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.

Dave wrote: "Yes,, beauty is in the eye (or more accurately the mind) of the beholder, and we behold the other characters in ISOLT through the narrator's "eyes". I enjoy looking at the paintings but I never fi..."

It doesn't usually bother me too much as I don't have a strong visual sense...by that I mean, when I read a book I'm not actually visualising it as such....so it doesn't overpower the 'sense' that I get from reading it...I don't really visualise the narrator when I'm reading it anyway.

Renato wrote: "Dave wrote: "I take it your speaking of Charlus? As I said, he is genuinely talented and has a sophisticated taste for art, music etc. As opposed to the members of the little group, who are poseurs..."

Making the most of the fact that I was alone, and half closing the curtains so that the sun would not stop me reading the notes, I sat down at the piano, opened Vinteuil's sonata which happened to be lying there, and began to play...

He's playing the piano in this volume, horse-riding in the last volume...what's next? yodelling?

Dave wrote: "Interesting how Proust leads readers around by the nose in there perceptions of characters over time. An aspect of one of his major themes and quite realistic, my opinion changes over of others...."

I like this aspect of novels where we see things from different viewpoints. Proust does this brilliantly and he also shows us how people and their standing in society changes over time or as we find out more details. This aspect of ISOLT is portrayed very naturally.

Dave wrote: "I really like that painting Jonathan, Albertine is not beautiful. She is described elsewhere as plain. I think that painting captures "plain" nicely. ..."

I think that Miss Muriel Gore is quite beautiful, not plain. :-) The problem with Albertine's beauty is that we only have the narrator's view and as he flips between loving her and hating her it's difficult to come to any conclusion. Even when he's afraid of her beauty attracting everyone who comes into her orbit this might just be the narrator's jealousy ratcheting up another notch. For the record, I think of Albertine as a bit of a beauty.

Renato wrote: "I find it really interesting to read about him and to analyze his thoughts and actions... I often find it funny how he's unreasonable. But if I knew him in person, I would have screamed at him by now... heck, a long time ago, actually. And unfriended him on Goodreads as well! ..."

Ha! Ha! Yes, in person he'd be a nightmare...but as a character in a book he's very interesting. I don't know why this volume is considered to be worse than the others - I'm finding it very readable.

Renato wrote: "So in this week's section, I wanted to quote this funny part where the narrator mentions Charlus was nicknamed 'la Couturière' (something like "the seamstress", as in this passage he was talking about Albertine's dresses), but it wasn't in the english edition above:..."

It's funny that you mentioned that section Renato, because I recognised it but just looked for it in my Vintage (MKE) version, but couldn't find it. Then I remembered that I actually read the last twenty pages of this week's read from the library Penguin version I have - this was because my kindle needed charging and the Vintage version is on my kindle. The narrator goes on to say that he wished that Charlus had written books.

My Vintage version, however has seven passages as an addenda; the problem is that they're marked by a tiny asterisk in the text and their position can be easily missed.

Brichot mentions that the Verdurin's former house was partially burnt down; is that the first time that's been mentioned? I wonder what happened? It's probably not relevant, but you never know with Proust.

When the narrator gets talking about Swann's death we get this little bit where we're surely hearing Proust speaking rather than the narrator:

And yet, my dear Charles Swann, whom I used to know when I was still so young and you were nearing your grave, it is because he whom you must have regarded as a young idiot has made you the hero of one of his novels that people are beginning to speak of you again and that your name will perhaps live. If, in Tissot's picture representing the balcony of the Rue Royale club, where you figure with Galliffet, Edmond de Polignac and Saint-Maurice, people are always drawing attention to you, it is because they see that there are some traces of you in the character of Swann.

It's surely odd for a novelist to draw attention to the real-life influences of a character in their book; maybe more common these days but it must have seemed strange then. Would it have made Proust more open to being prosecuted as well, for 'defamation of character' or other such laws?

The painting in question is the Le Cercle de la rue Royale which is in the 'Paintings in Proust' book or a high quality online version can be found on the French Wikipedia site and the person in question is Charles Haas, who is standing in the doorway on the far right-hand side of the picture.

BTW, a Google 'image search' reveals loads of excellent paintings by Tissot; many of which are familiar.

Marcel is certainly a bit weird:

But if Albertine could have looked less young, not so pretty, less able to turn heads in the street, that is what would have pleased me.

I like the way that the narrator feels reassured that Albertine is at home alone when he's off out at the Verdurin's. How can he be sure that she hasn't sneaked out or let someone in the house? Yes, Françoise is no doubt keeping guard but I'm surprised that the narrator has no doubts on this matter.

This picture of a woman (Miss Muriel Gore) in a Fortuny dress by Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley is pretty much how I imagined Albertine to look:

Proust likes teasing us but here he doesn't even bother pretending that we'll find out further on in the novel:

In the case of Albertine, the prospect of her continued society was painful to me in another way which I cannot explain in this narrative.

So, when Marcel drags...er, I mean gets Francoise to drag Albertine from the theatre and has her by his side he then starts to moan that her presence bores and tires him. Isn't this just totally unreasonable!?

He also claims that Albertine's presence is preventing him from going to Venice. But why? Why not go with her? Her presence prevents him from flirting with other women...damn that Albertine!

He enjoys walking about with a pretty girl, but only as long as she's with him. He remembers that what he found attractive about Albertine was that she was some sort of wild 'mysterious bird' but now that she's captive in his house he's no longer interested.

Just when we think 'does he not realise the unreasonableness of his expectations' there's a passage where he almost comes out with a good summary of his own thoughts:

We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so.

This 'quirk' of his helps to explain a lot of his actions. He also mentions that the same applies to lying, i.e. it's ok for him to do it but it is unbearable in others, especially those that he loves.

When talking about Morel's 'algebra lessons' the narrator goes on to say that Charlus:

...was too caught up in the toils of his own social life to be able to unravel the tangled skein of Morel's occupations. The visits he received or paid, the time he spent at the club, the dinner-parties, the evenings at the theatre, prevented him from thinking about the problem, or for that matter about the malevolence, at once violent and underhand, to which (it was reported) Morel had been wont to give vent and which he had at the same time sought to conceal in the successive circles, the different towns through which he had passed, and where people still spoke of him with a shudder, with bated breath, never daring to say anything about him.

We don't really know anything about Morel at this stage but this makes him out to be a bit of a psycho! Feared throughout the land!

He goes on to say that Morel is mad as well. Are we to take that literally?

In a note that Albertine sends to the narrator she uses 'Marcel' several times. I wonder if it's only Albertine that will use his name in the rest of the novel?

I've got no time for re-reading this week; I'm just going to dive straight in...well, I've read the synopsis from last week to get my bearings :-)

Dave wrote: "Ha! The Ripper analogy came to me too! I set it aside in though. It is passages like this one that continued to ratchet up my opinion that the narrator was unreliable in that his opinions on love a..."

I think I likened him to Fritzl in last week's reading so I was trying to get a bit of variety. :-) I quite like reprehensible narrators and characters so in a way it's piquing my interest. I just thought up to now that he was just a bit unusual but now he's becoming more malevolent.

Renato wrote: "That quote didn't catch my eye... what an odd relationship they have... it can't be just that, can it? ..."

I'm sure that he contradicts himself (we're getting used to that I think) at other points in the book where he implies that there is more to it...I'll see if I can find any relevant passages.

Dave wrote: "You seem to be leading a sheltered life by Narrator standards Jonathan, it gets creepier in the next volume. I would be interested in reading the whole sentence if you have time. I'm interested in ..."

It will make more sense, I guess, if I quote the whole passage:

More often than not, a body becomes the object of love only when an emotion, fear of losing it, uncertainty of getting it back, melts into it. Now this sort of anxiety has a great affinity for bodies. It adds to them a quality which surpasses beauty itself, which is one of the reasons why we see men who are indifferent to the most beautiful women fall passionately in love with others who appear to us ugly. To such beings, such fugitive beings, their own nature and our anxiety fasten wings. And even when they are with us the look in their eyes seems to warn us that they are about to take flight. The proof of this beauty, surpassing beauty itself, that wings add is that often, for us, the same person is alternately winged and wingless. Afraid of losing her, we forget all the others. Sure of keeping her, we compare her with those others whom at once we prefer to her. And as these fears and these certainties may vary from week to week, a person may one week see everything that gave us pleasure sacrificed to her, in the following week be sacrificed herself, and so on for months on end. All of which would be incomprehensible did we not know (from the experience, which every man shares, of having at least once in a lifetime ceased to love a woman, forgotten her) how very insignificant in herself a woman is when she is no longer—or is not yet—permeable to our emotions. And, of course, if we speak of fugitive beings it is equally true of imprisoned ones, of captive women whom we think we shall never be able to possess. Hence men detest procuresses, because they facilitate flight and dangle temptations, but if on the other hand we are in love with a cloistered woman, we willingly have recourse to a procuress to snatch her from her prison and bring her to us. In so far as relations with women whom we abduct are less permanent than others, the reason is that the fear of not succeeding in procuring them or the dread of seeing them escape is the whole of our love for them and that once they have been carried off from their husbands, torn from their footlights, cured of the temptation to leave us, dissociated in short from our emotion whatever it may be, they are only themselves, that is to say next to nothing, and, so long desired, are soon forsaken by the very man who was so afraid of their forsaking him.

Is the narrator really Jack the Ripper? The quote is on page 115-6 in my version, which has the same pagination as the Modern Library version.

I started reading the character info on Albertine in the Patrick Alexander book....Wooh! I had to stop as I was coming across some major spoilers...not that I mind too much as it's the journey that's important to me...but still...

I had to smile to myself when I read the sentence that started with: 'In so far as relations with women whom we abduct are less permanent than others...' !! as if it's common-place to abduct women. :-) I've never abducted a woman...or man...or child....am I strange?