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.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Bloch is the young fellow who introduced our narrator to the pleasures of the whorehouse, right? So, is this section telling us that Bloch was a - ahem - client of Mme Swann's? ..."

Bloch keeps popping up now and then doesn't he - he recommended Bergotte to the narrator, I think, in Vol.1. Anyway I took the above to be a 'quickie' on the train (or tram?). When Bloch bumped in to the narrator & Mme Swann in the park she was evasive and knew him by another name; I guess Bloch gave her a false name.

re: Paintings in Proust

As the paintings or the artists are mentioned in the text the book provides a reproduction together with the relevant text.

It's particularly useful when Proust doesn't explicitly state a particular painting. I've noticed though if Proust is a bit too vague then there are no suggestions to what he might be referring to.

I've got the 'Paintings in Proust' book as well; I managed to get it out from the library and no-one else has requested it yet so I'm hanging on to it as long as possible.

I've started dipping into the Patrick Alexander book but there are a lot of spoilers - I think he's assuming that the reader has already read ISOLT.

Andree wrote: "By the time one gets to "Sodome et Gomorrhe", no possible doubt can be left in the mind of the reader, whether or not he/she is homosexual...."

I'll look forward to reading Vol 4 then in July...

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "There is much debate as to how great a bearing Proust's sexuality has on understanding these aspects of the novel..."

Even if most of his contemporary readers wouldn't have picked up on any homosexual references, I wonder if other homosexuals would have?

I know it's early days yet and we're still only on volume 2 but how do others feel about continuing the group after the last volume to cover some books about Proust and 'In Search of Lost Time'?

I keep finding books such as Monsieur Proust, Monsieur Proust's Library and A Night At The Majestic that all look like interesting reads but I tell myself 'I'll read them after I've read the novel'. In particular, though I'd like to read William Carter's Marcel Proust: A Life.

Also, is it worth having a group bookshelf for all this additional reading?

Stephen wrote: "Jonathan, funny though that he's so open about stuff that many of us would keep quiet about, and yet goes to great lengths to closet his sexuality. That was certainly the norm for his time, but mos..."

Up to now I've more or less avoided reading too much about Proust's life and I've been trying to avoid reading any biographical material as I just wanted to read the novel on its own merits. But I'm starting to wonder whether it might be a good idea to read a bit more about him whilst I'm reading the novel and not leave it till afterwards....possibly.

I suppose he couldn't be open about his homosexuality in his books during the period even if he'd wanted to be. It seems quite obvious to a modern reader that he has homosexual tendencies but I wonder if it would have been clear to contemporary readers.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Wait... Proust was gay? I would never have guessed that. LOL!"

Yeah, I know, it's a bit of a shock isn't it? :-)

Stephen wrote: "I was telling my 21-year-old son about how weepy the narrator was, and how I'd never write about such things, and he said: "Why not?" And I started to come to grips with the dishonesty in much of w..."

Yes, full marks for Proust for writing about such intimate things, especially when the majority of the readers would find it all a bit odd - I assume that Proust knew this would be the case.

Thanks Renato. Out of curiosity, when was the Portuguese (?) translation first published?

Given that it was published not long after WWI and what with the crap that a lot of people had been through, I sometimes wonder what they made of these tales of the narrator weeping over not getting his goodnight kiss from his grandmother.

Reading Schedule for Penguin Translations

I've listed the 'week ending' date followed by the page number of the paper copy and/or the Kindle location. In brackets is the opening sentence of the following week's start point.

Vol.2: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
March
03/01: to p.63/loc.1271 ("On fine days, I continued to go to the Champs-Élysées...")
03/08: to p.125/loc.2329 ("We went into dinner. Lying beside my plate...")
03/15: to p.182/loc.3314 ("Although the wittiness of any salon and its degree...")
03/22: to p.244/loc.4312 ("To give us an impression of the realness of people...")
03/29: to p.306/loc.5366 ("After dinner, when my grandmother and I had gone upstairs...")

April
04/05: to p.368/loc.6444 ("That day, as on the preceding days,...")
04/12: to p.426/loc.7430 ("I walked up and down, impatient for him to finish...")
04/19: to p.482/loc.8389 ("Once we had eaten, we would play at games...")
04/26: to p.531/loc.9237 (end of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)

Vol.3: The Guermantes Way
May
05/03: to loc.1339 ("To return to the question of sound...")
05/10: to loc.2425 ("I was heart-broken not to have said good-bye...")
05/17: to loc.3523 ("Mme Guermantes had sat down...")
05/24: to loc.4616 ("Mme de Villeparisis was none too pleased to be...")
05/31: to loc. 5682 ("Luckily, we were very soon rid of Françoise's daughter...")

June
06/07: to loc.6746 ("It was Robert de Saint-Loup, who had arrived in town...")
06/14: to loc.7886 ("As for those Guermantes of the true flesh and blood...")
06/21: to loc.9153 ("There was in Combrary a rue de Saintrailles...")
06/28: to loc.10289 end of The Guermantes Way.

Vol.4: Sodom and Gomorrah
July
07/05: to loc.1226 ("In the ordinary course of things...")
07/12: to loc.2281 ("They announced that the carriage had been brought up...")
07/19: to loc.3312 (Part Two, Chapter Two)
07/26: to loc.4326 ("Around this time, there occurred a scandal...")

August
08/02: to loc.5369 ("The faithful went in. M. Verdurin...")
08/09: to loc.6395 ("Mme Cottard was now fast asleep...")
08/16: to loc.7399 ("After dinner the car brought Albertine back...")
08/23: to loc.8293 ("Cottard finally arrived although...")
08/30: to loc.9315 (end of Sodom and Gomorrah)

Vol.5: In Search of Lost Time: The Prisoner and The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5)
September
09/06: to p.65 ("I would undress and get into bed...")
09/13: to p.130 ("It would already have been enough...")
09/20: to p.195 ("I immediately concluded that M. de Charlus...")
09/27: to p.254 ("As M. de Charlus also loved tale-bearing...")

October
10/04: to p.316 ("For a moment now I had been feeling...")
10/11: to p.384 (The end of The Prisoner)
10/18: to p.440 ("Set free once more, released...")
10/25: to p.491 ("I had suffered badly enough in Balbec...")

November
11/01: to p.544 ("A month later Swann's young daughter...")
11/08: to p.599 ("Meanwhile, Mme de Villeparisis had asked M. de Norpois...")
11/15: to p.658 (The end of "The Fugitive")

**As group members finished the previous volume early a revised schedule was used for the last volume**

Vol. 6: Finding Time Again
November
11/08: to p.51 (" 'Do you think we're in for a long haul?' I said to Saint-Loup...")
11/15: to p.103 ("I thought at once of Combray, but in the past...")
11/22: to p.154 ("To increase Françoise's anxieties even more, the butler showed...")
11/29: to p.206 ("I needed to restore to even the slightest of the signs which surrounded me...")

December
12/06: to p.258 ("To return to that politician, despite the changes...")
12/13: to p.308 ("We were interrupted by the voice of the actress...")
12/20: to p.358 (end of Finding Time Again, end of In Search of Lost Time)

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "I really like this form of self-deprecating humour."

I loved the line about his trying to make small talk with the elevator attendant. His sense of sarcasm really comes across: ..."

Yeah, I love that quote as well. It was probably for all of those reasons that the lift-boy didn't reply. :-) I guess it was the narrator's first ride in a lift.

There are a few of these little scenarios or sketches in Vol. 2 that just bubble up then disappear. Great stuff!

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Can you clarify for me, Jonathan, how old the narrator is supposed to be during this time? "

The short answer is that I don't really know. But he must be about fifteen as he's discussing novels with authors, sending love letters to Gilberte. But the hanging out in brothels would imply to me that he's a bit older, sixteen or seventeen maybe. It's just that at times, especially when with his mother and grandmother he acts like a five year old.

It's interesting that in Part Two it is stated that it's two years after the events in Part One but his mother is still treating him like a five year old and he's still crying because his grandmother doesn't say goodnight to him.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Wow. I hadn't even considered that, but you're right. He could be mixing up memories from different time periods in his narrative. Curiouser and curiouser. "

Everything seemed to imply to me that it was a later date, except that the section starts with the sentence: 'It was about this time that Bloch disturbed my conception of the world...' which forces it back into the period with Gilberte. But then could the narrator be getting the chronology a bit screwed up?

So we now get a character avalanche - from Mme Villeparisis we meet her rather affected great-nephew Saint-Loup who becomes the narrator's new bosom buddy, we meet the 'very' strange Baron Charlus and we see the return of Bloch and also meet some of his family. Proust is really on top form here where he can focus on people's little idiosyncrasies. I like the bit on p326 (Penguin) (possibly p449 ML) where the narrator says that he prefers liars to brutes if faced with a choice between the two: 'if not for their human value, at least for their company.'

This week's reading begins and ends with the narrator and his grandmother. It opens with the rather touching episode where they both draw back slightly from mentioning that the narrator's grandmother will one day die - 'But what if I was away for months...(the thought of it chilled my heart) for years perhaps ...or even...'

And it ends with grandmother getting excited over having a photo taken and the narrator essentially being jealous of her enjoyment of it; no doubt because he's not the centre of attention. This self-obsession and complete dependency on his relatives is an irritating character trait but in Proust's hands it's fascinating to read. I like to read about characters that I don't really understand, or like - for me that is what makes novels interesting.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Yes. This not only came out of the blue, but it also disappeared from the story just as quickly. About the time I started to realize it was a whorehouse, he had moved on to his falling out with Gilberte. I wonder if the brothel will come back into the story later? .."

It does get mentioned again, though only in passing. I'm only at 5Apr schedule so there's still time for more revelations. Meanwhile Bloch keeps popping up now and then. I get the feeling that he's going to be quite significant....but this is just a hunch.

The brothel bit is strange because at one point he's going on and on about his love for Gilberte then he's hanging out in a brothel and then he's getting all maudlin again over being separated from his mother. I wasn't too sure if the brothel part was a memory of a later period than the period of the main narrative...it's possible I guess.

It's fun hearing all the wives of the other hotel guests bitch away about the Princess of Luxembourg. The narrator explains that the nobility often looked like debauchees and reprobates to the moral middle class.

So Mme Villeparisis becomes prominent in this section. As it's revealed that the narrator's grandmother knows her the narrator is eager to make contact with her as he (as always) wants to know all these people and be seen to know them. As his grandmother doesn't want to get involved with all these people on holiday we get that situation that we're all probably familiar with where we consciously don't recognise someone to avoid them. I loved the quote after they've passed each other by:

As she walked away, I stood there as forlorn as a shipwrecked mariner who has watched the approach of a vessel, which then sails on its way without rescuing him.

Of course, they do meet up and end up being great company for each other.

Mme Villeparisis knows a lot about what the narrator's father's is currently up to - she knows even more than the narrator's mother it seems.