ReemK10 (Paper Pills)’s Comments (group member since Dec 26, 2012)

ReemK10 (Paper Pills)’s comments from the The Year of Reading Proust group.

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Makes one respect what Proust was able to do with his narrator.

"Memory creates our identity, but it also exposes the illu..."

Isn't it? For me, this quote reminds me of the thought I've always had that some books can be put to music from the melody of the words! Is that a crazy thought or am I experiencing hallucinatory reading? lol

Ce Ce wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Makes one respect what Proust was able to do with his narrator.

"Memory creates our identity, but it also exposes the illusion of a coherent self: a memory is not a t..."

Thanks Cheryl, so happy that your friend can put the quote/article to good use. I came back to share another quote that I liked and noted. I believe I read it in Jewish Ideas Daily, or Tablet
(I forget exactly)

"Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Language in which Something is Said about Melody and Musical Imitation. Rousseau compared music to painting, and claimed that “just as the sentiments which painting arouses in us are not due to colors, the power which music exercises over our souls is not the product of sounds.” According to Rousseau, that role is played by melody, which “does in music exactly what drawing does in painting; it indicates the lines and shapes, of which the chords and sounds are just colors.” Rousseau claimed that melody possesses a unique ability to communicate, which notes or harmonies by themselves do not: “melody expresses plaints, cries of suffering or of joy, threats, moans; all the vocal signs of the passions fall within its province.” Rousseau believed that melody is essentially a more intense form of speech, built on the rhythms of speech, and though melody is “inarticulate” it is “lively, ardent, passionate, and a hundred times more vigorous than speech itself."

Kalliope wrote: This is an amazing quote/article. Thanks Reem.


Glad you liked it Kalliope, and @Jocelyne for one I posted in the reviews. Always happy to share a good quote or article!! :)

Enjoy your evening!

Makes one respect what Proust was able to do with his narrator.

"Memory creates our identity, but it also exposes the illusion of a coherent self: a memory is not a thing but an act that alters and rearranges even as it retrieves. Although some of its operations can be trained to an astonishing pitch, most take place autonomously, beyond the reach of the conscious mind. As we age, it distorts and foreshortens: present experience becomes harder to impress on the mind, and the long-forgotten past seems to draw closer; University Challenge gets easier, remembering what you came downstairs for gets harder. Yet if we were somehow to freeze our memory at the youthful peak of its powers, around our late twenties, we would not create a polished version of ourselves analogous to a youthful body, but an early, scrappy draft composed of childhood memories and school-learning, barely recognisable to our older selves."

Taken from http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n10/mike-jay...

In theory: the unread and the unreadable

We measure our lives with unread books – and 'difficult' works can induce the most guilt. How should we view this challenge?



http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/books...

"But as Samuel Johnson almost said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote book reviews, except for money.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/site/ct...

Patricia wrote: "OMG! that was long but i got it out of my system"

Patricia, I think you've managed to summarize Proust's (the Girls in Bloom) like the Monty Python sketch!

Ce Ce wrote: "Send up the balloons or plan a picnic of cafe eclairs...I finished Within a Budding Grove today!

I felt somewhat queasy along with a mildly funky throat so we decided a day curled up with our cat,..."

Congrats Cheryl!!! No madeleines with those cups of tea? Hope you feel better soon!

Marcelita wrote:In my mind, it was the taste (smell?) that linked to a visual image. I don't think Proust was much of a foodie.

"For Proust, food was not an end in itself (left-brain) but the means (right-brain) to an end (art)."


http://zesterdaily.com/people/right-b...

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Kalliope wrote:
"The flowers, however, cannot be identified. The texture of the blue mantle and the contrast in the hue with the complementary yellow is astounding."
..."

Thanks for including that. I thought the link included the more information part.

@Jocelyne, don't worry you're in good company. I too am a slow reader. It's like slow cooking, the information has to simmer for hours.

Kalliope wrote:
"The flowers, however, cannot be identified. The texture of the blue mantle and the contrast in the hue with the complementary yellow is astounding."

Some great links and conversation in the lounge today!! I was very intrigued by this painting Kalliope, and couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl, or what the flowers were exacly. I googled and found this link:

http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thysse...

Who was the boy? It looks like an offering of a nosegay. A curious choice this nosegay, but I guess that is where it appeals to the sense of smell.

I googled some more and found that: "As a member of the Foreign Missions Society, he sailed east in 1661 from Marseille to Palestine with bishop Francois Pallu, 7 priests and another lay brother. Travelling to Aleppo (Syria), and from there to Isfahan via Tabriz (both in Persia), he was dismissed by the Society after causing too much trouble to those around him at the end of May 1662." on wikipedia

So, with that turban, he's probably a Persian boy. Looks Turkish to me.

Interesting thanks!

Patricia wrote:"Then when you have shouted to your heart´s content just stop flat on your tracks and tell him"O.K let´s not fight anymore" and jump to his neck and kiss him and tell him he´s the love of your life.Becasue it is so."

Imagines Patricia as an Argentinian version of Sofia Vergara. :)

I found this photo of Saint Loup

http://www.dandyism.net/wp-content/up... from http://www.dandyism.net/913/

Dark haired, but quite handsome.

"Every memory calls up a dozen others. The real miracle of Proust is the discipline with which he stemmed the flow" - Clive James

Patricia, commenting here to your post in the other thread to tell you that you are such a character. I just love your personality!!

Fionnuala wrote: "Go for it, Patricia..."

Patricia needs her own reality show! The Real Proust-reading Housewife of Argentina!

Elizabeth wrote: "then, when Saint-Loup DOES become a loyal, caring friend, the Narrator doesn't seem to care. Weird. What do you think? "


I know the question was directed at Jocelyne, but this quote comes to mind as a possible answer:


"It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit."
~ Denis Waitley

It was the same with Albertine when he kept her waiting.

So glad you both checked it out. It's refreshing to see how others navigate the path( most travelled) we're on in reading ISOLT. The thanks goes to Marcelita who found it!

And this one just for fun: Proust, Lost in Translation

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/20...

FYI: for those who haven't seen this:

Goodreads Alternative Riffle Goes Live

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...