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.

Although it's amazing that the two Surgis boys had acquired different, but beautiful, characteristics from the same mother and father, 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.

And what would have added to the Baron's enthusiasm would have been the discovery that the two sons of Mme de Surgis-le-Duc were sons not only of the same mother but of the same father.

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! Paintings, they're enough to drive you mad...How right you are, it's so tedious, writing letters!' In the end it was life itself that she declared to us was a bore, without one quite knowing from where she was taking her term of comparison.

She just flits in and out. I hope we see her again but I fear we won't.

Renato wrote: "This adaptation I'm talking about is direct by Hans W. Geissendörfer has 2 versions: one is 153 min and the other, 329 min.

What is this 19 hours long version? Maybe a tv series? I haven't heard ..."

My mistake, I just looked at the picture which was of a collection of Buddenbrooks/Magic Mountain/Dr Faustus. Still looks good though.

Renato wrote: "Thanks for the recommendation, Jonathan. I just looked into My Father's Glory & My Mother's Castle and they seem very interesting. Put them on my to-watch list. :)

In the coming days I'll be watch..."

I haven't read much Mann. I've been meaning to read 'The Magic Mountain' for years. I didn't realise there was a film of it - 19 hours long! wow! still, it looks good.

Dave wrote: "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 th..."

You could read them the 'long sentence'!

I recently (re)watched the films My Father's Glory & My Mother's Castle based on Marcel Pagnol's books. These are superb films (as well as Jean de Florette) and thoroughly recommended to all Proust fans, but I've never actually read anything by him; his books are difficult to get in English - another reason to learn French.

Chichester is just along the coast from me.

Renato wrote: "I sure did!"

Dave wrote: "Yes, I did also."

Good! I'm not just imagining things then. :-)

I'm surprised that M. Vaugoubert is quite blatantly checking out the young men with Charlus at the party, given that he's in constant fear of being outed. I guess they're talking obscurely enough for the others not to know what they're actually doing.

There are problems with watching films of books but I often watch the film when I have no real intention of reading the book...but if the film's good I then begin to wonder just how good the book is: this was the case with Chabrol's 'Madame Bovary' but I possibly prefer the film to the book in that instance.

I liked Polanski's version of Tess of the d'Urbervilles though I haven't read the book.

I'm just re-reading the opening scenes of the party and I'm amused by the narrator's snooty attitude towards Prof. E:

...for nobody of his sort had ever been seen before or was ever to be seen again in the Princess's drawing-room

I love those phrases 'his sort', 'people like you', 'your crowd' as they're so dismissive and bitchy.

Does everyone else 'read' the episode in the Champs-Elysées between M de Châtellerault and the usher as another homosexual encounter?

I was going to watch 'Swann in Love' earlier in the year but had trouble getting it on Lovefilm so I may have to buy a copy. It's from 1984 which I keep thinking of as quite recent but it's not I guess.

I just noticed on Wikipedia that there was a 4 hour TV version of the whole of ISOLT from 2011; I doubt whether it will ever appear on UK TV.

Yes, whenever I read French authors I think to myself 'why don't I just learn to read French?' - I mean I'll always be useless at speaking French, but reading French may be manageable...well, maybe next year...

Yes, thanks Marcelita. I wonder if anyone in the group shares their birthday with Marcel?

Ok, as we're now on Vol.4 I thought I'd add a little more on translations as I always seem to get bogged down with this issue.

Quick recap: I started off with the Vintage MKE (Enright's revision of Kilmartin's revision of the Montcrieff translation) translation for Vol.1 but decided to switch to the Penguin translation for Vol.2 & Vol.3.

I quickly realised though that one drawback (for me) with the Penguin translation was the issue with dialogue - see earlier posts. Now, as far as I can tell, it seems to follow Proust's original style but in the end I prefer the fact that the MKE verion sorts out all the confusion. I've been getting round this by loaning a copy of the MKE version from the library and using it to help out with any confusion that arises. This has actually been quite useful as it's a bit like getting a second opinion on the text.

The thing is that with the Penguin 'Sodom and Gomorrah' I've been really unimpressed with the translation style, which often seems fussy and unnecessarily convoluted when compared to MKE. There's also quite a lot of dialogue in the party scenes and I find myself referring more and more to the MKE version to help me sort out who's saying what or if it's dialogue or narration. But there also seem to be quite a lot of typos (kindle version) as well that make some of the sentences almost gibberish. It's almost as if Penguin couldn't be bothered as no-one was going to get that far any way!

Take this sentence from the first page of the volume where the narrator has just mentioned that he moved from his vantage point upstairs to the staircase in order to look out on the courtyard. In the MKE version the sentence reads:

I rather missed my Alpine eyrie

whereas the Penguin version has:

I a little regretted ending my sojourn on high.

Now does that just sound crap to others as well as to me? There were other examples but I got bored with highlighting them as I just wanted to read the bloody thing.

The other Penguins read really well but with this one I'm thinking of switching back to the MKE as my main text. One advantage of the Penguin version is that they have quite a lot of notes which are actually helpful.

Stephen wrote: "Whoever is looking forward to more jealousy will get loads of it in The Captive. I'm about halfway through that book. I'm really slowing down. It has to do with the nice summer weather, which is le..."

I've been slowing down as well, due to nice weather and other distractions such as football (soccer) World Cup, Wimbledon and the Tour de France starting off in Yorkshire...each day I run out of time....lost time....I can just about get some reading in but find I run out of time to gather my thoughts and post anything.

Yes, Charlus is a fun character; he'd be insufferable in real life. Does everyone else hope he gets his comeuppance?

Proust can be such a bloody tease sometimes. For example:

But what suddenly revealed the Princesse's love to me was a particular fact that I shall not dwell on here, for it forms part of the quite different story in which M. de Charlus allowed a queen to die rather than miss the hairdresser who was to use the curling tongs on him for the sake of a bus conductor by whom he found himself prodigiously intimidated.

...er what!!! Now that's a story we'd like to hear about, isn't it? Unfortunately the notes in my book state that 'sadly Proust did not include this episode in the finished text.' Damn!!

Renato wrote: "Something else I wanted to comment: Proust acknowledged his readers! I felt it was like "ok, you got his far, now I can give you some attention", LOL."

I didn't really notice this when I first read it but after your comment I watched out for it as I've just re-read the opening bit of the party before going on with the next week's reading. It's amusing that he basically tells us to shut up and listen to the next bit of the story...that puts us in our place. :-)

I'm finding Proust's comments on the medical profession throughout the novel quite amusing. In this week's reading we have:

The mistakes of doctors are innumerable. They err as a rule out of optimism as to the treatment, and pessimism as to the outcome.

And we get to meet the 'vulgar man, Professor E.' again.

Also, Swann keeps appearing in the background of several scenes; being whisked off by Prince G. I guess he's heard Swann's news and is discussing it - hopefully it will be revealed in next week's reading. Interestingly, the other guests think he's being shown the door. Do they think this because of his pro-Dreyfus views?

Dwayne wrote: "I also think it's interesting that the narrator hated hearing his own name so much. Yes, in that moment, it's because of that acute fear that he wasn't actually invited to the party, but I think there is more to it than that. Does he not want to hear his own name because he doesn't want to be disillusioned about himself? That's complicated and half-baked but I do wonder."

I still think it's partly snobbery; he's finally mixing in the company of Dukes & Duchesses, Princes & Princesses and he's going to be announced as Monsieur. But it's also because he's a bit ashamed on behalf of the Princess. When he begs the footman to keep his voice down it's explained this was to 'spare my amour propre if I had not been invited, and that of the Princesse de Guermantes if I had been...'