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

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

"There was growing inside me a realization that my condition was not a disease but a nature. How could I not feel estranged? I was a reader. My nature had been waiting for me all along, and now it welcomed me. All of a sudden I became aware of how very hungry I was to construct and inhabit an imaginary world. The hunger felt like a loneliness of which I'd been dying. How Could I have thought that I needed to cure myself in order to fit into the " real" world? I didn't need curing, and the world didn't either: the only thing that did need curing was my understanding of my place in it. Without that understanding- without a sense of belonging to the real world- it was impossible to thrive in an imagined one." Jonathan Franzen

This was the quote that I chose to post on my profile page. And what I meant by it is that as a reader I felt that I had a hard time finding my place in this world, feeling as if a part of a different breed of people, one that suffers hypersensitivity from the effect of words, easily choosing to spend time alone reading a book than being around other people. When I came across this passage in Franzen's How to Be Alone essay, I felt validated for who I was. When I became a part of this group, I felt I was around like-minded people and it was a great feeling to be a part of this group!

When I quoted Pearl S. Buck, it was because I love this quote. I'm not creative, but I adore it in others, and I feel that I understand what it is that makes them so passionate about their art in whatever form it takes. It is something that I have a lot of respect for.

That being said, I would never use it to insult anyone, not that I would ever insult anyone anyway.
Being a reader makes one become terribly empathetic, because we live in other character's heads so much that they become a part of our lives.I even attribute reading for changing me from being INFJ to INFP.

I thank all of you who reached out to me and for wanting me to remain. I think this is what defines us as a group that we continue to want to make our way through Proust together, despite any obstacles we face along the way.

Kalliope's interpretation was what I intended to say.
I hope Aloha and her daughter get well soon. Cheryl, I hope we can all take your advice and put this behind us.

And to Proustitute and the two others who messaged him, it is my hope that we can get beyond this. There was never an iota of harm intended.

Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.:)

If my presence is going to create a problem here, I can always remove myself from the group, just say the word. I don't think that is the proper way to handle a misunderstanding, but I can be sensitive to the wishes of others.

Proustitute wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "You can not judge me when you really don't know me."

I am hardly judging you: I am judging your words. As a gay man myself, I can tell you that I take offense. As mod..."

Again I say I'm sorry I offended, and to those members I would like you to know that there is no way I would ever have intended to do so. And Proustitute, I have been enjoying your tumblr, clicking on it every time I have had a free moment, and it is because I have been doing so that I have delighted in all your selections. They are exceptional. I don't know. I am not articulate enough to explain to you what I mean to say, but please do understand that I was being complementary.

And frankly I do take offense that you would think that I would have posted this comment to offend anyone.

Proustitute wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "I cannot help but think that had Marcel Proust not been gay, this novel wouldn't be what it is for us today."

Is your reasoning for this, using Buck's quote, that gay..."

It was not my intention to offend in any way or form, and for me this quote captures for me the beauty of being exceptionally creative. The words abnormally, inhumanly to me, mean beyond the norm of what is normal and what is human in the most complimentary terms just as I would see a noncomformist as being gloriously abnormal. In no way, do I see this as a negative.

"You ask we not take offense at what is a huge stereotype and in the same turn ask us to forgive what you believe is not a stereotype."
Is this a huge stereoptype? I don't think it is, in the same manner that I think introverted idealistic types make for the very best authors. You can not judge me when you really don't know me.

I'm sorry if I offended.

I cannot help but think that had Marcel Proust not been gay, this novel wouldn't be what it is for us today. As I read, I think of Pearl Buck's quote:

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

which I think captures Proust perfectly, as the creative artist but even more so because being also gay, he is exceptionally more artistic and his touching upon subjects extraordinarily more sensitive.

I really hope that no one is thinking I'm being stereotypical in my thinking by saying so.

Marcelita wrote:
"Agree. I flew to Texas several weeks ago and saw...pajama bottoms!
When I returned home, I needed to spend an afternoon in Bergdorf's to recover. "

LOL. That is just priceless!

Marcus wrote: "So, the relationship between the Narrator and Odette starts to feel like the elephant in the room...I'd felt it before - the unspoken, almost secretive nature of it - then when I read (ML 261) tha..."

I think Proust just wants to shows us love from all angles.

"Swann had a wonderful scarf of oriental silk, blue and pink, which he had bought because it was exactly that worn by the Virgin in the Magnificat." (Moncrieff/Kilmartin 264)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bot...

"Once only she allowed her husband to order her a dress covered all over with daisies, cornflowers, forget-me-nots,and bluebells like that of the Primavera." (265)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bot...

Marcelita wrote: ""...she was surrounded by Dresden pieces (having a fancy for that kind of porcelain,...'How pretty that is; it reminds me of Dresden flowers.')"
http://www.eliteauction.com/catalogue......"

lovely, thanks Marcelita.

Nice. I think Odette thinks of this as the costume that will help her play her role.

Eugene wrote: "He is like the reader, the reader on a winding road. "

I agree with you Eugene. I think Proust is testing how much as readers we are willing to accept of such boorish human behavior, which really applies just as much now as it did then.

Kalliope wrote:" Eugene has told us, the Tissot group portrait The circle of the Rue Royale with Charles Haas is shown. "

For those who can't go: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collecti...

Proustitute wrote: "ReemK, just now saw your Twitter @ about the webchat. I presume you've created an account there to log in? I'm not at a computer at the moment so I can't check on my end."

I assumed that the live webchat was something that you could watch or listen to. Apparently, it was only the thread on this link that Proustitute gave us:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/...

Proustitute wrote: "ReemK, just now saw your Twitter @ about the webchat. I presume you've created an account there to log in? I'm not at a computer at the moment so I can't check on my end."

Thanks Kalliope, I thought it might already be available for viewing.

Proustitute, no I did not log in, but I do have an account there. Now to only remember my password. I would have thought this chat would be available for general viewing, maybe not. No worries. I'll try again.

I am unable to locate the link for the live webchat with Professor Christopher Prendergast on Proust. Anyone know where it can be found? I'm thinking 1:00 UK time and with our daylight savings, five hour time difference it should have been broadcast.

Brilliant observations and a fascinating discussion. I think as readers we're trying really hard to read autobiography into Proust's fiction. Even with Bergotte, there was a such a sharp discrepancy between Bergotte the writer, and Bergotte the man, and Proust wanted us to take note of this. I can see Cheryl's point of view coming from being an artist and having that physicality with her materials, and I also believe like Jocelyn said that thoughts flow from a pen more intensely than through a keyboard or a typewriter, but that this is more a matter of choice because I'm sure there are many that can only write the other way. I don't think you need to experience inorder to (re)create, and that the power of imagination can take off on its own into air space.
This sort of reminds me of philosophy and religion, where philosophy needs to rely only on arguable facts and religion that relies on blind faith. If you can think it, see it, dream it, you can write it having never experienced it. As if you are in jail and writing about freedom.

I had this thought about the characters that Proust created that were based on real life people, so much so that Wikipedia entries will say they were a basis of inspiration for a character in ISOLT, and my thinking is could it be possible that in knowing that their friend Proust was writing "the mother of all novels" that they might have asked him to create a character based on them to include. Could this be possible?

Regarding the madeleine moment, I found an interesting article.
“The gourmet’s tongue and palate,” she says, “were precision instruments, capable of generating the connaissances, or experiential knowledge, on which sçavoir, or true knowledge, was founded.

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.ph...