Ben’s Comments (group member since Oct 02, 2014)

Ben’s comments from the Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014 group.

Marcelita wrote: "I like to collect lectures and writings from lay-people, those who just fell in love with Proust."

Me too. Here's a fascinating interview with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer about his fascination with Proust:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...

Dwayne wrote: "I certainly miss reading Proust, too! Are there any Reading Proust in 2015 groups we can eavesdrop on? : )"

Sure Dwayne. Try
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Will do, Jonathan. I can't think of any persons with whom I would rather share my experiences of my trip than with my fellow-Proustians of this group.

I will certainly bear that in mind and save some space, thanks Marcelita.

Jonathan, I too am busy with the Carter bio at the moment (55% through). A bit too much detail in places, but overall superbly researched and presented.
I have also acquired the Carter update of Swann's Way and have subscribed to his online self-paced course:
http://www.proust-ink.com/course/inde...
But the cherry on top is the tour for Proust in Paris, to be led by Prof Carter from 11-17 May for which I have booked:
http://www.poshnosh.com/tbtb/paris-pr...
The tour includes visits to Combray and Balbec. Can't wait!

Renato, as presently advised, I intend reading the whole of Swann's Way before deciding as to the way forward from there. Will keep in touch.

Jonathan wrote: "Well, someone had to prop up the bar until the cavalry arrived. :-)"

I would not claim to be the cavalry, but the rest of you were certainly propping up the bar quite effectively by the time I eventually arrived on the scene! :-))
Be that as it may, I am still enjoying the re-read of 'Combray' thus far, gaining new insights as I go along and seeing some old friends in a new light. As mentioned, I enrolled for Bill Carter's course online and am also listening to the free audiobook of 'Swann's Way' on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j9PP...

In the meantime, I also intend joining the 2015 group on a 'lurker' basis, like some of you.

Thanks Marcelita. Maybe I'll visit Illiers-Combray after all -- De Botton notwithstanding. And last time we did not get round to doing the labyrinth at Chartres, where one of my friends claims to have had a truly spiritual experience, so maybe we could kill 2 birds with one stone (what an awful expression!).
In the meantime, I've followed your earlier suggestion and enrolled for Bill Carter's excellent online course to assist in the exercise of re-reading ISOLT that lies ahead.

Thanks for the useful links, Marcelita. We did in fact visit Cabourg, Giverny and Chartres during a previous trip. In the meantime, I noted that Alain de Botton ('How Proust can change your life' at pp 209-215) is less than enthusiastic about actually visiting Illiers-Combray. Your comment?

Jonathan wrote:
'I'm going to start Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time soon. . .'
As I announced earlier today on the new thread about re-reading Proust, my copy of Patrick Alexander's 'MP's search for lost time' has just arrived and, of course, I couldn't wait to get stuck into it. Between this work and your Shattuck, we seem to be confronted with the classical divide between Swann's Way and the Guermantes Way, or not? ;-)
It would be interesting to compare notes afterwards or as we go along; what do you think?

No sooner had I written 'Fin' under the final chapter than I received notification from my local bookstore that the copy of Patrick Alexander's 'Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time' had arrived -- just in time for Christmas! So here's the start of the next thrilling project. Count me in for Combray.
BTW, my wife and I are planning a trip to the WWI battlefields in NE France and Flanders for next May/June and I have decided that it is worth the detour to include a visit to Illiers/Combray as part of the trip. Any suggestions in this regard would be most welcome. I also intend confirming that Combray did NOT fall in the war zone, contrary to Gilberte's letter.

Interesting website that Marcelita referred to in message 24 above ("Earl's:" http://insearchoftimetasted.blogspot ), with references to food in ISOLT.
As an oenophile, my one regret about the book is that there is virtually no references (except in the generic sense) to any of the wonderful French wines. Just think what wonderful memories MP could have conjured up from a good 1899 Chateau Mouton Rothschild or a 1901 Ch Lafite, not to mention the exquisite wines from Burgundy. Instead, only repeated references to orangeade! MP must have been a teetotaller or not?

Yahooo!! I'm delighted to report that I have just joined the rest of the group at the finish line. I started the project in September this year when I retired and by 24 September, when I first became aware of this group, my progress stood at 19% (on my Kindle edition). So it took exactly 3 months to complete the last 81% at a brisk pace. So now I stand with the rest of you 'poised on [the] dizzy summit' (MP), surveying the immense landscape at our feet and digesting the profound soul food that MP has fed us over the past months. I will try and comment more fully later, although there is little new that I can add to the erudite remarks of others, especially in this week's messages.
In the meantime I am resolute not to stop here, but to commence a second reading soon, with the aid of some of the wealth of external material available, starting with De Botton's 'How Proust can change your life' (which has been standing untouched on my bookshelf since 2003). BTW, I am thinking of acquiring the new Carter edition of 'Swann's Way' (2013). Has anyone had a look at it?
In the meantime, season's greetings to all and a blessed Christmas to those who celebrate it.

I think the 'library scene' must rate as my favourite part of the whole ISOLT (thus far!). Whether the thoughts expressed were truly held by MP or were merely put into the mouth of the narrator, they contain some of the most profound thoughts on the relationship between time, memory and art that I have read anywhere. Not to mention page after page of quotable quotes. Sublime!

Sorry, I just noticed that my message 90 above actual belongs in the next week's discussion and is addressed therein. (That's what happens when one is so far behind the group as I am - not at 95%.)

I found the following comment of the narrator about the book very interesting and highly significant:
"In this book in which there is not a single incident which is not fictitious, not a single character who is a real person in disguise, in which everything has been invented by me in accordance with the requirements of my theme, I owe it to the credit of my country to say that only the millionaire cousins of Francoise who came out of retirement to help their niece when she was left without support, only they are real people who exist."

Did others also find this comment interesting? And can we take the narrator's disclaimer seriously, or is he deliberately leading us down the garden path in trying to make us believe that we are reading a work of pure fiction, notwithstanding all the indications to the contrary, pointing to historical accuracy (at least in certain respects)??

Dave wrote (message 18):
"I would add though that for me the most emotional loss of the entire book was not of a character but of a place - Combray, whose destruction is narrated in Gilberte's second letter."

I must admit that my eyebrows raised slightly when I read Gilberte's letter describing the devastation of Combray and surrounds, because Illiers/Combray is some distance west of Paris and much further west than the actual "western front". However, Dave's later explanation (message 83 above) puts it in perspective:

"Well I've read Dwayne that Proust "moved" Combray geographically East so it would be behind enemy lines and could geographically "fit" the storyline. He wrote the last half of TR early on and during WWI had to make adjustments to fit the war in."

I have indeed read it, Jonathan, and can heartily recommend it -- especially for someone who has been exposed to quite a bit of it through ISOLT. Although it does not purport to be an historical chronicle of the whole affair, it presents it in an easily digestible and fairly accurate form.

A very good novel about the whole Dreyfus affair, which does not seem to have been mentioned in these pages yet, is the one by Robert Harris, 'An Officer and a Spy', the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2014. Riveting stuff. See:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
http://www.amazon.com/Officer-Spy-Rob...

Dave wrote: "So the cream of Parisian Society will be reigned over by a Jewess and a Homosexual."
Not quite, Dave. Jewish religious and cultural allegiance descends strictly along the maternal line and Odette was, to the best of my recollection, certainly not Jewish. So, whereas Gilberte may, biologically, have 50% Jewish blood (assuming, of course, that Swann was in fact her father! :-)), that fact would not make her a Jew.
As for StLoup being homosexual, would it not be more correct to describe him as bisexual? Just asking . . .