Jacob’s Comments (group member since Nov 14, 2014)

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

True enough, but an anthropologist describing family rivalries doesn't marry into one of the factions, and a good psychologist doesn't have an affair with a patient. The narrator is way beyond the level of appropriate behavior for someone studying a group. Or rather, it would fit better to say that a psychologist doesn't provided therapy to his friends and an anthropologist doesn't study his own family. The narrator began his relationship with the aristocracy as someone in love with its women and intensely interested in its artistic tastes. He's deeply involved (as was from the beginning) and his emotional involvement would be difficult or impossible to divorce from his analysis.

Even so, I agree that at this point he's interested in studying the aristocracy. That's where their value lies now. It brings up all sorts of questions about his reliability and his relationship with the aristocracy. The psychoanalysis of characters is a fad that's long past and one that doesn't usually interest me. This is one of those rare exceptions since the entire novel is based on the subjectivity of the narrator. What's more, I think it's a level of complexity that was intended by Proust.

Yes, he certainly seems taken with the salon world early on and even later it seems like there's some ambivalence in his attitude toward the salons. He seems very anthropological, but with the caveat that he's personally involved in many of the situations he describes. A good anthropologist watches from the outside; he's no where near objective considering his relationships with Robert, Mme de Guermantes, and M de Charlus to name only the most significant. This is why I suspect that as the character he's not yet aware of the psychological and sociological possibilities of the salon even if as a narrator he is. I'll have to think more about that though.

I'm back and for the most part I'll be able to get back into the discussions. Even though I missed several weeks which I enjoyed reading, I'll jump back in here.
This sentence got a laugh out of me:

I would not be able to say today how Mme Verdurin was dressed on that particular evening. I had no better idea at the time perhaps, for I am not observant by nature (343/566 Penguin epub).

It's funny at first because after more than 2000 pages he'll have a hard time convincing me he's not observant. But then I pause and remember the brief exchange between Steph and Teresa a few weeks ago about the unreliability of the narrator and the possibility that much of this is his own imaginings. These hypotheses regarding the narrator makes the above quote seem to be less a moment of narrator self-satire and more a matter transparent revelation.

Later on the same page he writes

And since the impressions that for me gave things their value were of the kind that other people either do not experience or else suppress unthinkingly as insignificant, so that in consequence, had I been able to communicate them, they would have remained misunderstood or would have been scorned...

This helps give a little of the motivation for his lengthy story. Earlier some of you had pointed out the fact that he seems bored by much of the salon society world. The people are inane and he portrays them that way. I don't need him to tell me most of them are stupid, he's described them that way. His interest (I would say as the narrator and not as the young man he was at the time) is society as an artifact for social and psychological analysis. In this quote he's effectively saying, "I have no interest in their world in its own right, I'm interested in the fact they hold their world in such high esteem. That's what makes their world interesting."

What's the difference between an "old family" and a family without a history? It's the fact that an old family knows the names of the people who came before. My family is as old as any other. That's patently obvious. But I can't name them back to the medieval ages (even if I can find books that do), and I can't associate my family's name with their place. I've begun to suspect that the people aren't important, but their places are which, by association, gives the people some added significance. This is how I'm beginning to make sense of the seemingly disparate sections of ISOLT. One is Combray, Balbec, and Paris, the other is the salon. The one I love, the other bores me (ok, fine, M. de Charlus is always interesting, like a breath of fresh air gusting through the salons from the sensual world outside). The one immerses us in sensual detail, the other surrounds us by insipid socialites. How are they connected? I think it has something to do with names (the act of naming and learning names) and historical memory (a form of indirect cultural memory to be sure, in this case it's mostly family history). At first I thought it was weird that he titled sections of ISOLT "Place Names". And he did this again and again. It seemed stupid. Now I'm beginning to see some subtle significance in names and naming throughout ISOLT.

Of course there are other things that he values that other do not. For example, much of the sensual details that the rest of the characters pass over. The church steeples, those moments when our senses trigger a memory, the little phrase of Vinteuil. I'm beginning to see much of the sensual detail through the lens of places and their names.

That's true. I guess I was thinking about philosophy and other theoretical disciplines. In school I found discussion based seminars the most valuable. Even now I'd rather have a chat about something theoretical then listen to a lecture. When I present my views I'm forced to defend, deconstruct, and rebuild my ideas. Of course it's difficult to have a real conversation with someone who isn't familiar with the ideas that have inspired a certain point of view. If you've been influenced by Foucault, it's hard to talk about your view on power with someone who hasn't read Foucault. If Proust has changed your life, how do have a conversation about time and memory with someone who asks you to describe the plot of ISoLT?

Sometimes people try to engage me in a conversation about politics. My views aren't particularly mainstream so it's hard to make that work. I often find myself repressing most of what I want to say. To return to the novel: even though it's implied that the main character, the autobiographer (I can't think of a way to refer to him, *sigh* should I just say Marcel? no, no, I can't do it) replies to his conversation partners I wonder if we don't get to read his replies because the narrator - the same man looking back at his experiences years later - is in a sense saying, "you wouldn't understand, I won't engage you in this conversation." He did engage at the time and he admits that in the narrative (through implication) but as a retrospective narrator he gets to decide again if he will or will not reply. This is pushing the pleasure I take in narrative conjecture to its limit, and I have no doubt there are many instances when this perspective wouldn't work, but it just struck me as a possible explanation when I mentioned that this thought often crosses my mind in a conversation. I'm still searching for a reason why the narrator doesn't quote himself.

I think the use of "possession" to refer to sex is especially loaded considering the importance of jealousy in sexual relationships and desire. Think of Swann and Odette in volume one and Saint-Loup and Rachel earlier in this volume. Because of the weight of the word, to possess, it seems like there's a sense of dominance in the narrator's view of sexuality.

Regarding friendship and intellectual growth, my experience is quite different from yours and I'm puzzled by Proust's observations about friendship. Admittedly, even his friendship with Saint-Loup seems intellectually superficial although personally deep. The intellectual conversations that I recall throughout the novel seem mostly phony, as if the social status of the other person's opinions are more important then his or her genuine conviction. It's true that most of the profound observations are the internal musings of the narrator. But where did these ideas come from anyway?

Of course, he reads and thinks and this is one way he picks up a lot of ideas. But testing them in the fire of debate is what really hones the acuteness of my mind. I don't think the quick back-and-forth of a vocal debate is the best way to flesh out my ideas, but it's a great way to test and develop ideas that I naively thought were completely sound. This doesn't yet seem to be a major part of the narrator's process of maturity (although the fact that we don't usually know what he answers probably skews our view of his intellectual conversations).

Hello everyone! It's exciting to realize that we're nearly half way through In Search of Lost Time. I've personally found this group to be very motivating in my effort to remain consistent in my reading.

Right now we're looking for someone to join Simon and myself as a co-moderator. Over the next three months I'll have little to no internet and we'd like to make sure there are two active moderators over the summer. I've already posted the schedule for Sodom and Gomorrah and will post the schedule for The Prisoner soon. This will take us through October. All you'll need to do is keep an eye on the conversations to make sure they remain civil and that any spoilers are hidden (I doubt very much we'll have a problem). Moderators and members can all add a new week's discussion thread so all you'll need to do is make sure there are no problems on that end. Send either Simon or me a personal message if you'd be willing to be added as a moderator. If you only want to do this from now until October, that will be fine too since I'll be back at the end of September. Thanks!

Each quote is found at the end of a paragraph. These quotes are from the Penguin edition (this volume is translated by John Sturrock). I don’t have the MKE translation of this volume so when I had the option I tried to choose quotes that included a proper noun. After each quote I cite the approximate page percentage of the line. The percentage is of the text ISoLT only, excluding introductions and prefaces, end notes and summaries.

July 11
"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%).

July 18
"These colorful studies in linguistic geography and its attendant camaraderie were pursued each week in the kitchen, without my deriving any pleasure from them" (~24.1%).

July 25
"He ended by explaining that Albertine was not in Epreville, that she would be back only at nine o'clock and that if sometimes, which meant by any change, she were to return sooner, she would be given the message, and she would at all events be with me before one a.m." (~38.55).

August 1
"The passengers who would be catching it stood aside to give it room, but unhurriedly, knowing that they had to deal with a debonair, almost human stroller which, guided, like the bicycle of a learner, by the indulgent signals of the station-master, and under the powerful tutelage of the engine-driver, was in no danger of running anyone down and would have stopped wherever you wanted" (~47.99%).

August 8
"The procedure is similar - thought the reverse of theirs - to that of those liars who, by editing their activities when recounting them to a mistress or simply to a friend, imagine that neither one nor the other will at once see that the sentence spoken (as in the case of Cahn, Kohn, Kuhn) is an interpolation, is of another species from those making up the conversation, that it has a false bottom" (~59.64%).

August 15
"...it lent this red-faced Norman something at once bloodless and ecstatic, as though the Marquis had just been operated on, or were imploring Heaven, beneath his monocle, for a martyr's crown" (End of Part II, Chapter 2 ; ~71.49%).

August 22
"I answered unwisely that he was mistaken, that the gentleman was no relation at all to the Guermantes but was called Fournier-Sarlovèze. The distinguished man turned his back on me and has never acknowledged me since" (~84.34).

August 29
"The benefit that I derived from it, at least, was no longer to see things except from the practical point of view. Marriage with Albertine struck me as foolish"(End of Sodom and Gomorrah).

Then there's this interesting tidbit in the context of seeing Mme Guermantes: "...so far veiled from me by the rapidity of her passage, the dizzy nature of my impressions, the unreliability of memory..." An odd way of looking at impressions and memory from a narrator who's giving us 4000 pages of impressions and memory. It seems to me that as a narrator he's self-consciously unreliable although I wouldn't characterize his unreliability as either deception or delusion (as is often the case with modern narrators). We don't have to worry about trusting the narrator because he's not presenting his reflections and memory as fact (in the same way that journalists and historians do). We're told that this story is a presentation of his memory and that memory is by its very nature unreliable. As I read further, my working hypothesis is that in Proust's opinion memory is unreliable by virtue of the fact that it is always constructive rather than representational. (I probably latch on to this because it's one of my primary philosophical interests.) I saw hints of this view of memory earlier when I broached this theme (I think in the context of Swann in Love), and I'll admit, I may hope it's the case more than I can prove it right now. Even so, quotes like this support my hypothesis.

Returning to this, the dialogue that you mentioned at the beginning of this tread, Simon, was very striking as I read it. I think this is also the time when the narrator is talking with Saint-Loup's group of friends and we're told that everyone thinks the narrator's witty but we don't here any of his wit. It's very unique and puzzling.

On another topic, I'm not one to try to interpret every relationship in sexual terms and I don't want to be overly-influenced by what I know are some of the major themes in ISOLT, but does anyone else look at the friendship between the narrator and Saint-Loup with - what shall I call it - curious interest or suspicion? Here's a brief example:

he [Saint-Loup] knew better than anyone my bedtime anxieties, which he had often noticed and soothed at Balbec, he broke off his complaint to turn and look at me, to give me little smiles, tender but lopsided glances, some of them coming directly from his eyes and the rest through his monocle...

Of course, nothing is explicitly mentioned here, right? And all of Saint-Loup's friends and his commanding officers seem to have no problem with their friendship (in their day an intimate relationship between men would not be so accepted). But the description is so intimate! I'm not saying that two men who are "just friends" can't have this kind of affectionate relationship, I'm just saying that I've never seen one so I suspect there may be something left unsaid by our narrator. My question is, if we hardly ever hear what the narrator says in a dialogue, what else does he leave unsaid but only suggested? What does he leave unrevealed in his relationships? Even if we don't jump to any conclusions regarding the nature of their friendship, at the very lease I think it's a a possibility we should be aware of while we progress through the novel.

A little later we read, "I looked longingly at the characteristic features he shaded with the Guermantes." Longingly? The narrator's passions seem all intermingled, including those he has for Mme Guermantes and his friendship with Robert.

After a month, I'm finally returning to these earlier sections of the volume to mention some of the quotes that most interest me and responds to some of your comments.

I always have an interest in foreshadowing, especially in this novel where memory and hindsight seem so important (or perhaps they're just important themes to me).

I was only to understand much later, when it was repeated more painfully, as the final volumes of this work will show, by a person who was much dearer to me (Penguin epub, 71/632)

I can't help but find it interesting for the narrator (and the author) to look so specifically toward the last volume of his work. He rarely takes us so abruptly out of the present moment. Usually he moves fluidly into the past and back to his (the narrator's) present but in this case he throws us forcefully into our future as readers. It just struck me as odd. I suppose this volume was published a year before Proust's death the later volumes were close to what we have now so Proust was very aware of all that was happening later in the novel. This is one of the most overt examples of him teasing us with something in the future. In response we wonder: who becomes so dear to him, and what was it that caused him so much pain? There's little tension in this novel in the typical mode of plot and expectation but this is one rare example.

"She was consoled by the unfailing presence at these Fridays of hers of her dutiful relation, the Princess de Poix, her own special Guermantes, who never went near Mme de Villeparisis, despite the fact that she was an intimate friend of the Duchesse" (~31.88%).

His artistic ideas are a major interest of mine as well. I underline pretty much all of them. I especially love that the narrator aspires to be a writer and after two volumes has done very little to accomplish his goal. Because I share similar artistic aspirations and struggles, I find this novel extremely inspiring and encouraging.

This is especially fascinating considering the fact that this novel is considered a narrative of interiority. It's a novel focused intensely on the narrator. All the while we hear almost only his perspective on others and his explication of things that are exterior to him. That's why I also think that the times we here him speak are so striking and important.

And thanks to both of you for the great resources. It'll probably be a few months before I have the time and opportunity to get more scholarly with my reading but it's good to have these resources available to me when I do. These are the kind of conversations that get me planning a trip to Proust's little corners of France.

Book Portrait wrote: "Maybe also because the narrator's infatuations recall his admiration for works of art: all interiorised, detached from reality and not destined to become reality as the spell would be broken... Interior life seems to trump reality and satisfy our narrator much more than "real life"..."

Welcome Book Portrait. I'm so glad you've joined us. I find this way of looking at what we've read so far very enriching. There's a fragment of a sentence from this week's reading that hints at this very same idea. The narrator says this while explaining the change in his experience between his first and second attendance of a performance by La Berma: "My need to be able to contemplate closely the precious particles of reality glimpsed by my imagination..." (Penguin epub 41/632) If we let this color the entire story we've read so far then the narrative layers become much more coherent. It's more rich but also more complicated. I like the way you put it. The narrator is, in a sense, putting a spell on himself through a re-imagined reality in order to be immersed in his own inner life. It's hard not to ask 'why?' and I think satisfaction is a big part of it. I hope this will get more obvious and important as we read.

Haha! I found this odd to read because I would have said that I read it mostly for the ideas too (and the prose). The ideas I'm most interested in is Proust's conception of how we relate to our memories and the stories we tell (ourselves and others). In short, I'm interested in the idea of narrative in ISOLT. My interest in narrative is twofold: 1) what and how do we narrate (which we can consider by looking at the narrator/narrative relationship)? 2) How do we relate to or interpret the narratives of other people (which we can consider by looking at how we relate as readers to the narrative of ISOLT)?

This is usually my interest in "intellectual books." I'm rarely interested in the sociological or psychological insights or expressions of a book. Even more rarely in critical issues regarding the author and the origin of the text. With me, it's mostly narrativity. It's my obsession.

I haven't finished reading this section, but I'm pretty sure M. and Mme. Guermantes are the same as the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes. Perhaps in this section the narrator mentioned that they are cousins too which is where the confusion lies. I know this fact was mentioned in Swann's Way

Yes these are week ending dates. Our schedule will go without breaks until the end of December. Don't worry if you don't stay with the schedule perfectly. I don't. It's just a way to evenly divide the novel over the course of the year.

If I were to rate parts of ISOLT so far, I'd rate Balbec just after but very close to Combray. It felt welcoming to come here after the tedious days of Paris. I hope I like later sections as much. To begin some various comments:

Those who have the opportunity of living for themselves - they are artists, of course, and I was long since convinced that I would never be one - also have the duty to do so...

He go on to disavow friendship and inane conversation. This is one of those instances when we know that Proust's narrator is speaking directly for Proust, the legendary socialite become recluse. What I find more valuable, however, is to consider what this tells us about the narrator. We know he aspires to be a novelist, although his aspirations have recently been overshadowed by his Balbec experiences. This is the older narrator reflecting on his friendship with Saint-Loup, and more generally his vacuous social life and his time in Balbec; he knows full well what ambitions he had and how they turned out (alas, we haven't yet found out!). This is related to the theme that keeps cropping up: the narrator hopes to one day be a novelist. I also think this sentiment sounds surprisingly Nietzschean. I won't elaborate right now, but it occurred to me.

A second point from this week, the narrator frequently comments on the motives of various individuals in such a way that everyone seems inauthentic. It wasn't until this week's reading that I started thinking that he is in fact psychoanalyzing them, commenting on their unconscious motives but in a way that makes it seem consciously intended. Here's an example:

Another present she had received [i.e., other people's behaviors Albertine had adopted] was her way of having you repeat things you had just said, so as to appear interested in the subject and give herself the air of wishing to form a personal view on it.

The "as if" and "wishing" make it seem like this is a studied and calculated practice of Albertine's. He describes many people in similar ways. I always thought everyone was so guileful and phony until this week when I realized that they don't do this intentionally but unconsciously. If I assume this I realize that we're all like this, we just don't usually have a Proust to point out the real 'why' to our words and behaviors. If asked, Albertine would have probably just said, 'I like the phrase,' or she might not have even realized that she said it so often. It's times like this that we should remember that the narrator is finite and not disinterested. His descriptions are profoundly reflective and deeply analytical but not unequivocally true, or even if they are they aren't necessarily the conscious intent of his subjects. There are other good examples of this throughout.

Speaking from the perspective of a second reading of ISOLT. Although there are no plot points: (view spoiler)[After Albertine gives the narrator the note saying "I like you," he walks up a hill and muses, "that she was the one who would be the great love of my life." I've read this novel before and I say in all genuineness, I wonder if she will be? (hide spoiler)]

Here's a quote that winds down this volume with foreboding:

The consolation I drew from her words may even have had, much later, far-reaching and grave consequences for me, because it contributed to the development of a sort of family feeling for her, a moral core which gathered in the centre of my love for her, and was to be for ever inseparable from it. Such a feeling can be the harbinger of acute suffering: for a woman to cause us great pain, there must have been a time when we trusted her implicitly.

I found this funny: "Altogether, I had derived little benefit from being in Balbec, for which reason I was all the more determined to come back one day. I felt I had spent too short a time there." Didn't he just waste his time? Ok, I know he didn't, (see the first quote in this comment) but even so, it's amusing to read this summary of the second part of the volume.

Simon, I underlined that quote about wisdom and experience too. I think we can say Proust knew he was wise and that even his frittered away younger days contributed to that wisdom. I wonder if he knew he was great. This paragraph is something I need to keep going back to, to put my life into perspective.

Marcelita, thanks for the info. Proust criticism is something that I'd eventually like to dip into. Maybe I need to improve my French a little first. I prefer to consider ISOLT a single novel that was divided into volumes for practical purposes. I don't like making summary reflections on single volumes. Admittedly, in so far as they were written and published consecutively we can treat the novel as an evolution of writing from volume to volume and not just internally. But at the same time, a great many 19th century novels were written like this and published in installments. We don't criticize Bleak House chapters 1-4 separately from the rest just because they were written and published separately. At the same time, this kind of criticism is entirely justifiable and at times quite informative.

All this is to say, I find this fact interesting and would like to know more, even if it causes more complications to my interpretation than I would like and even though I will probably treat it as a single work regardless. If there's something to cultivate a more complex reading of a great work like this, I have to know it.