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.

Excellent points Sunny, especially about the Narrator.

Proust wrote letters and spoke to several people about the fact that his book had a structure. So I believe it is deliberate. But again, not something the reader would usually see the first time through. As you will see in coming weeks, the beginning and end are very tightly structured/aligned. There is a widely recognized middle in the 500 pages from grandmother's illness/death in Volume III to the moment of grief at Balbec in Volume IV.

So with a clearly structured beginning,middle, and ending it seems logical to me that the rest is structured as well. I have yet to see anyone propose a complete outline of the structure, but given the massive size of the book I guess that's not surprising. For me, it is enough for now just to consider that something in this part seems related to something in another part.

Beyond recognizing there is structure is the question how does the structure help the reader understand the meaning. Haven't seen anything about that in the after reading either, although I know is asked about other works of literature.

A number of outside references make general comments about the text without explaining themselves. One such comment is to liken the book to a cathedral. I have yet to see this remark with an adequate explanation of what it means. So I have made up my own explaination. I see a lot of symmetry in the book (like the placement of the summary of the Albertine relationship in Volume II and the end of that relationship in Volume VI).

I see another such symmetry in this week's reading in the episode of Mme. Verdurin's Croissants. To me this is a symmetrically placed dark parody of the Madeleine episode in Volume I.

Looking forward to reading your comments Jonathan.

As for Mme. Verdurin, Her wartime Wednesday afternoon invitation has become one of my favorite quotes in the whole book: "Come at 5 and we shall talk about the war."

I think the sanitarium is a beacon of hope for the reader - if you've slogged your way this far through this strange book, check in here before you fall off the end of the book and are lost forever in Proustian obsession!

No, this is a mental institution. At least that is what the outside reading says. Proust checked himself into a mental sanitarium for a couple of months after his mother died. The cure was isolation. He was suppose to stay three months but left in the middle. He was a lousy patient, writing letters etc the whole time. I don't think he thought much of the value of his stay, but it may have given him this idea for the book.

I'm curious about how the two periods in the Sanitarium are used in the story. We are told the main method of treatment is isolation but given no info on why Marcel went to a sanitarium twice or what went on there. So visits seem to serve as devices in the story to remove Marcel from the story completely and then reintroduce him for limited periods of time to observe events during the war. Perhaps Proust found this the most efficient means of writing the war into the storyline since he had already more or less finished the book (except Albertine and the war) when the war broke out.

There is a lot of pairing and comparing going on in the first part of this volume. Internal comparing (Saint Loup as husband vs Saint Loup as "man about town") social behavior pairing ( Charlus as homosexual vs Saint Loup as homosexual), character pairing (Mme Verdurin vs Charlus), sociological pairing (life at the front vs life in Paris), comparing across time (Combray then vs Combray now), I'm sure there are others. But what to make of this? I believe it is some sort of extension of Swann's Way vs Guermantes' Way and that it anticipates the ending, but I'm still trying to process this observation to find some useful nugget.

Thanks for clarifying that Renato.

Interesting observations Dwayne. The part about the name I had not thought about. Glad to see you are still reading along. Our little band of faithful are planning to read and discuss some of the bios and background books when we finish the book and discuss them in this group so we will still be around to discuss your comments.

If you have comments or questions about other's comments just give a shout.

Renato wrote: "I remember back in Vol. 3 (I guess) when the narrator overheard Françoise speaking ill of him to Jupien, we wondered if he'd become someone distrustful. And then we had everything that happened to ..."

I'm not clear who is being talked (Francoise speaking ill of HIM) about or what your concern is here Renato.

"This is exactly what I have in my Moncrieff translation." To correct what I wrote above, Moncrieff died before this Volume was translated. I forget who did the initial English Translation.

Renato wrote: "LOL no, I understand people die. I was just talking about how he casually mentions their death while talking about something else, like their death is not the most important message he wants to con..."

A very astute observation Renato, and one we should revisit when we get to White Rabbit Land.

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.

Renato wrote: "Once more, Proust casually kills other characters... this time: Mme. de Villeparisis (hasn't she been killed off before though?) and M. Verdurin. Can't say I was surprised by this as this is how he..."

Renato wrote: "Once more, Proust casually kills other characters... this time: Mme. de Villeparisis (hasn't she been killed off before though?) and M. Verdurin. Can't say I was surprised by this as this is how he..."

lol, Well Renato, we are getting toward the end of the book and many characters are getting long in the tooth. Unless A La Recherché is going to turn out to be the world's first masterpiece Zombie novel some characters have to get the axe. However, I don't see it in Proust's style to have characters staggering around from page to page singing Wagnerian arias before falling off a cliff. I could be wrong though ;)

Jonathan wrote: "Sounds like I'm going to have fun when I get on to this week's reading. :-) BTW I'm switching to the Penguin version for the last volume."

Be sure to let us know who the fill-in-the-blank name on Renato's quote is in the Penguin edition - my vote is for Albertine ;-)

MMR. wrote: "In the section where he is discussing the Verdurin's extremely luxurious salons (pages 61/62 in Modern Library Classics ed.) Proust says that the Verdurin's luxury and wealth went on increasing "at..."

MMR, I wanted to follow up on the issue of why the Verdurin's income was not reduced. I thought the answer was ahead in the text but I'm switched if I can find it. The key is that M. Verdurin is an industrialist. This is only mentioned once in the text that I know of and after searching the etext for logical words I am unable to find it. Patrick Alexander tweeted this a couple of years ago in his continuing project to tweet the whole book, so I guess it is somewhere behind us. Anyway the Aristocracy's wealth was mostly in land and perhaps some conservative investments like bonds. Most of the able bodied farmworkers got conscripted so farming income was reduced. Income from bonds (especially govt bonds) may have been disrupted as governments made promises to pay after the war as they tried to save costs to pay the huge costs of the war. Proust himself (childlike in his ability to manage his finances) lost a significant portion of his income during the war because bank transactions between Germany and France were suspended in the weeks leading to the war. Proust had a substantial amount of money in a German Bank that was frozen for the duration of the war, denying him the interest income of the balance. Meanwhile the income of industrialist like Verdurin soared during the war and they got immensely wealthy from war profits.

I really like the way Proust weaves the story along in here. Marcel is walking to Mme Verdurin's, meets Charlus then he and Charlus (mostly Charlus) talks about all sorts of things and periodically the Narrator gives these long descriptions of the Verdurin's and there life during war time. This section is like the other "journeys" in the book that are opportunities to reveal so much information - Meseglise Way, Guermantes Way, various train journys, etc.

Yep Renato, MKE has Cottard in both places in your quote. Given the academic nature of what Charlus is talking about and that Brichot is mentioned three times further down the paragraph, I believe Brichot is the correct character in your reference. Perhaps Marcelita can help us out on this. I'd also overlooked that Norpois was mentioned so much along in here.

Renato wrote: "I know, very confusing. For example, this is how my edition is when the narrator is talking to Charlus:


"Now, look here," M. de Charlus said to me, "you know Brichot and Cambremer. Every time I..."

Renato wrote: "I know, very confusing. For example, this is how my edition is when the narrator is talking to Charlus:


"Now, look here," M. de Charlus said to me, "you know Brichot and Cambremer. Every time I..."

This is exactly what I have in my Moncrieff translation. I will check my MKE, but "Cottard" would not make sense here I don't think. This is the beginning of a section that shows how Charlus then Mme. Verdurin dislike Brichot, but for different reasons.