Simon’s Comments (group member since Dec 27, 2014)

Simon’s comments from the One Year In Search of Lost Time ~ 2015 group.

Finally I caught up again, yay!

There is a Septet by Saint-Saens that may have inspired this section, as the 'little theme' of Vinteuil may be based on Saint-Saens' Sonatas for Violin and Piano 1 or 2 (which imo are incredibly intense and beautiful!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IgpZ...

And here's a live version with video, though the normalization volume level is very low, could use amplification:
https://youtu.be/QPgTLbpL1kc?t=27s

Here's the score:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Septuor,_Op.65_...

Note that the Septet section continues in next week's part.

Unfortunately this Septet sounds ordinary and uninteresting to me on first listen except for the joyous and virtuoso last movement, but maybe that would change on relistening.

The third movement, called Intermède, is an Andante as described in the section, though that is not too surprising, as most septets and multi-movement works in general have an Andante or slow movement. Another congruency is the double bass mentioned and used.
It would be interesting to try to find whether the septet shares a 'little theme' with one of the violin sonatas as in the novel.
But of course Vinteuil could be as easily a mixture of Saint-Saens and other composers as anyone or wholly fictitious.

In this discussion of Mme Verdurin's often-mentioned burying of her face in her hands during music, there's a casual mention of a dog belonging to Mme Verdurin's. I may be wrong, but i think that's the first mention of her dog ever. It doesn't seem significant, but it reminds me of how selective the narrator is in what he tells us and what he doesn't (like most of his own speech).

(view spoiler)[

my eyes encountered only Mme Verdurin’s face, or rather the hands, for the former was entirely buried in the latter.
Did she wish, as some people do in church, to hide from prying eyes, out of modesty or shame, their presumed fervour or their culpable inattention or an irresistible sleepiness? A regular noise which was not musical gave me momentarily to think that this last hypothesis was the correct one, but I realised later that it was produced by the snores, not of Mme Verdurin, but of her dog.
(p. 335)

(hide spoiler)]

I chose Penguin for the rich annotations and the excellent translator's introductions at the beginning which illucitated the translation issues and seemed to reveal how much thought and improvement they put into it.
But next time I'll probably also read 1-6 MKE and 7 Penguin, because MKE is apparently such a classic. I definitely won't read volume 3 in German again, not sure if it's the translation or the saloon scenes or both that put me off. But it was an interesting experience ;)
Oh, maybe i'll try volume 1 in French actually. It will just take a whole lot more time to read, checking vocabulary and understanding.

Why especially Penguin for vol. 7?
I don't like the archaic English spellings like "shew", one stumbles over them, especially non-native English speakers like me. Also I'm not sure the french original is equally archaic spelling-wise, and even then, if you translate it anyways, why stick to old spellings? There are great modern language versions of the Odyssey, and one can nowadays hardly imitate well the Language of yore anyways.

I also don't like Moncrieff's spellings, especially, what was it, "shew" for "show" or "shown"? I think he tries to be archaic and match the language of the time of the action.

I had to switch from the Penguin editions for volume 3 and 5 to a german one (vol. 3) and MKE (vol. 3), because 3 and 5 from Penguin aren't available for Kindle. But I'll pretty surely switch back to Penguin for 6 and 7.

i found it interesting that apparently the name of the narrator apparently isnt as fixed as we thought before:
¨Then she would find her tongue and say: “My—” or “My darling—” followed by my first name, which, if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book, would be “My Marcel,”¨ (p. 91, MKE)

I generally have the impression that the narrator often changes his mind about things and makes statements that contradict previous passages. That is very true to life i feel, we often change our mind and think differently about things after some time.
I find it very interesting (especially to Jonathan i suppose) that at one point the narrator himself confesses to be unreliable:
If we were not obliged, in the interests of narrative tidiness, to confine ourselves to frivolous reasons, how many more serious reasons would enable us to demonstrate the mendacious flimsiness of the opening pages of this volume in which, from my bed, I hear the world awake, now to one sort of weather, now to another! Yes, I have been forced to whittle down the facts, and to be a liar , but it is not one universe, but millions, almost as many as the number of human eyes and brains in existence, that awake every morning.
(p. 250, MKE)

also at one point he mentions that he left out some lies Albertine told to him at Balbec, because it was too painful to him.

I would have many more things to note, and things i really liked in this volume so far, but im a bit limited in computer accessibility right now (annoyingly, this keyboard doesnt have an apostrophe on it, what folly!). I can just repeat how much im enjoying the reading.

*more appealing than long saloon scenes in other volumes.
i'm glad you seem to have kept up the weekly discussion without me, will go through that soon too!

i'm also enioying it very much so far though i'm only at week 2 or so. fell a bit behind the last weeks but will surely catch up soon. lots of intense relationship elements between Marcel and Albertine definitely are more appealing than long saloon scenes. not sure if this will top my great infatuation with volume one though. Let's see!

Though aren't we all a bit changable in our plans and desires, and prone to jealousy? Read an old diary entry or think back to what you wanted some weeks or years ago, and often it's quite different to your current self. At least for me.

Ah, makes sense, I didn't even see Charmel as Chalus + Morel for some reason (i guess because i have been focused on the different pattern of Charlus + cherie).

So, you read about Marcel's sudden jealousy over Albertine and Vinteuille's daughter? I found it a very strong, surprising effect that this made Marcel go from wanting to break up with Albertine to wanting to marry her. At least that's what he tells his mother and wants at that moment. But we know how changeable Marcel is in his desires, and how much jealousy renews his love (which is supposed to be a general human characteristic to some degree, and i don't disagree with that).

I read this last part rather impatiently again, as I thought I could finish it much quicker and wanted to finish it in a single session. The part felt much longer than expected. I think i set myself up for this once before in this volume. In any case, i did finish this in a single uninterupted session today in about four hours, and I enjoyed it a lot!

So Teresa, you stopped at "Marriage with Albertine struck me as foolish"? Well, that would make discussion of the end of this volume awkward between your experience and the one with the Penguin/Prendergast volumes, and to explain that would be of course a spoiler for you :D

I noticed a fun wordplay though. Morel's first name is "Charlie", which can be combined from "Charlus" and "cherie", or "Charlus' cherie". Elsewhere it's also implied that Morel were a "young lady".

The narrator mentions a different wordplay, which i didn't quite get. What is the scene of their first rendezvous?

Having remarked that Morel’s first name was Charles, which resembled Charlus, and that the property where they used to meet was called Les Charmes, he sought to persuade Morel that, a pretty name agreeable to pronounce being one half of an artistic reputation, the virtuoso should not hesitate to take the name of ‘Charmel’, a discreet allusion to the scene of their rendezvous.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 455). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

My edition doesn't have a note about that passage, which in my Penguin edition reads:
"and, to choose a comparison infinitely less sacrilegious than the subject portrayed on the capitals in the porch of the old church in Couliville,"

I haven't started on this last part of the book yet, so i can't comment any more yet.

Nice to hear from you Judy, and good luck with the next volume! I think overall there are less dinner parties in there (although there are some), but there are many many superb passages as well that make it all worth it.

Thanks for your thoughts on the analogy, Teresa, very thoughtfully written, makes sense to me.

Yes, i think Marcel himself is aware that his love is at best unstable ("I would ... tell myself that we must be in love after all"), though he himself seems to elevate it above infatuation. Proust's view of romantic love on the whole seems that you can only keep it up by jealousy, fear of loss and especially by occasional separation (which is the conclusion of de Botton's book).

So since this "no longer felt jealousy nor scarcely any love for her" is the last thing (i found) Marcel says about Albertine, i guess after going back and forth that's where he's currently at after this week's section. Which is strange, because he was just infatuated with her for so long and they seemed to have quite intimate times recently.

Ah, that's a good point, the narrator is really more involved than an anthropologist or therapist should be.
This also reminds me again of the passage where the narrator speculated that the people in a saloon meeting would probably behave and talk very differently were he not there, that his presence inhibits their usual behaviour, which he'd love to witness instead, but which he can't, similar to the anthropologist, maybe to a lesser degree.

This week's part had a lot to catch the fancy: humour, musings on sleep, love and desires, and intimate scenes between Marcel and Albertine. I enjoyed it much more than the parts before, which i can also see from a much increased number of highlights and notes.

I hoped that maybe someone could help me understand this analogy:

The conversation of a woman that you love is like the earth covering a dangerous, subterranean lake; you are constantly aware of the presence, behind the words, of the penetrating cold of an invisible sheet of water; here and there it is to be seen oozing perfidiously out, but the lake itself remains hidden.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 412). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Is this a negative image, one of fear? We have "dangerous" and "penetrating cold" here. Is it the fear of rejection or cold-heartedness? Or is it awe of the deep mysterious soul you long for, but which is hidden under layers conversation can only peel away slowly or only to a degree even?

There seemed to me to be a lot of conflicting statements of Marcel's love for Albertine, perhaps not paradoxical but showing his ever-changing state of it, which i've collected here:
(view spoiler)[

My life with Albertine, a life devoid of great pleasures – as perceived by me at least

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 413). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

I would see the band of broad daylight and tell myself that we must be in love after all, to have spent the night kissing one another.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 415). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Maybe one of the key passages to this is the one about chasing phantoms, how Albertine is a phantom Marcel chases, which then vanishes, only to reappear again later. this is a longer one:
(view spoiler)[

my fate was to pursue only phantoms, beings whose reality lay in large part in my imagination; there are human beings indeed – and this had been my own case since my early days – for whom whatever has a fixed value, recognizable by others, fortune, success, a high position, counts for nothing; what they must have is phantoms. To this they sacrifice all the rest, use every possible means, bend all their efforts, to encounter some phantom. But the latter is not long in vanishing; then they pursue some other phantom, while being ready to return later to the first one. This was not the first time that I had gone in search of Albertine, the girl glimpsed that first year in front of the sea. Other women, it was true, had been interposed between the Albertine loved on that first occasion and the one whom at present I hardly ever left;

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 407). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

(hide spoiler)]

also this one:

People never cease to change position in relation to ourselves. In the world’s imperceptible but everlasting march, we think of them as motionless, in a moment of vision, too brief for us to perceive the motion that is bearing them along. But we need only choose from our memory two pictures of them taken at different times, yet sufficiently close together for them not to have changed in themselves, perceptibly at least, and the difference between the two pictures measures the displacement they have effected relative to ourselves.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 416). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Maybe illustrating this threefold change of love here:

The first time that I had sung it, I was beginning to be in love with Albertine, but I thought I would never get to know her. Later in Paris, it was when I had ceased loving her and a few days after having possessed her for the first time. Now, it was on loving her again and at the moment of going to have dinner with her,

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 429). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Here i was asking myself: has he ceased loving her again? how many times now? and/or is this a retrospective?

I, who no longer felt jealousy nor scarcely any love for her, and gave no thought to what she might be doing on the days when I did not see her,

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 436). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

(hide spoiler)]

Oh and this seems to me (also) a picture of Proust, musing on and writing ISOLT in the last years of his life:

I, the strange human being who, while waiting for death to deliver him, lives behind closed shutters, knows nothing of the world, stays unmoving as an owl and, like an owl, can see with any clarity only in the dark.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 377). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

That's a good point, but it seems unlikely that he could have entered the saloon world without participating himself in some way, without having some kind of relationships. Isn't that standard even for anthropologists? How can you live with a tribe without entering into a relationship with them?

Great to have you back, Jacob, and excellent thoughts of yours again!
I also found the narrator saying "I am not observant by nature" funny, almost paradoxical. Though maybe it also means that he simply forces himself to be observant which he wouldn't be out of his nature or habit, otherwise it's hard to analyze the situations as well as he does, unless his remembering is also (re-)imagining as you said.

On the other hand, it's clear this is at least on some level creative reimagining, as noone can remember so many lines of dialogue precisely, but that's a simple restriction, axiom or necessary suspension of disbelief of almost all (first person) fiction.

I'm glad to see that you're also struggling to find interest with the saloon scenes, but i agree with you that the narrator's interest in it is exploring its psychology from the inside (almost like an anthropologist living with a tribe), trying to understand their ridiculous system of repute, family nobility, saloon manners and appropriate conversation, etc. It also seems that he has ambitions to rise in the saloon world himself though, at least at first.

Haha, yes. The part before confused me at first, Marcel saying he loves the Verdurins. That seemed unlikely to me. I think this is simply the intoxication, and Marcel doesn't really care about the Verdurins that much.

In this very elevated spot, the air had become of a keenness and purity that intoxicated me. I loved the Verdurins; that they should have sent a carriage for us seemed so kind as to be touching. I would have liked to kiss the Princesse. I told her I had never seen anything so beautiful.
(p. 295)

To me, beside the slightly tiresome saloon socialities, there were a lot of great general observations and musings about the characters in this part.

Proust the Neuroscientist again:

because I was now detached from them. From them, that is to say, from myself. We desire passionately that there should be another life in which we would be similar to what we are here below. But we do not reflect that, even without waiting for that other life, but in this one, after a few years, we are unfaithful to what we have been, to what we had wanted to remain immortally.
(p. 258)

Talking about the end-of-history illusion (again), how we mistakenly think we will never (or less than in reality) change ourselves, like this excellent short TED talk shows:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_...

I also liked this musing about noses (though i'm not sure you can actually see stupidity in a nose):

This nose of M. de Cambremer’s was not ugly, but rather a little too beautiful, too strong, too vain of its own importance. Hooked, polished, shiny, spanking new, it was quite prepared to make up for the spiritual insufficiency of his gaze; unfortunately, if the eyes are sometimes the organ in which intelligence is revealed, the nose (whatever their intimate solidarity and the unsuspected repercussions of one feature on the others), the nose is generally the organ in which stupidity exhibits itself the most readily.
(p. 310)

I've made a habit of reading the week's part very quickly, so I can focus on my other reads again. That means it's often hard for me at the end of the week to remember and comment.

I really liked this week's part though, scenes of and thoughts about love instead of saloon discussions, well, you know me. I'd like the saloon scenes much more if they had more meta-observations like here, instead of uncommented endless chatter.

I was a bit taken aback, though i shouldn't have been surprised, by Marcel's social scheming extending to love and Albertine, when he lied to her about his feelings:

I lied. I declared that she would have to listen to a preliminary confession, of a great passion that I had been feeling for some time past for Andrée, and I made it to her with a simplicity and candour worthy of the stage, but which we hardly ever have in life save in the case of a love that we do not feel.
(p. 228)

But i love the poetic final remark.

This following passage may explain some more:

I was finally able, without fearing that Albertine might suspect love in it, to speak to her with a gentleness that I had for so long denied myself and which I found delectable. I was almost caressing my confidante; as I spoke to her of her friend whom I loved, tears came into my eyes.
(p. 230)

Looking forward to the next part.