Jonathan’s Comments (group member since Oct 24, 2013)

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

I noticed the other day, when I was trawling through my library's catalogue to see how many books about Proust and/or ISOLT are available, that there was a film of The Captive (2000)


Image source: IMDB

For more info see IMDB.

I was already aware of Volker Schlöndorff's Swann in Love (1984) and Raoul Ruiz's Time Regained (1999) but wasn't aware of The Captive. It looks like it's based on the novel and possibly updated to a modern era but should be worth watching.

As we've finished The Captive I was going to get it from the library (it was a local one) but someone else took it out before I could get there! Damn! I'll have to wait now!

Are there any more films based on Proust that anyone knows about? Wikipedia has a page on a four-hour French TV adaption of the whole work from 2011 - no subtitled version yet though!

Dave wrote: "Good research Jonathan! Now, in addition to all the other mysteries we must ponder about Albertine, we must wonder why she has bagpipes on her mind!"

Can't a girl just like bagpipes!

If anyone's interested here are the full lyrics (translated by Google Translate):

My purse a little poor girl
Where boredom made ​​me search,
I allowed myself the emplette
On biniou dogwood
On our Breton moor
Oh, it sounds pretty tunes,
Oh, it lulls the hearts,
Fatigue and pain

{Refrain:}
The pain is crazy
And who listens is even crazier,
Between us, you who consoles!
Bagpipes, my bagpipes, my dear biniou

Near me everything he feast
This is the bird he pleased,
It is the echo repeats it,
It's the breeze that follows.
What is this magic
Which throws us, full life,
The smile in tears,
The gaiety of the pain?

{au Refrain}

But the amount it costs me
Will be slow to return,
Well rigors doubtless
Remember me leave,
My bag a little lighter,
Less than cider in my gourd
Then, who knows? days of misfortune
Hunger and his pain

{au Refrain}

Glad to see you're still with us Sunny!

If I've got the correct bit (near the beginning of the book?) then I think the original French is 'les douleurs sont des folles et qui les écoute est encore plus fou'

If I type that into Google it looks like it's a song called 'Le biniou' (the bagpipes) by Albert Alvarez...possibly!

I can see that 2015 is going to be a busy year once I become a Proust Graduate. :-)

Thanks for all the advice, it gives me somewhere to start. I shall read a biography, probably the Carter one, as I usually like to read a bio of any author that I've invested any length of time on.

But it looks like the Cambridge Introduction & Companion books look promising, as well as the Shattuck book.

I read the Edmund White bio earlier this year which was ok, but very short. I'm sort of reading Patrick Alexander's book as I go through ISOLT but I keep coming across spoilers as I read it - this doesn't bother me too much though.

I recognised the name 'Milton Hindus' from my reading on Céline, he visited Céline in prison in Denmark and interviewed him when he was considered a pariah. The Proust book should be pretty good as well.

Thinking ahead again to next year when I will have finished ISOLT: I have a couple of books here that I intend to read, such as A Night At The Majestic and Monsieur Proust's Library. I'm also intending to read William Carter's Marcel Proust: A Life. But are there any other books that others (especially Dave and Marcelita) would recommend reading first?

Dave wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "Ha, I'm culling my library and I discover I have owned George Painter's bio of Proust since 1978, a small hardback boxed book entitled "On Reading" by Proust (first pu..."

Pre-internet, the problem was getting information; post-internet, the problem is being able to get rid of the crap.

I'm occasionally optimistic, but it soon passes...

Dave wrote: "Ha, I'm culling my library and I discover I have owned George Painter's bio of Proust since 1978, a small hardback boxed book entitled "On Reading" by Proust (first published as a magazine article ..."

Why so many books about Proust if you hadn't read Proust? Or had you tried to read Proust before?

Dave wrote: "No one has commented on the "Lorena Bobbitt" option - too shocking, or too obscure a reference to a small news item in the US 15 or so years ago?"

Ha! Ha! Yes, I got the Bobbitt reference...I don't think the narrator's penis is much of a problem though :-)

Does anyone else find the narrator's vague intention to buy Albertine a yacht a bit silly? Or is this just another way of keeping her away from others?

Dave wrote: "She was poor, lived in the provinces, liked to "party", may have been a Lesbian. Lets see, in her shoes would I choose to stay out in the sticks or come live with a gullible multimillionaire in Gay Paree? Eventually he becomes clingy and erratic - so I'm out of here. "

Yes, I agree Dave. After all, when she leaves she just gets up early, asks Françoise for her stuff and leaves. There was nothing to stop her just as there was nothing to stop her the day before, or the day before that etc.

As the narrator mentions, Albertine decides to go to Paris with the narrator for another reason - that Andrée was going to be in Paris. I just see Albertine as being opportunistic; if it works out then fine; if it doesn't, then move on. The narrator can't understand this because he has to endlessly analyse everything.

Dave wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "I enjoyed discovering the structure of the volume, the one long day in the middle with a single social event in the middle of that day. The previous volumes had two so..."

I was a little confused with the sequence of events at the end of this one but am I correct in saying that when Albertine leaves it isn't the morning after the Verdurin/Charlus battle. I wasn't sure at first whether the 'sequence of days' was referring to events in the past or events succeeding the Verdurin soiree.

Dave wrote: "I'm not at my best today. Read the passage you quote three times and got lost in the middle. I agree - slippery. Perhaps it will make more sense when I'm more alert...."

It's not just me then :-) The first half I'm ok with - I was just going to quote that bit originally - but the second half I'm a bit unsure about. I'll have to read the Penguin version as well and see if it's any clearer.

Dave wrote: "I enjoyed discovering the structure of the volume, the one long day in the middle with a single social event in the middle of that day. The previous volumes had two social events (at least the prev..."

I liked the structure of this one (as well as S&G), in fact one of the things I didn't like about GW was that it seemed to lack any structure.

The headings in the Penguin synopsis are quite helpful, I think:
-Life with Albertine: day one
-Day two
-Day three
-The Verdurins quarrel with M. de Charlus
-Albertine disappears
-Fourth sequence of days
-Last sequence of days

Though it's a bit misleading having the 'Albertine disappears' bit where it is as she leaves at the end of the book.

At the beginning of this section the narrator addresses the reader:

My words, therefore, did not in the least reflect my feelings. If the reader has no more than a faint impression of these, that is because, as narrator, I expose my feelings to him at the same time as I repeat my words. But if I concealed the former and he were acquainted only with the latter, my actions, so little in keeping with them, would so often give him the impression of strange reversals that he would think me more or less mad. A procedure which would not, for that matter, be much more false than the one I adopted, for the images which prompted me to action, so opposed to those which were portrayed in my words, were at that moment extremely obscure; I was but imperfectly aware of the nature which guided my actions; today, I have a clear conception of its subjective truth. As for its objective truth, that is to say whether the intuitions of that nature grasped more exactly than my reason Albertine's true intentions, whether I was right to trust to that nature or whether on the contrary it did not alter Albertine's intentions instead of making them plain—that I find difficult to say.

This would seem to be a significant part of the book, but as always Proust is very slippery.

Dave wrote: "Ironically he was paranoid about her deceiving him (and I felt she was deceiving him) but he never acted decisively to prove his speculation. Perhaps he really didn't want to know...."

I thought it was significant in the part when he was watching Albertine sleeping and he went to look through her pockets and drew back. I think he likes the 'tension' in their relationship, he likes the games, the doubt and in a way he's probably titillated by the fact that Albertine may enjoy being with other women. And he 'likes' being in this tense state. Then all the flip-flopping about whether to leave Albertine or not is really just a way of maintaining the tension. He states several times that he knows that Albertine will eventually leave him; I just don't think it's a decision that he can make himself.

I think that we've glimpsed more from Albertine's POV in this section, where the narrator has returned from the Verdurins, than we have in the rest of the novel. Sometimes I can't help but feel that Albertine is just 'holding out' or 'crashing' at the narrator's place, putting up with his crap like not opening windows, until she can move on to better things, but other times I wonder whether she is just hoping that he'll offer to marry her - either way, lying low seems to be a good move from her view.

Dave wrote: "- So who is the Captive? For most of the volume I was convinced it was the narrator, captive of his own obsession. But by the end I had identified some other captives: Charlus- captive to his love..."

It's interesting that you consider most of the other characters as captives, Dave; I'd never really thought of it like that.

I'm also not convinced that the narrator has the control over Albertine that he thinks he has. I suspect thought that the narrator just enjoys being jealous as a form of masochism; he seems to enjoy dwelling on all the ways that Albertine has deceived him. This then means that he can see himself as a victim and the prize is a rewarding kiss from his mother/Albertine to smooth things over and calm him down until the next time.

Although he's kept on saying something similar in the past few weeks, I think it was summarised in this week's reading with the sentence:

I felt that my life with Albertine was on the hand, when I was not jealous, nothing but boredom, and on the other hand, when I was jealous, nothing but pain.

Only I think he 'enjoys' the pain on some level.

Renato wrote: "I know, I know... I keep trying to understand everything at once!!

I'll be finishing this volume in the next few days as the weekend will be busy. Can't wait to read your full thoughts about Vol. ..."

I'm also going to read the rest over the next few days as it's more convenient.

Dave wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "I thought Albertine's line about lying was interesting, and true - she lies out of love, whereas the narrator lies to gain control and sees Albertine's lying as disobedience."

I'm..."

Well, I think I'm realising that both of them are lying and playing games...but Albertine's lying somehow seems more 'normal', more humane...which sort of makes sense to me but I'd find it difficult to justify. :-)

I thought Albertine's line about lying was interesting, and true - she lies out of love, whereas the narrator lies to gain control and sees Albertine's lying as disobedience.