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.

Thanks Renato. I noticed that Read helped clarify this when discussing the Esterhazy trial.

I must admit I'm a bit confused over what, at this time, was public knowledge and what was known only to the military. For example the military carry on getting info from the German embassy from the same source, but I thought that the source of the original bordereau was revealed in Dreyfus's court martial.

Proust was mentioned quite early on as well.

I'm still on chapter 9 as I keep on getting distracted by the World Cup. I'm hoping to finish it over the weekend but it'll probably take longer. As a Zola fan I'm looking forward to the chapter on his contribution.

Renato wrote: "Yes, it definitely does. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would to be honest. I should read more non-fiction books!"

I used to read fiction and non-fiction more or less alternately but just lately I'm reading a lot more fiction. It's good to get back reading non-fiction though.:-)

How are you coping with reading it in English?

Renato wrote: "It's frightening, it's crazy and absurd... I'm getting quite annoyed with how everything happened..."

Although most of the decisions are annoying, unbelievable and frightening I think this book does a good job of trying to explain why they made the decisions they did - prejudice played a large part but there were other reasons. Fascinating!

Renato wrote: "When Picquart gets a sample from Esterhazy's handwriting and asks Alphonse Beterillon to analyze it:

"‘Why, that’s the handwriting of the bordereau.’
‘And what if it were written quite recently?’ ..."

And this is from Beterillon, not du Paty! Du Paty just comes across as an anti-Semite but Beterillon seemed to be a bit more reasonable.

With Picquart's discovery it's yet another chance that the military had to correct the initial mistake. I would say that the first instance was before the court martial when they all realised (including du Paty) that they didn't have enough evidence to convict Dreyfus.

Now that they've basically altered, or mis-represented, the evidence with the secret dossier it's not just a case of a mis-trial.

Even worse, IMO, than Beterillon's response is General Gonse's response:

Gonse:'What does it matter to you if that Jew stays on Devil's Island?'
Picquart: 'But since he's innocent...'
Gonse: So what? That is not something that should enter into our calculations. If you keep quiet, no one will know'

Quite frightening really!

I do wonder though where this dialogue originally comes from. There's no footnote to it except to say that Gonse denied that he said this. It must have been from Picquart but no memoirs appear in the bibliography.

Renato wrote: "Roman Polanski is currently directing a film about the affair named D."

Well, if it's by Polanski, it should be good...shouldn't it?

I'd quite like to see how he handles it.

Ch 6: It's fascinating to see the events that are leading up to Dreyfus's court martial and how little evidence they have on him. Paty just has a hunch that Dreyfus is guilty though partly based on his handwriting analysis.

Mercier is now in the position where he either lets Dreyfus free and have to face the wrath of the right-wing anti-semitic press or put him on trial even though he knows there's not enough evidence. Sandherr seems happy enough to let Mercier make the decision as he'll get it in the neck whichever way he goes.

It's interesting that they're getting into a 'conspiracy theory' mindset where when they uncover no evidence then that's just proof of how devious and dastardly Dreyfus is...and besides he's the sort who'd be a spy (i.e. a jew form Alsace-Lorraine but also clever, academic, aloof). Even Du Paty says that Dreyfus should be released if there's not enough evidence.

This would be quite amusing if it were fiction (imagine 'The Dreyfus Affair' by Joseph Heller) but as it's not fiction it's quite shocking. And even more so when you realise that it has parallels with more recent scandals and events.

Renato wrote: "[And to think our narrator apparently fought one! I wonder if we'll get more details about it in the next volumes... was Proust ever involved on a duel?]
"

We wondered about this before didn't we? I thought it was impossible because it would involve getting up early :-). However, I found this which suggests that he did indeed fight at least one duel.

I must admit it is a bit confusing with all the military personnel, duels & financial scandals but I think at the moment the author is just introducing us to the environment in which the Dreyfus Affair appeared.

It's quite useful the approach that Read has adopted with these introductory chapters; he's highlighting the events that led to the anti-Dreyfus attitudes amongst Catholics and conservatives in France, especially in the army.

Renato wrote: "Oops, didn't catch that one! Poor Swann, I wish we knew what were his thoughts when the Guermantes kept on talking about plans for their future and all of these hyperboles..."

I got the feeling though, that he's probably use to it with people talking disparagingly about Jews when he's in the room, which has happened a couple of times in ISOLT.

Renato wrote: """If she finds you still here she will start talking again, she is tired out already, she'll reach the dinner-table quite dead. Besides, I tell you frankly, I'm dying of hunger.""

Lovely choice of words to say to a dying man... way to go, Duc de Guermantes!"

Yeah, I noticed that as well, Renato. Just before Swann's revelation Mme Guermantes said 'Oh my dear Charles...how tiresome these dinners can be. There are evenings when one would sooner die! But of course dying is perhaps just as tiresome, since we don't know what it's like.' oops!

BTW did everyone notice that when Prince Von & M. de Guermantes are discussing Norpois and the Anglo-French alliance Mme Guermantes pipes up and says 'I find King Edward a charming man...' which would mean the party couldn't be before 1901, when Victoria was still queen.

I'm glad it's going ok Renato. I should start it today, once I've finished GW (only 40 pages to go). The book goes right back to the French Revolution, I believe, which should help put the Affair into context.

Dave wrote: "But I don't think it is giving too much away to say that where I am in the reading now, when he arrives on the scene I say to myself "Oh good, here's Charlus, things will get interesting now." "

Spot on, Dave! I had exactly that reaction when the narrator finally left the Guermantes' party to visit Charlus: "Oh good, here's Charlus, things will get interesting now."

I have a natural attraction to characters in novels like Charlus. I mean by the way they're portrayed rather than the specific idiosyncracies of Charlus; I mean a sort of Dickensian character with specific, well-defined characteristics, almost cartoonish, almost a lampoon of a type of person.

Top Charlus quotes:

'One of these days you'll mistake Mme de Villeparisis's lap for the toilet seat, and one begins to wonder what you'd leave in it.'

'Do you imagine that the poisonous spittle of five hundred little men of your sort, hoisted on to each other's shoulders, could even drool down on to the tips of my august toes?'

'These are all the hats worn by Madame Elisabeth, the Princess de Lamballe and Marie-Antoinette. You're not interested, are you? You appear not to see them. Perhaps there's something wrong with your optic nerve.'

No wonder the narrator tore up Charlus' top hat!

Dave wrote: "Reading of tortured rats and missing portraits leads me to think of the movie "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" which I have revised in my brain to "Whatever Happened to the Duchesses' Portrait?"Spoiler alert - it is locked in the Guermantes' attic with Elistir who is being fed rats...."

Whilst reading the Guermantes party scene I keep thinking of the film Abigail's Party by my favourite director Mike Leigh. It's not really a fair comparison but both hostesses will stop at nothing to remain the centre of attention.

Dave wrote: "I see this as the narrator trying to influence reader's opinions by projecting his own perverse childhood fantasies or behavior onto women in the story.

Well, at least this clears up one thing, our narrator is Norman Bates. lol "

Yes, I think he had 'complicated' sexual preferences. Before starting on ISOLT I read Embracing the Ordinary: Lessons From the Champions of Everyday Life in which the author comments on the more unusual examples of Proust's sexual preferences:

Proust was a sadist who had rats delivered from an abattoir in order to torture them to death with a hatpin...Proust was a butcher fetishist and also stimulated himself by insulting his dead mother's memory.

It'll be interesting reading a biography of Proust next year. BTW the lesbian daughter of Vinteuil did a similar thing with the photo of her father in Vol.1(? or was it Vol.2).

One of my favourite quotes in this section was this one where the narrator reveals exactly what it is about Mme Guermantes that appeals to him:

Her mind, shaped so long before my own, was for me the equivalent of what had been offered me by the behaviour of the girls of the little gang along the sea-shore. Mme de Guermantes offered me, tamed and subdued by good manners, by respect for intellectual values, the energy and charm of a cruel little girl from one of the noble families around Combray, who from her childhood had ridden horses, sadistically tormented cats, gouged out the eyes of rabbits, and, while remaining a paragon of virtue, might equally well have been, some years back now, and so much did she share his dashing style, the most glamorous mistress of the Prince de Sagan.

Ah, what a sensitive soul he is: he falls in love with hawthorn blossoms and girls who gouges out rabbits' eyes. :-)