Dave’s Comments (group member since May 24, 2014)

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

Do the Chapters have titles in the Penguin Edition? In my ebook Moncrieff they are titled but there is no TOC. In the MKE Ebook there are no parts or chapters for Volumes V and VI so I'm having a hard time figuring out what you have read. About all I remember of what I call Part Two of The Fugitive, is the social scene where Marcel meets Mme. Forcheville. Respecting Renato's reading progress, have you read anything about Saint Loup yet? Are there three or four chapters in your edition?

That is a great quote.

Ah, OK, I remember now. For me this is the kind of information that prejudices the reader to believe Albertine's "inclination" which the text never proves convincingly. How do we know they were fooling around? The narrator's impression I believe. When he meets Andre in the next volume she admits this in one meeting (or at least admits his suspicions are true) and then denies them in another meeting. This makes anything she says and her motives suspect.

What was the syringa incident Jonathan?

Actually, since the MKE Version TOC lists V and VI Volumes together, I've resorted to going to he end of The Fugitive and reading backward paragraph by paragraph. Surprising, in rereading, this seemed to work fine.

I mentioned to Marcelita, that when I reread that I felt certain that Proust had written the book in a way that required rereading to understand. Now, near the end of The Fugitive, a paragraph begins "Yet another mistake which any young reader not acquainted with the facts might have been led to make was..." and the paragraph ends on the next page with "...the better informed reader knows,..."

That definitely looks like reference to rereading to me.

I agree, the Penguin seems more to the point in the Penguin translation.

Unfortunately, due to US copyright law, the last three volumes of Penguin cannot be sold in the US until 2017. I tried buying them on Amazon UK but it said they could not be sold to a U S account or something.

I am reading "around in" the last part of The Fugitive to refresh my memory to discuss it. I may read the last volume again with you folks -I don't feel I read the last volume as closely as I should.

I am confused about where you are quoting from in the book Jonathan. Consulting my Spaulding Guide, the three visits she pays to Marcel after Albertine leaves are spread across 100 pages, each is different in what she says (the revalations are not progressive). But I thought all the visits occurred in the first part of of The Fugitive.

Jonathan wrote: "Ch.2 sure has a lot of revelations!" Very true indeed. There is rich ground for discussion in this part.

Looking back, from where you are to the end was easier for me. A lot of revelations indeed, but I felt the text kept moving.

You are moving right along in your reading Jonathan.

He, he, Proust is like the Bible in that you can quote him out of context to support any position in an argument. It would not take long to rifle through the pages and quote rapturous flights of ecstacy about love for Mamma, Grandma, Gilberte, Odette, the little band, Albertine, Mlle. Srermaria and Baroness Putbus' maid.

Renato wrote: "I've often also wondered if the narrator was in his deathbed thinking about all the events that happened in his life and regretting that he never actually got to write his novel and was trying to "..."

Good choice Renato, don't fight it, just relax and let the Proustian elixir drip into your soul word by word. Soon you will be finished with your first round of treatment and you will be howling at the Moon with Proust's "little clan." Happy early Halloween!

On the content of the quote I would note a few things:

- How bitter, cynical, and pessimistic it is about love and all happy circumstance (at beginning and end) and the unresolved deep anger toward the unnamed mistress by the unnamed multimillionaire displayed by all the name calling (plain, stupid etc).
- The quote lays out the events in Part I of Vol VI more concisely than anything I remember from Vol VI, but it does so unreliably from the male perspective.
- The quote leaves out one key point in relating events in Vol Vi, the death of the mistress. I have a reason for this "oversight" that should be discussed at the end.

Jonathan, yes there are other, in fact many, sections like this. I'm only in volume two but I've become aware of a number already. I'm sure that there are others that I still don't notice. This quote is the longest I've noticed. It stands out because I was so perplexed by the first section of Volume VI.

I remember we had some discussion of the two narrator idea last Spring. Like you, I really don't notice it when I read.

There are a number of things we can discuss about the quote. Most are more appropriate after we finish. Rather I wanted to place the quote here to make a point about rereading. My focus here is on not how it was done but just that it was done. I read with high comprehension. On my first read I read and listened simultaneously, which encourages higher comprehension. Yet I have absolutely no memory of the quote. Why should I, it "appears" to be just a generic example. I had a tendency to pay little attention to such sections because, like Renato, I didn't find it credible that a teenager would have such thoughts. When I came to the quote a second time I was stunned. Why we can get into later. But if I didn't reread, there is no way I could start "connecting the dots" between such sections to see for myself what the book is about.

Dwayne wrote: "...aaaaaand I am *still* back here. I just finished this section yesterday. It's work, man, it has been taking up all my energy! Just wanted you all to know I'm looking forward to reading your comm..."

Dwayne, It is so fascinating to me the different perspectives in the group. The cinematic and musical references are interesting descriptions. Glad you are sticking with us Dwayne.

Your comment is interesting Jonathan. When Renato weighs in we can discuss this some more.

Cool!, Thanks.

The context is that after starting to regularly meet Gilberte in the Park each day and eventually meeting Odette, Marcel gets seriously ill for a period of time and is housebound. After he is well, he comes to the Swann home to see Gilberte. She is out, but Odette mentions that perhaps he could come to tea with Gilberte. A week or two later he gets his first letter from Gilberte inviting him to tea. He is reflecting in an interior monologue on the receipt of the letter. He thinks on for about a half a page and then, without a paragraph break, the text contines as:

"....In any case, it is best not to inquire into how life, with all its contrasting developments, can impinge upon our love: the laws that govern such things, whether their workings are inexorable or just unexpected, seem to be those of magic rather than of rationality. When a woman who is plain and without money of her own leaves a multimillionaire with whom she has been living, a man of charm despite his wealth, and when he in his despair summons up all the powers of his wealth and sets in motion all the influences of this world, but fails to get her to come back to him, rather than seeking a logical explanation, it is better to assume, in the face of the willful mistress’s resolve, that Destiny wishes to crush him and make him die of a broken heart. The obstacles against which such a lover has to struggle, and which his imagination, overstimulated by suffering, tries vainly to identify, may lie in a singularity of character of the wayward woman, in her stupidity, in the influence now exercised on her by people whom the lover does not know, in fears they may have put into her mind, in appetites she is briefly bent on satisfying, which may be of the sort that her lover, with all his fortune, cannot satisfy. Moreover, the lover who seeks to know the nature of such obstacles is handicapped: the woman’s guile will hide it from him; and his own judgment, biased by his love, prevents him from assessing it accurately. Obstacles of this kind are like tumors that a doctor may succeed at last in reducing without ever knowing what caused them: though temporary, they remain mysterious. However, such obstacles generally last longer than love. And as love is not a disinterested passion, the erstwhile lover no longer strives to find out why, in her need and obstinacy, the flighty woman whom he once loved declined for years to let him go on keeping her. In love, it is not only the causes of catastrophe that may lie forever beyond our grasp: just as often we remain in ignorance of the whys and wherefores of sudden outcomes that are happier— such as the one that Gilberte’s letter brought to me— or, rather, outcomes which appear to be happy, as there are few truly happy outcomes in the life of a feeling, which can generally look for no better reward than a shift in the site of the pain it entails. At times, however, a temporary remission is granted, and for a while one may have the illusion of being cured."

This is Penguin translation.

I would like to get you and Renato's permission to paste in here a page of text from volume two that gives significant insight into the first part of Volume VI which you have just finished.

The content of the text is not a spoiler, it just is a strong example of the insight to be gained in rereading. I'm interested to know what you folks make of the section you just read in light of this quote. I'll be out this evening, but I'll wait for both of you to respond.

I was surprised also, perhaps not that he didn't recognize her but that he didn't know her by name if not face. Although we only "see" events episodically in brief periods of various time length, I would assume that even if he did not get out much he would "keep track off" people he knew through gossip.

Jonathan wrote: "I was really surprised that the narrator didn't recognise Gilberte especially as he starts to lust after her; but is that just because he thinks she's a tart?

He can't help lusting after these sex..."

Before I respond Jonathan, can you say where they were when he did not recognize her?