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

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

I actually enjoyed all the ways you (or the lift-boy) can mispronounce or mix up words.

It's said that ISOLT is the only masterpiece of literature without professional editing, at least apart from the author's. There are many incongruencies in the text that an editor would have corrected (like Proust mentioning we will see X played out later in the novel, which never does). So it probably could have been improved with editing, but it also wouldn't have been the same.

I liked this simile (or analogy?) of Mme Saint-Euverte looking for dinner guests as military recruitment:

Mme de Saint-Euverte had come there, that evening, less for the pleasure of not missing someone else’s party than to ensure the success of her own, to recruit the final adherents and as it were review in extremis the troops who would the next day be manoeuvring brilliantly at her ‘garden-party’.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 74). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

I still wasn't happy to see more saloon social panorama, but in this part there was at least quite some psychological and other observation to make up for it, like this:

people who laugh so loudly at what they say, when it is not funny, thereby excuse us from joining in by taking all the hilarity on themselves.

Proust, Marcel (2003-10-02). In Search of Lost Time: Sodom and Gomorrah: Sodom and Gomorrah Vol 4 (p. 106). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Thanks for mentioning that! The eroticness of the fountain scene is interesting and i like that part of the analysis, but the rest i find ridiculous academese over-interpretation.
Sex is close to death? How? And i have to admit that I find Freud mostly obsolete fantasy, too, so the whole Search and Combray, and all of reading as (continuous) orgasm is stupid in my eyes, as well as masturbating being narcissistic.
In my eyes Proust just made a kinky, witty allusion to orgasm in the fountain scene, and that's it. But again i have to admit that this is my attitude against interpretation and academese influenced by Susan Sontag.

I didn't really understand the musings after the homoerotic scene with M. Charlus and Jupien, i'm not even sure it was a musing about life as a homosexual. Vices, "inverts", men that are women inwardly... with this strange terminology and the usual long sentences, I was often lost.
And more saloon scenes, oh well...

There was a hilarious scene though where a lady got flooded with water from the fountain, soakingly wet, to get laughed at by a duke's roaring bass like a whole military troup. Then his attempted reparation of "Bravo, old thing!"

We should look at the original french. Oh, i didn't know about 'make love' in older books, thanks! Shakespeare liked to use "wooing" though.

Thank you, you seem to be great at finding quotes!

This verbose passage vaguely reminds me of a dialogue between Proust and maybe Henry James, where James said "Your long-winded sentences only become clear to me after re-reading them two or three times.", to which Proust replied "Oh, I'm glad they become clear to you so quickly, to me they are incomprehensible!"
Sadly, i don't remember where i found this quote, it was recent. Maybe on Alain de Botton's Proust video on Youtube that i also posted in the General chat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mLdo...

Just wanted to mention that it's great we're having so much discussion right now, dozens of posts in different threads by multiple members in a few hours!

Also, this should probably go in the translations and editions thread, but I find some of Moncrieff's old-fashioned word choices strange, especially "shewn" instead of "shown" sounds ridiculous to me. Was that how it was written around 1920 or something in England? I can't remember it from other writers. Well, I guess it's his style, the "purple prose".

Hmm, to me that doesn't necessarily imply sex, though it seems likely, but it could also mean Marcel trying to enter a relationship with Rachel (where maybe they just kiss at first).
Thanks for giving the quote!

Actually it does seem like Marcel is using his friendships to gain access to the higher social circles, one of his highest goals at this point, because it seems to him that that's where the excitement, the grandeur of life is found. Of course here he's already starting to realize that the Guermantes and their saloon people are mostly average and boring, beside snobistic.

Alain de Botton says in How Proust can change your Life that for Proust himself the value of friendship mostly consisted in exchanging affection, that there wasn't much intellectual or deeper inherent meaning of it, that you shouldn't discuss intelectually and risk conflict in it.

That's actually also stated similarly somewhere in this volume, and that at the same time with this view you can be a wonderful friend, because intellectual evaluation and behavior are two different things.
You don't have to agree with Proust's view, but you might understand the narrator better applying it.

Oh, right. I think the wording was more ambiguous in my translation. Thanks!

That's a good point. Though he really didn't have an easy time getting into the Guermantes saloon. Marcel's witty conversation, that the narrator doesn't tell us much about, is probably also fashionable, and he has a way of making friends that quickly extends his connections.

I already forgot Robert was mad with Marcel, would you be so kind to help my poor memory out? :)
That's why you always learn or relearn more with re-reading. But let's not talk about re-reading ISOLT too much yet ;) though I'd probably be happy to do that in the future.

The "entrusting one's daughter, but not one's son" i see as Marcel not being seen as a womanizer, but perhaps too much of an intellectual, who would fill one's son's head with radical ideas.

What the aristocrats find in Marcel, i think is mostly the fashionable presence of a writer, which raises the prestige of the saloon meeting, and attracts other fashionable guests. Imagine you had Marcel Proust, Stephen King or the Dalai Lama at your tea party, that would probably fill your house rather quick.

Lastly, i think noone can remember all the characters and genealogies in ISOLT on the first read, but maybe that's an interesting thing for further reads, and if you wanted you could of course study the genealogy of ISOLT and make those genealogy trees out of the characters. But maybe we don't need to understand the complete genealogy to see what it means to the characters, how it influences the discussion, and maybe Proust wants us to be confused about the genealogy, to show how specialized the discussion is, how much these characters care about and study their prestigious family history.

I also think the Duke and Duchess Guermantes don't like each other very much, it was mentioned the Duke doesn't see much of the Duchess' night chamber, but they keep up their marriage for their position. They probably both don't want to endure the scandal of splitting up and think the circumstances force them together. Gives them something to direct their frustrations at and bemoan inwardly, too, maybe.

Yes, that's what i suspect and hope for an eventual reread, too!

Finishing the short last part of volume 3, i probably won't be able to stop myself from starting Sodom and Gomorrah early :)

Week I of Sodom and Gomorrah ending July 11th

"Thus it was that Mme de Marsantes, when someone from a different world entered her circle, extolled before him those discreet people 'whom one finds when one goes in search of them who keep themselves to themselves the rest of the time', just as in a roundabout way, you advise a servant who smells that bathing does wonders for the health" (~12.05%).

Nice to hear from you again, Steph. Maybe at some point in the summer you'll find yourself with some spare time and motivation and have some intense time with Proust to catch up (it's worth it). But don't worry, there's a time for everything!

I'm looking forward to volume 4 :) I have to say, I can't appreciate all the names, the Saint John Order, etc that much yet, because I didn't get to connect much with these names. But I hope one day I'll reread and immerse myself in ISOLT anywhere near as much you, Marcelita, and that I'll be able to appreciate it all.
I agree with you that The Guermantes Way is my least favourite volume so far, and i was surprised about all the 5-star reviews on goodreads and statements that it was their favourite volume in ISOLT. I didn't understand Manny's review either, who said that he found Madame de Guermantes extremely witty and funny, but that Proust overanalyzed and took apart her wit. Maybe i missed something, but i found most Guermantes saloon attendants dreary from the start. But again, maybe I'll be able to appreciate that more on a reread, and the first read is a wonderful adventure.

Oh, i had even forgot this foreshadowing quote, thanks for reminding me!
And that reminds me that there is another foreshadowing passage earlier, a "promise" of events that actually never gets fulfilled, as the annotation in my edition mentions: that the Duke de Luxembourg-Nassau would prove to be one of the best and finest people. I guess we will never hear of him again. Funny thing, maybe something Proust overlooked or edited out without removing this foreshadowing. Or maybe he's just playing games with our hearts.