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.

Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "Happy Birthday Marcel. Good choice of champagne Marcelita. My birthday is in October Jonathan.

So Proust's sun sign was Cancer. What to make of that?"

I don't understand Marcel's ast..."

Cool Marcelita, I've never seen such a detailed astrological chart. I don't understand most of it but the bottom line seems to be the stars were aligned at his birth to create a genius to write a great masterpiece of literature!

I'm fortunate to be retired so I read in the modern equivalent of a cork lined room. I'm looking forward to reading the Carter biography though so I can learn more weird-living tips from Proust to freak out my wife and children. I remember one of the French Symbolist poets, who wished to be eccentric, used to walk a lobster on a pale blue ribbon in one of Paris' parks. I will name my lobster Marcel!

Renato, the book I was citing that placed The Magic Mountain so high is Roger Shattuck's "Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time." I have purchased that and Howard Moss' "The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust to read after I finish Time Regained (3-4 days).

I checked out The Magic Mountain on Amazon. Sadly, it is offerred neither in Kindle format nor Audiobook. I put in a request for both but will have to wait. I read "Absalom, Absalom" in May and loved it - followed it immediately with "The Sound and the Fury" which I also loved. I plan to read "Ulysses" next year. My next big classic is going to be "Don Quixote."

Thanks for explaining that. I used the Montcrieff translation for volumes 3-6 to conform to the translation of Naxos Audiobook. Montcrieff died before translating Time Regained and the Audiobook used a private translation so I returned the Audiobook and I'm reading some public domain translation. I was nervous at first of reading without my audio crutch, but since I know the characters voices And how to pronounce names and places it has been pretty easy.

In the translations I used I often wondered how hard it is to keep track of who says what in dialogue when reading because mostly the lines are written without indicating who is speaking. I've had to sort that out a few times in the last volume. I depended on the audio reader to indicate that when listening.

I just watched it! Hilarious, but I couldn't understand much because they were talking/singing so fast. Is there a text of the script? Don't look it up, I can search for it on Google.

I've heard about that but never watched it. I love Monty Python and bet it will be even funnier having read Proust's novel.

They humored me and my "everything you need to know about ISOLT in 5 minutes" presentation.

How is the Penguin Edition annoying with multiple characters Jonathan?

For myself, I feel Proust has moulded me into the reader he needed me to be to appreciate his novel. At the beginning, I was a "head down, shoulder to the wheel, lets get through this" reader. It was in next week's reading (a comment you already read Jonathan) Proust "clicked" for me and I began to enjoy the journey without constantly looking at the odometer to consider how far I had to go to finish.

Renato wrote: "Les intermittences du coeur: what a beautiful, heart-wrenching section.

I finally got what I wanted from Proust when his grandmother died in the last volume. I felt a bit disappointed that he didn..."

I absolutely concur Renato.

From here on I changed my comment style. I consolidated all my comments in the last week of each volume. I was concerned I could not keep unintended spoilers out of my comments. My comments at the end of each volume DO contain Spoilers (some more than others) so I recommend finishing the last reading in a volume before reading my comments.

I will continue to interact with others comments.

Renato wrote "Another interesting point was to see how now Odette traded places with Swann ..." Exactly Renato, that is the first"change" I was referring to. Make sure to note how Gilberte has changed.

I think that is a great idea and a benefit of the schedule. I have reread sections where I felt my first reading was too distracted. The party being narrated this week seems to have outsized importance in the book. The narrator thinks of it a number of times later and there is a "structural" connection with an event later in the book.

Jonathan wrote: "re: Surgis bros. All I could think of was that for Charlus it was the novelty factor though I'm unsure why he would have been less interested if they had different mothers or fathers.

Everyone sho..."
That may be Jonathan. novelty for Charlus' conquests and novelty for the reader to make Charlus seem odd.

It might be interesting to create a deSade group just to se who would sign up.

Yep, taken from de Sade's book. The book was written in 1785 when deSade was in prison in the Bastille. In the book its 4 libertines and 24 mostly teenage boys and girls. It is written in astonishingly graphic pornographic language and is, for the most part, mechanistic and systematic - A did B to C with his left- hand, A did B to C with his right-hand. That sort of thing. It wasn't published until 1905. (in Germany I believe) and was not widely available in UK, France, and US until much later, so I doubt Proust ever saw it. I think it was banned in the US until the '50's.

Jonathan wrote: "I don't quite understand why it's so fascinating to the narrator (he mentions it several times) and why Charlus would find that that adds to their allure."

I'm unsure of that myself Jonathan. However, I have been struck by the similarities between Charlus' behavior and heterosexual men's behavior (at least in the US before the Internet and sexual harassment laws changed. the playbook). Men universally "checked out" women and routinely made sexual advance (covert and overt). I remember decades ago it being a big deal when Playboy Magazine featured twin sisters on their Centerfold.

When I was in my twenties I read "The 120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade. After that, nothing I've ever encountered in books, on TV or in the movies has seemed more than "routine" in the way of human sexuality. I won't go so far as to say that it turned into the Mme. Cipri of sexual observers, but at least into "a curious observer of the human sexuality scene."

Jonathan wrote: "Back to Proust: One of my favourite 'minor' characters in this section was Mme de Citri, who finds everything a bore:Soon, what was tedious was everything. 'Beautiful things, they're so tedious! Pa..."

I agree Jonathan. I loved her! Proust's ability to capture "types" of people in only a sentence or two is amazing. One of the major characters of the novel is a fully developed variation of Mme. de Citri.

Renato, One of the background books on ISOLT I've started reading mentions The Magic Mountain as one of three contenders with ISOLT as greatest novel of the Twentieth Century (the others being Ulysses and Absalom, Absalom). I tried to read it when young but didn't finish. I'll have to give it a try with my listen/read method at some point.

Its nice to have at least the tree of us "on"at the same time. Enjoyed this exchange. I've got to go get ready to go to my local book club monthly meeting. Today I'm talking about ISOLT, whether the rest of them like it or not! lol

I'll have to check out "My Father..." never heard of it but will look it up. I've heard of "Jean de Florette" but never watched it. I enjoy foreign films and probably watch more French films than any other. I'm a big fan of Catherine DeNeuve. I'll never learn French in this lifetime but I took a year of French in school.

I think the point is that now that the narrator's consciousness has been raised by his observation of Charlus and Jupien, he notices a whole new "level" of interaction between characters he failed to observe before.

Oh there are lots of films based on books I'll never read. I watch a lot of "chickflicks" with my wife that I'll never read, like "The Notebook" by Nicolas Sparks. Watched "Life of Pi" and loved it, but don't think I'd ever read the book. On the other hand I read "The Bookthief" but would not watch the movie. I also like Polanski's "Tess..." tried to read it book long ago but never got through it. A couple of years ago my wife and I took a three week roadtrip through Southern, Southwest, Western, and Midlands England and spent some time in "Hardy Country. I'm a rabid Anglophile. Based on where I've been so far I would live in Chichester if I could.