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

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

I'm trailing by 20 pages but wanted to post this here:

How can allegory be understood as a literary device of regaining the past?

Allegory as imaginary past: transcendence and acting subject in Proust's Recherche

The article postulates allegory as a vehicle for « transcendental subjectivity » in Proust’s Recherche. Similar to Baudelaire’s genre spirituel this figure indicates an aesthetic threshold from which the lower outside sphere is transformed into a transcendental inner reality, an imaginary pattern of the individual past. The focus of the present study is to define the nature of this threshold contextualizing it within philosophical conceptions of the subject.

http://trans.revues.org/285

By dipping a piece of cake in tea and tasting it, the individual undergoes a vision of inner gardens and alleys which grow out of the cup of tea like japanese paperflowers. In this setting, exteriority has lost its privileged position and only releases the impulse for the imaginative creation of a completely internal world which is that of the own past transfigured, unfolded in a curious ontological material. The exterior object operates as a generative symbol of this “new-old” remembered world. In this sense, the imaginative transformation seems to afford a restitution of personal past, which is re-born and transfigured.

The whole of Combray emerges from the cup of tea, unfolded, paper-born, and here we find the second connection concerning the ontological integrity of text : The past is exclusively regained on paper, that is to say in or as scripture.

In La Prisonnière, Albertine lives in 'Marcel ''s house in Paris, respecting his desire to know all about her life. But his attempt to fix her enigmatic self and to ban it in an inner world fails: Does not his beloved lose all her charm and beauty and decay in this artificial atmosphere of a prison, a victim of the allegorical-imaginative assimilation of her master?35 And the closed sphere of the Guermantes, once a place of privilege and the historical ideal of nobility for young ' Marcel ', turns into a plane region which the protagonist is able to invade without further efforts, as he is accepted as one of the best friends of the family36.

The madeleine effect

Why is the smell and taste of some foods so evocative of the past? I spent a day eating childhood favourites to find out

Culinary time travel was immortalised by Proust in the first volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, published 100 years ago last month. Like many who know Swann’s Way only by reputation, I had thought that the taste of the madeleine instantly brought vivid memories to life. In fact, what have come to be known as ‘Proustian moments’ don't feature in the novel at all. When the narrator tastes the cake, soaked in a spoonful of tea, he experiences not a surge of memory but ‘an exquisite pleasure’ and ‘all-powerful joy’ in which ‘at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me’. He has no idea where this feeling comes from, and with each subsequent sip, he finds ‘the potion is losing its virtue’.

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/w...

Lovely watercolors Kalliope. I do like the azur. What was the word he used ultramarine.

Wasn't this considered blasphemous?..." but what appeared to me to be an elderly lady in a black skirt. I soon realised my mistake: it was a priest- that thing so rare, and in France altogether exceptional, a bad priest," (MKE 201) This must have been very offensive to readers during Proust's time. How would they react to reading this sentence?

"What do you expect? I am not" ( I expected him to say "a saint")" a good girl." ((MKE 201) The priest forgets to pay for his room, so Jupien shakes the "collecting box in which he placed the contribution of each client and said as he made it clink: 'For the expenses of the church, Monsieur l'Abbe!" (MKE 201)

Proust makes it sound like this is a collection bag going around collecting alms for the church. Sounds blasphemous to me!!!

I was trying to find something that I had started reading a while back about the theme of sado-masochism in Proust's writing but found something else instead.

I'm only at the beginning of this section, but was rather disturbed reading about the chains, and receiving blows from whips and cries of pain.

http://www.esextherapy.com/dissertati...

Have a look.

Marcelita hun, if you could move over to the side. I'm trying to set up this buffet table to entice more members to come in here and post in this week's thread.



Bon appetit!!!

Elaine wrote: "@Reem, Vermeer is a new love in my life and I will enjoy (indulging myself) these various links asap. (I really must organize the treasures in Proust's folder). TY .... Happy Wednesday to you...."

Enjoy Elaine! Happy Wednesday to you too!

Kalliope wrote:There is an exhibition at the Met right now, no?

I believe so.


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11...

There was one comment in Marcelita's link that I thought was funny:

"The real Vermeer mystery is: How did Vermeer produce his paintings when he had fathered eleven children whom all lived in a small home with one bedroom that served as a living room. How does one paint with such skill with all those kids demanding some sort of attention?"

Today's children may spend a lot more time at home. In Vermeer's day, they were outside playing!

Kalliope wrote: "Thank you Reem and Marcelita for the posts on Vermeer..."

Anytime Kalliope. I read something today on Balthus. Would you be interested?

I'll post this link again for us to revisit it:Where is the "petit pan de mur jaune"?


http://www.essentialvermeer.com/prous...

I was up early to take the dog out as the sun was in the early horizon and thought about this theory and what would Proust make of it, and figured well that little patch of yellow had to mean the reflection of the sun. I just googled the article I posted when we discussed this ages ago, and it mentions the camera obscura, so this isn't exactly a new idea. The art historians will have to weigh in on this.

"The view is from an elevated position, looking down onto the waterfront, and Vermeer may have painted the town from the upper floor of a house that is marked on contemporary maps just off the road named Hooikade (upper right). The pointillist technique that Vermeer used to suggest reflections flickering off the water, most easily visible on the two herring boats on the right, is evidence that he probably used a camera obscura to help compose the picture; diffused highlights such as these would appear when a partially focused image was obtained from this device."

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/cat_a...

I have to say seeing the Vermeer in the you tube video is a very different experience than clicking on a link.

I'll check out your links Marcelita. Ty.

Soooo behind in my reading of articles- just came across this :Reverse-Engineering a Genius (Has a Vermeer Mystery Been Solved?)




http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/201...

Using BP lingo ETA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oz8vX...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgFuP3...

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "This section was rather difficult for me to read as it dragged on, but I got through it and found myself very intrigued by the significance of M de Charlus being so ma..."

You're right we brought up a lot of themes but did not go into them very deeply. I know there were a lot of links that were introduced that we might like to pursue in more detail. I know I clicked on some pdf study the other day, and could not understand it but in my current state of mind that isn't very surprising. I am also very interested in the author's relationship with his mother which we did discuss some, and there was this link I shared ages ago about sado- masochism that no one really commented upon. I know there are many, many , many themes in this novel that we could delve deeply into that would enhance our understanding. I shared something the other day in the lounge, that I simply did not understand. I am curious to what's cooking in your head Kalliope!

This section was rather difficult for me to read as it dragged on, but I got through it and found myself very intrigued by the significance of M de Charlus being so mad with jealousy that he wanted to kill Morel. Funny that Morel avoided him because he was deathly afraid of him even though we all know M. de Charlus to be so kind and loving to him and Morel not to be the type to frighten easily. Very remniscent of the narrator and Albertine.
I think for this read we have read focusing a lot on the art, music, biographical and historical content, on the characters, names and places.... I think now that we have that, we really do need to do a second read focusing this time on the themes in the novel.

Fionnuala wrote: "That was such a bizarre incident..did the truth ever come out? Was it a prank?"

I remember reading in Fernande Olivier's memoir "Loving Picasso" that Picasso and Apollinaire were terrified of being arrested and that they had some items from the museum that they dumped into the river. At least that's what I think I remember.

Marcelita wrote: "Listen..."Thanksgiving with Proust!"
KALW Public Radio in San Francisco at 1pm or 4pm-New York or 10pm-Madrid.

Larry Bensky gives the Opening and Closing Remarks.
Program:

http://kalw.org/post/t..."
>

I missed the first 9 minutes but caught the rest of the show. There was one part by Elliott Carter- "Intermittences" that caught my attention. I googled and came across this :

http://www.academia.edu/299823/A_Cryp...

I will say this. It is one thing to be able to say that we have read all of the volumes of ISOLT which we are just about to do. It is quite another to to be able to say that we have understood them. Wala alf layla wa layla of reading,uncovering mille feuille upon mille feuille upon mille feuille, I don't think this novel can ever be deciphered.

Patricia wrote: "this beauty is just TOO-MUCH

the real Tasonville

http://www.galorbe.com/Categorie/Des-..."

Thank you for sharing this Patricia! I'll go tweet this at #Proust2013.

This should be of interest to you bibliophiles:

Three Weeks Before Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, There Was Dorothy Parker’s. Coincidence?

http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/doroth...

Have a look at the photo in this link. This is very similar to what ISOLT looks like through my eyes as a first time reader of Marcel Proust.

http://delanceyplace.com/index.php

Marcus wrote: Thanks Reem - my lovely Dad, no longer alive, had a hand in the making of me too!

Of course, may his soul rest in peace. I wonder Marcus, which of them was a reader? or were they both?