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.

Renato wrote: "I liked that quote you shared as well! I wasn't aware the word "deglutition" was made up. In Portuguese we have "deglutição", and using Google Translator it gives "swallowing" only as a result. ..."

It seems that deglutition is a proper word in English, it was just that I'd never heard of it and it sounded made up to me! :-) It's in the dictionary and ultimately has a Latin root. It's just not an everyday word in English. Is "deglutição" a common word in Portuguese?

Ok, en français it's:

Puis vint la déglutition de la salive, et la vieille dame essuya instinctivement la légère brosse, dite à l'américaine de sa moustache avec son mouchoir.

And Google's slightly garbled translation is:

Then came the swallowing of saliva, and the old lady instinctively wiped lightly brush, called the U.S. of his mustache with his handkerchief.

I wonder what the significance of 'à l'américaine' is in the original?

I think my favourite quote from this week's reading was this:

Then came the deglutition of saliva, and the old lady instinctively wiped the stubble of her toothbrush moustache with her handkerchief.

Surely deglutition is a made up word? Well, my kindle dictionary gives the definition simply as 'the action or process of swallowing', from French déglutition, so presumably this was in the original French - I may check it out if I feel like it. deglutition is not in my physical dictionary though. I like the image of a 'toothbrush moustache' as well!

Renato wrote: "He was definitely teasing her! And it was so much fun. I laughed several times during that visit. This was also very funny: ..."

And also the bit where Mme de Cambremer-Legrandin (I think we should just call her Camembert from now on in these posts :-) ) asks 'Ah, so you've been in Holland. Do you know the Vermeers?' I especially liked the fact that no-one, except our wise narrator, noticed that Albertine misunderstood the question and didn't have a clue who Vermeer was.

Renato wrote: "At first I assumed it was more than that, but then, thinking of the number of girls mentioned, I figured it had to be just kissing and cuddling... and with Albertine, was it just kissing and cuddling? I always thought it was sex with her. "

Given that this volume started off with the narrator peeping on a homosexual liaison where there was no doubt what was going on I can't see why Proust/the narrator would be so circumspect about the narrator's and Albertine's relationship if there was more to it. So, I'm tempted to think if it says that they're tickling & kissing then that is what they're doing...but then the doubts set in - are we supposed to assume that it leads to more? But would the narrator go that far with Françoise likely to barge in at any moment?

And then we get more dialogue with the Cambremers (not the Camemberts as the lift-boy thinks - he! he!). Is the narrator teasing Mme Cambremer-Legrandin? She likes coming out with these definitive statements about art and the narrator likes to find exceptions and confront her with them; such as her dismissal of Poussin's paintings and the narrator's comment that he was one of Degas's favourite painters.

I've really enjoyed this week's reading and it looks like a visit to the Verdurins' is imminent..that should be fun!

I love the little conversation/argument that the narrator and Albertine have when Albertine is trying to get away to see a lady in Infreville. The narrator persistently asks questions and by answering them Albertine ties herself in knots. It's obvious to us as well as the narrator that she's not telling the truth. The conversation twists and turns beautifully, with the narrator offering to accompany her, at which point Albertine decides not to go. And so it goes until the narrator backs down but knowing that she's lying to him. Proust does this sort of dialogue so well that I wish there was more.

When discussing Albertine and her friends the narrator mentions, quite casually, that: 'I counted that, in that one season, a dozen conferred on me their ephemeral favours.' Then he remembers another and includes Albertine to make fourteen...does this mean kissing and cuddling as with Albertine? or more? I'm starting to wonder now and I'm not too sure.

Renato wrote: "Moments before, he "intoxicated" our narrator with feelings of distrust about Albertine, and that "intoxication" caused him to be jealous and the scenes that followed. Other analogies about love and sickness also were made. I thought that was interesting! "

I think you've got a point there Renato, I didn't make that connection.

Renato wrote: "When Dr. Cottard mentioned Albertine was a lesbian, for some reason, it didn't seem new or even odd to me; but I couldn't tell why. Has it been mentioned before in any way? Has Proust hinted to that before? "

Without actually referring back there was the telephone call in last week's reading which just seemed like the narrator being neurotically obsessed about where she was and what she was doing. I guess also there's the comments from Françoise insinuating that Albertine is not to be trusted...I'll have to dig back to find anything definite though.

The narrator gives some hints of the 'painful and perpetual mistrust which Albertine was to inspire in me'. I've found that Proust will often do this; give hints of future events so that when you read the event you have a vague feeling that you've come across it before.

The narrator's comments on the death of his grandmother and the different effect that this had on him compared with his mother is very interesting. He admits that his mother has experienced a more 'real grief' than his 'transitory' grief. He suggests that this is partly because he can only assimilate it through an involuntary memory and that it's only later once his subconscious (I suppose) has processed the information and is then released that he can fully experience it. I don't see why this makes it a 'less real' grief, though.

He further comments on his mother becoming more like his grandmother, which is something I've noticed within my own family. Although I agree with Proust's observations, such as:

Once she is dead, we hesitate to be different, we begin to admire only what she was, what we ourselves already were, only blended with something else, and what in future we shall be exclusively.

I wonder if it's also partly that an observer notices the similarities between, in this case mother and grandmother, more when one is no longer alive?

I keep reading and re-reading this quote which comes just after the narrator has had the involuntary memory of his grandmother after touching his boots. When I read it the exact meaning just slips away and I get lost in a tangle of words and meanings. Here it is (the emphasis is mine for when it starts to slip away from me):

I was now solely the person who had sought a refuge in his grandmother's arms, had sought to obliterate the traces of his sorrow by smothering her with kisses, that person whom I should have had as much difficulty in imagining when I was one or other of those that for some time past I had successively been as now I should have had in making the sterile effort to experience the desires and joys of one of those that for a time at least I no longer was.

...er what? :-) It's one of those sentences that if you just read once and continue I think the essence of the meaning is extracted but if you stop and try to unravel it then it becomes less clear.

Re: Intermittencies of the Heart

I'm just going through this part of the reading again. I think we mentioned the narrator's reaction to his grandmother on arrival to Balbec in earlier comments. What I found clever was the way that Proust went from the initial malapropisms of the hotel manager to the narrator contemplating Mme Putbus's chambermaid (I hope we meet her) to his recollections and re-evaluations of his grandmother, his memories of her and regrets of how he sometimes mistreated her. But I guess we always feel a bit like that with someone who's died as there's no longer any way of changing things.

The suspect wasn't re-reading Proust then?

Thanks for you fascinating reply Dave. I guess that, at this stage (vol. 4), the best thing for me is to keep the option of an immediate re-read open.

I do find that going through each week's reading a second time (I don't always do this) reveals a lot more. I suspect though that what you're talking about is more revealing than that.

Still, I'm enjoying the first read at the moment, so when I become a Proust graduate I should maybe look forward to some Proustian post-graduate reading!

Dave wrote: "A phone? You have a phone? Will you post a little essay on how how the phone changes the nature of communication and how you interacted with the mysterious "ladies of the telephone?" lol - Thanks Jonathan, the new thread will be helpful. ..."

I think you'll find that there have been great advances in technology over the last hundred years and, as such, telephones no longer rely on the 'ladies of the telephone' - they use electromagnetic pixies now.

Hi Dave, I've just read your instructive Amazon review where your enthusiasm for ISOLT comes across brilliantly - hopefully it will encourage more people to read Proust, especially when they realise that they've 'gotta have a strategy'!

I'm really surprised though that you've decide to launch straight back into it. You've made me curious and nervous over the revelations at the end of the book but I can't, at this point in the book, think that there's any revelation that would cause me to start to re-read it as soon as I've finished - but we'll have to wait and see!

I'm curious though why re-reading it straight away is preferable to re-reading it after a couple of years? As I'm reading ISOLT I sometimes think that it could be a book that I'd re-read at some point in the future but after the book has had time to sink into my subconscious.

Part of my trepidations over any grand revelation is that it almost makes it sound like a glorified whodunnit, or similar, where the book all leads to one important fact at the end of the book. Now, I dislike such books and I always used to read the end 'revelation' to see if it was worth reading any further; 'if the story wasn't interesting enough in itself then it wasn't worth reading' was how I rationalised it to myself. This is why I'm not overly sensitive about spoilers in Proust - I'm not seeking them out but not too worried if I come across any.

Anyway congratulations again on completing ISOLT and I think you mentioned somewhere about a 'Proust Re-read' Group - I think that'd be a great idea; there must be others from the 2013 group as well who're itching to read it again.

This discussion thread is for comments related to re-reading Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time'. In part, it follows on from a discussion in The Sodom & Gomorrah thread for week ending 7/19 but feel free to post any comments, thoughts, expectations, fears etc. on 'going through it all again'.

It might be worth setting up a new discussion, e.g. 'Re-reading Proust' or similar. Group members can start new discussion threads but if you want I'll have a look at it when I'm at my PC - I'm on my phone at the moment.

There is now a discussion thread titled Re-reading 'In Search of Lost Time'.