing- out there hanging on a wall or moving through airwaves as in music, but a living beating perpetual state that resides in us which is conditional on our ability to approach and annex. (?) Art is generated by or perpetuated simultaneously with the recognition of it, forcing us to 'rise up' to it, as it were? Does he mean they're linked somehow, one and the same?

Ugh, I'm getting confused again. He says it's independant from our feelings, thoughts and beliefs, a state of mind so remote that it remains incomprehensible to us even when we're experiencing it. "Like a spectacle without rhyme or reason".

Well, that would explain my reaction to most of Proust then. He's kindling unused pathways, shooting up sparks onto a dark background. Like that little bird against my cheek, I can only wonder 'how can this be?'.

Ok, I have another one while anticipating my birthday present, since my van is already dented thanks to an incident with a snowdrift. Sometimes I have to suspend thinking about what you're saying to circle back to it later. I think cyclically.


This intrigues me. Page 53 he writes, "Art extracted from the most familiar reality does indeed exist and its domain is perhaps the largest of any. But it is none the less true that considerable interest, not to say beauty, may be found in actions inspired by a cast of mind so remote from anything we feel, from anything we believe, that they remain incomprehensible to us, displaying themselves before our eyes like a spectacle without rhyme or reason."

Now this ties in with the fact that you're seeing Proust pop up in not-so random patterns. Let me try to boil this down for myself. He's saying that beauty is inspired by a cast of mind so remote that it's incomprehensible- a mental state. Hmmm. Beauty (or Art) itself is derived from an incomprehensible 'cast of mind'. It's not an outside thing that is knowable, or maybe he means sense-able, but an inner state that we suddenly have access to. (? That's a question and a statement). The fact that you're suddenly seeing everything Proust around you, including strange little bunnies, with a frequency too numberous to be anything other than a pattern suggests, according to Proust, that something is being 'poofed' into existence or awareness by your new mindset. Hu.. geez that's bizarre. I suppose there are other bunnies out there named Balzac and Sophocles, but your state of mind isn't propelling them into your path.

Let me post and edit, so I don't lose anything here...

Major event is in the Fugitive. Sorry for confusion.

Cherlize wrote: " Ed wrote: ...A Major Event happens around page 70 or so. (If you have peeked at a plot summary you probably know what I mean.) And Albertine... And how in HELL does anyone absorb someone while being reabsorbed?..."

Really, trust me, it is really not paradoxical. To give you a hint, when M says he is really bored with A and doesn't love her very much, he is correctly reporting what he felt, which was that he felt as if he was bored and did not love her very much, but in fact he does love her very much, obsessively in fact, despite his sincerest denials to himself that he is indifferent to her. The rest will make sense after you read more of The Fugitive--honest. (I feel like I am hiding your birthday present in a closet or parking your car which I dented a couple of blocks down. In any event with an urge to blurt the truth, but instead being coy.)

the social whirl
The only cat we have is my older daughter's. She moved back in (she's 22) and I am allergic so I keep it our of my room, which is where the ferret lives. The cat DOES NOT like her. Her dog is puzzled by it. Our dog (officially my younger daughter's) likes to sniff its butt but is irritated when it jumps at it. The ferret likes to tease to get one's attention since her life is centered around finding ways to get one to play with her, getting attention, or playing with things, or finding weird places to go to sleep.

The ferret has a reckless disregard for personal boundaries: I think that its initial attempt to cuddle on the cat's tummy caused the cat to conclude that the animal was completely out of its mind. (The cat really got off easy, it was a pretty moderate personal violation, all things considered. I mean, it didn't run up behind the cat and startle it while it was sleeping, or nip its heel, or jump at it sideways.)

Animal introductions should be done delicately as the Wicked used to say.

The cat is very affectionate, she likes to rub up against the dog which seems a little weird to her. My older daughter's dog, Duke, seems to have a good relationship with her.

the love that dare not say its name
We do have a duck and chicken who are quite close. Because the duck is senior, the chicken follows it, even when it thinks it shouldn't. The chicken seems to have more sense, but defers to the duck who is pretty clueless. The cuddle up at night in their hutch. They are pretty open about it.

Ed wrote: ...A Major Event happens around page 70 or so. (If you have peeked at a plot summary you probably know what I mean.) And Albertine does indeed disappear, but in a cataclysmic way, but with the sustain pedal depressed, in a type of echo or the wake of a boat, or like the waves of the sea. And Albertine in certain senses actually absorbs Marcel while being reabsorbed by him
..........................................
No way, I'm not a peeker. I skipped the give-away parts in How Proust Can Change Your Life (ya, right) and Proust's Way A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time but kind of shimmied up close beside them. I'm on pg. 220something, and I haven't seen a 'big event' yet, but Albertine is doing some serious sighing over her prison. Perhaps it's near.

I spend more time jotting down notes and chewing my pencil. Can't we get college credit for this somewhere? We had classes on The Brother's Karamazov but never a mention of our serious rabbit.

And how in HELL does anyone absorb someone while being reabsorbed? Now I need a Guide to Ed book. 'How Ed Can Mess with your Mind in Ten Easy Lessons'.

Ed wrote: "Proust takes on the analysis of things that are so subtle...

Was that your memory? Uncanny! I had a very similar experience, but I remember giving into it and lying down on the cool tile floor to just die there, apparently, but while I was down there the coolness on my arms, legs, chin eventually distracted me and lead me out of boredom. I remember being five and thinking, "how remarkable!". Oh... wait..... processing... I now remember the little me who then felt boredom, but I can almost feel it again. The memory of coolness was stronger. Direct sensation opposed to emotional sensation, I wonder.


I think this is the strangest conversation I've ever had in my life. I hope I'll remember it when I'm 90.

Your very long and lovely post will take some time to think about (when I'm done laughing). I must ask though, do your cats like the ferret? We have an 'invert' cat who was in love with our angora bunny, and he groomed her so much he coughed up her hair balls instead of his own.

Ed wrote: "Hey, have you noticed, Proust seems to be influencing our prose styles, and that our sentences are starting to fill with, among other things, subordinate clauses, they are no longer simple, and inc..."

ROTFL!!!!!!! Can't breath!

Proust takes on the analysis of things that are so subtle, so convoluted, and that otehr authors shy away from. Just discussing this is difficult: finding the language for it.

Some thoughts--On remembering and forgetting:

Well into my twenties I had full affect in memories from early childhood entailing the pain of boredom. I had one particular memory of waiting in the line with my mother in a bank, and that the pain of the boredom I felt was so intense that I could only express it as if I have rather had my leg sawed off with no anaesthetic than be that bored.

This gave me an insight into the horror of breodom for a small child; but my memory now is of remembering it, and of remembering the emotion, and what it was like, and not of the emotion itself.

Hey, have you noticed, Proust seems to be influencing our prose styles, and that our sentences are starting to fill with, among other things, subordinate clauses, they are no longer simple, and increase, quite alarmingly, in length; semicolons also seem to make their appearance, unbidden, joining hitherto disjoint thoughts, as if a social introduction between those thoughts have been performed, by the agency of the host, an excessively long grammatical construct?

Hemmingway. I'd better read him. This is getting to be too much. :)

First off, Proust, seems to be triggering synchronicity events in a way that I can't recall with anything else I have read. Saturday I went to a pet store to buy some ferret litter and they had bunnies up for adoption. One of them, a thin rabbit with a serious expression was named Proust! How weird is that? The book, "Multiplicity" I mentioned earlier: http://www.amazon.com/Multiplicity-Scien... which I had picked up recently, and turned out to start to resonate with Proust. (Don't confuse with the Alex Keaton, Andie McDowell film which I have not seen, blessedly apparently, as it is supposed to be an abomination)

I got a little ahead, so maybe I can give some advice to Cherlize, although I am not clear on which personality of hers I am talking to. A reader of Proust can be a Magpie, or a Philospher, a Hedonist, or a Stoic, and Artist or a Historian in turns. I like the Cherlize-Magpie personality, the glittery bits, they enchant me too.

Cherlize, there are two ways in which the slippery slope in Proust is avoided; first, although the little manikins, the personlets, that make up our personality, vastly complicate our understanding, and in fact, make certain knowledge often unachievable,do bottom out eventually, unlike Swift's fleas, so there are only a finite number of significant personalities that one has, and they only come out in certain contexts, the potential interactions are perhaps limitless, but the alternations are only due to a handful of selves; second, some of your confusion, will, I won't say be cleared up, but will take on a new resonance when you get to The Fugitive.


Preview---
I won't do a major spoiler here. Let me just say that A Major Event happens around page 70 or so. (If you have peeked at a plot summary you probably know what I mean.) And Albertine does indeed disappear, but in a cataclysmic way, but with the sustain pedal depressed, in a type of echo or the wake of a boat, or like the waves of the sea. And Albertine in certain senses actually absorbs Marcel while being reabsorbed by him.

Many many of the events that have been interpreted thus far, will get radical new interpretations, and there will be passages that remind one of Citizen Kane or Roshoman. I mean in the sense, that, like the former, the picture is built out of successive touches and encounters for the narrator/observer, and like the latter, different narrators, intgerrogated by the observer have different conflicting stories to tell.

The other thing that is becoming clearer and clearer to me is that the narrator is describing his thoughts not as experienced at the time but retrospectively, in the light of experiences he is later to have. It is not that the later M is performing some kind of anachronism on his former self (selves). It is rather that he only has clarity on what he indeed really thought then, after the fact, by having a source of comparison and contrast, in he himself who is his latter self. Critically, I can understand how he can have insight into his former self, however, I wonder how he can have such insight into his own forgetting. To be an author, to narrate, to revisit the past is to remember; but it appears that perhaps, he uses "forget" in a special sense, to forget, not the events, facts, or facts as remembered, nor the memory that certain emotions known conventionally by certain names are associated with certain events, but rather, that the affective content that lies in the forgotten self is lost.

I hope this tantalizes. This will make much much more sense after you read farther.

Thanks. xoxoxo

That's wonderful news! Yippeee skippy! You can butt in all you want sweet-stuff :)

Hi Cher and Suzanne,

Sorry to butt in here in the wrong spot but I just saw your post and wanted to say I plan on starting the first book this fall so don't boot me out of the group if you go private. Cher, you know I love ya so you are safe spouting whatever you want with me around.

PS: If we proceed this way, this is going to be a VERY long thread. Should we start another? And Suzanne, I'm getting really uncomfortable with the thought that our posts are forever-public, given the nature of my blabbing and the permanency of internet, so can you either close the door and keep everyone who is in here as members (including the non-posters) or I think I'll have to go back and delete the posts I'm not comfortable with, spruce up a bit. I don't know how to read and interact without being personal. In fact, I think Proust demands it of us. I'm used to posting in a closed msn group, so I don't know how to present my cleanest mannikin :). Ha! That's pretty funny. *You see, they talk to each other. SQUEEEE! (That's the new teen jargon, don'tchaknow).

Well that's it; I'm stumped for the moment. It's verging on Freudianism, and I don't want to drag Ego, Id and all the satellites of consciousness in to mess it up even further. I'll go back and read those two pages one more time.

But I remember he does say that his 'philosopher' is the one he cannot do without, who is the most essential to him. And, perhaps it's the philosopher who he's giving expression to by writing the book. That would be his most valued mannikin then, not the most obvious. My most valued is not my diplomat but the one who remains silent and 'knows' without thinking, but that one cannot access Proust, at least not yet.

I'll go back to my first:

p.5 "Of the different persons who compose our personality, it is not the most obvious that are the most essential."

He goes on to talk about the 'little mannikins' of self.

It's passages like this that I find very slippery. I know what I mean by reading it, but I'm not sure what he means by writing it. Again, the dual meanings throughout. If we're subject to our own interpretation to everything we read (or view or hear), then we can never objectively know or appreciate anything. But if 'art is a higher reality by which our TRUE personality finds expression' (paraphrase) then are we not equally blinded by our inability to recognise it for what it is? Here's my little mannikin being clever or being neurotic or whatever, and in the meantime I've completely missed the beauty that flashed before my eyes.

This is why my reading is getting so entangled. I feel like Fred Flintstone who just picks up his stoneage car and runs with it. I want it to BE what it IS without my interpretation of what it is to get in the way. I want it to carry ME, not me carry IT. But perhaps the point of this whole book is that we can never escape the mannikin of self who does the reading of it. Maybe we can only hope to ignite those better parts of self that aspire to what we are NOT (as yet?).

By 'most obvious' does he mean obvious to other people or obvious to oneself? The most obvious me I carry in front of me does all the defending and reacting, plotting and scheming; all the while I know her view of any given situation is not the 'reality' of the situation, and yet the other loftier or wiser mannikins in there cannot seem to talk her down until much later, even though they insert their awareness. So the most obvious part of me is one I'm well aware that I can do without. (*Isn't that weird?) But the most obvious part of self that others see (around me) is perhaps the negotiator who absolutely could not be dispensed with. Our little worlds would crumble without our diplomats, even if they are a ruse of the moment.

Marcel playing Vinteuil thinking Wagner- I'm struck dumb with joy!

"In abandoning that ambition de facto [art:], had I forfeited something real? Could life console me for the loss of art? Was there in art a more profound reality, in which our true personality finds an expression that is not afforded it by the activities of life? For every great artist seems so different from all the rest, and gives us so strongly that sensation of individuality for which we seek in vain in our everyday existence!" p.204-5

I can't just keep reading this like a book. I have to sift through it and study the shiny bits.

You must be almost finished by now. Why don't you start over and tell us what you think of all the zingers? I'm craving something systematic! The more P makes me interpret for myself, the more I want to seek an outside answer, which is probably beside the point. oh ick.. squeamy feeling...must-look-at-self, must find answers- deadlock deadlock! This has been happening to me so much this year. I nearly fell apart trying to interpet To the Lighthouse; all this mushy, tumbling, feeling, thinking conglomeration of i-don't-know-what, something like joy and fear, the great unknown, a sickly precipice.

Let me just stop and get out my big purple crayon, and lets go back and really look at what we're reading. What's your first major pause in The Captive?

I just posted some Captive-ating wordles.

Note how the falling out of Charlus with his "captive" is a precursor?