Through Sunday, 24 Feb.: Swann's Way

[[deleted user]]

Elizabeth wrote: "Madame X: Swann was not going to Combray to pursue Mme Cambremer. This is that constant intermingling of Proust's timeline. In the first part of Swann's Way, the narrator is a child; and when Sw..."

I am hesitant to use the fact that anyone is married to rule out possibilities of love and lust.

[Kalliope]

Jeremy wrote: "Swann then wrote a letter to the Narrator's grandfather that he was coming to Combray .."

I had forgotten about this.

[[deleted user]]

Elizabeth wrote: "Mhoira: the "Swann's wife" mentioned in Swann's Way is Swann's father's wife. Remember, the narrator's grandfather and Swann's father were friends, and the grandfather is telling a story about hi..."

I am pretty sure that in the Combray section when they were walking along Swann's Way and the Narrator saw Gilberte and then young Swann's wife came out and called to her.

[[deleted user]]

Jason wrote: "Madame X wrote: "It gave me the creeps, to be honest."

Really? I thought it was an incredibly astute observation of adolescence. I remember loving this classmate of mine when I was in the 6th grad..."

Jason - I had a similar childhood of "loving" mostly the same girl from Kindergarten all the way to the 6th grade. Though the reading of this last section did not make me think too much of it until I read your comment.

[Jason]

Jeremy wrote: "Jason - I had a similar childhood of "loving" mostly the same girl from Kindergarten all the way to the 6th grade. Though the reading of this last section did not make me think too much of it until I read your comment."

It would only be creepy if you start googling her now, after all these years, to find out what she's up to today. Hmm.

[Eugene]

Soon, those of us who are reading her translation, will say good bye to the American Lydia Davis and begin reading the 2nd volume of ISOLT, Within A Budding Grove, translated by the British, by C K Scott Moncrieff & Terrance Kilmartin.

Reading Davis, I have not once had to go to the French to clarify translations as I had to several times reading translations by Moncrieff or Moncrieff & Kilmartin.

Davis translates into a contemporary American English while Moncrieff translates into a British English that he learned in the late 19th & early 20th centuries, being born in 1889.

Language is living; it changes with time and Britain is a foreign country, even though they speak 'English', they occasionally speak a foreign language for an American like me.

[Kalliope]

Eugene wrote: "Soon, those of us who are reading her translation, will say good bye to the American Lydia Davis and begin reading the 2nd volume of ISOLT, Within A Budding Grove, translated by the British, by C K..."

Recently I read an article that compared the two recent translations into Spanish of the entire La recherche. I only read a couple of samples of these two versions. One of them read too modern and contemporary for me. It was clear but had lost a great deal of the original charm.

[J.A.]

Martin wrote: Why did he marry her, then?

In the Combray section, when the Narrator's family first talks about Swann, isn't there speculation that Swann married Odette because he loved the little girl so much? So I always got the feeling Swann married Odette after the birth of the little girl. Although, if so, why he would think it was his daughter is a big question...

[Kalliope]

J.A. wrote: "Martin wrote: Why did he marry her, then?

In the Combray section, when the Narrator's family first talks about Swann, isn't there speculation that Swann married Odette because he loved the little ..."

Yes, you are completely right. At the time the sentence made no sense to me. In French this part says:

"... à tâcher d'obtenir de mon père qu'il consentaît à parler à Swann non de sa femme, mais de sa fille qu'il adorait et à cause de laquelle, disait-on, il avait fini par faire ce mariage".

Thank you, J.A., recalling this extract now makes a lot more sense (for the extract itself and for what happens later).

[Eugene]

Kalliope wrote: "...translations...One of them read too modern and contemporary for me. It was clear but had lost a great deal of the original charm"

Yes, André Aciman said in a NYRB review of the newer Davis translation of Swann's Way that it lost much of the poetics of the older Moncrieff work.

Davis was an easier read; I'll know, after spending months on reading Pater sentences (much tougher that Proust's) in between, how much easier when I reread the Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation of V2 to determine if it was an increased familiarity with Proust or reading Pater between or reading the "exact" American Davis translation that made it easier...probably a bit of all three.

[J.A.]

@Kalliope, so welcome! Glad I didn't get that part all muddled. Proust doesn't make things easy... ;) And I find Moncrieff can sometimes make things even harder to understand.

[J.A.]

Mhoria wrote: He wasted alot of time on person's who didn't care.

But did Swann care about Odette? I think Swann's obsession/search was for something primal in oneself, in life; why he and so many people obsess over art. It wasn't about Odette at all. He even tried to turn Odette into art and failed. Well, he had to fail. After all, Odette is a human being and not an object, although briefly, she was Swann's object of obsession.

[Aloha]

47 new posts! I guess I'll come back later. :oD

[Eugene]

Charles Swann marries Odette de Crécy and we ask why when he doesn't like her beauty, finds her not intelligent, not educated, her tastes are vulgar; she sees other men, she causes suspicion, jealousy and great suffering in him: someone "who was not my type" exclaims Swann...why does he marry her?

I've forgotten why and even if Proust specifies the reason(s); I've become a first time reader by not remembering, I've become a sleuth.

But look at this evidence: Swann at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's party listening to Vinteuil's sonata where Odette is the occasion of inspiration (Odette is present at his 1st hearing of the little phrase that tremendously affects him) and of negative inspiration too if you think jealousy a bad thing (which sometimes Swann does and sometimes he doesn't) and she doesn't have to be present, her absence at the party inspires him to thought.

"But ever since, more than a year ago now, the love of music had, for a time at least, been born in him, revealing to him many of the riches of his own soul, Swann had regarded musical motifs as actual ideas, of another world, of another order, ideas veiled in shadows, unknown, impenetrable to the intelligence, but not for ail that less perfectly distinct from one another, unequal among themselves in value and significance. When, after the Verdurin evening, he had had the little phrase played over for him, and had sought to disentangle how it was that, like a perfume, like a caress, it encircled him, enveloped him...that was due this impression of a frigid and withdrawn sweetness; but in reality he knew that he was reasoning this way not about the phrase itself but about simple values substituted, for the convenience of his intelligence, for the mysterious entity he had perceived, before knowing the Verdurins, at that party where he had first heard the sonata played." LD

Maybe Odette is the occasion of inspiration for a connoisseur like Swann for art, here for music and what it means to him. Disinterest is one of Kant's criteria (Proust was schooled in German Idealism) for the appreciation of beauty. Swann becomes disinterested in Odette, less jealous among other things, and sees her as beautiful (in the same way the narrator saw Mme. Guermantes in the church), if you will Columbo, as he values her as an occasion for inspiration.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Eugene wrote: "Charles Swann marries Odette de Crécy and we ask why when he doesn't like her beauty, finds her not intelligent, not educated, her tastes are vulgar; she sees other men, she causes suspicion, jealo..."

I think we have to also keep in mind how the narrator viewed Odette( rather tenderly), when he first met her at his uncle's house and then contrast it with the way Charles Swann views her. Perhaps, just like music has the ability to touch a chord inside us, so has Odette as an object of suffering and injustice. Some people choose to see, and others prefer not to. Maybe instead of opposing Odette as a person, we are to be sympathetic of her.

[Karen·]

Jeremy wrote: "I am hesitant to use the fact that anyone is married to rule out possibilities of love and lust. "

Actually, I think it's the very fact that Mme Cambremer is married that makes her, how should I put this, assailable. She may not be on the marriage market, but her status as married woman does endow her with the freedom she needs to conduct affairs.

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss looks at Charles Ephrussi, who is one of the possible models of our Charlie, and had at least one affair with a married lady, and Emmy von Ephrussi in Vienna had several lovers. Marriages in the upper class were made for many reasons, but the least important was love. It seems to have been quite acceptable for the wife to take a lover, but the unmarried girl was well supervised, as she might stymie her chances of getting a husband if she got too much of a reputation.

The idea of respectability and sexual continence is pretty bourgeois, I think.

[Marcelita]

Proustitute wrote: "brothel banter — Machard's portrait — Napoleon III and Forcheville "in the twilight of a dream" — retrospective presages — Place-Names: The Name — the bedroom at Balbec's Grand-Hôtel de la Plage — ..."

Reading "— Gothic steeples and sea storms —" brought me back to this:

Thomas Alexander Harrison meet Proust and Hahn in Brittany, 1895. Read William C. Carter's biography, "Marcel Proust: A Life" for the tale. Proust wrote, "Penmarch....Nothing could be more sublime than a tempest seen from there." (pages 197-98)
See Penmarch storm @2:20.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=m2LeNB...

[Eugene]

ReemK10 wrote: "... Perhaps, just like music has the ability to touch a chord inside us, so has Odette as an object of suffering and injustice."

But this is not Odette's story; it is the story of Swann in love. Proust enters into the fictional being of Swann and tells you what his thoughts & feelings are being in love as he is. Other actors, even Odette, play their roles to facilitate his story; they create situations for the protagonist Swann to deal with. That's the story.

If Proust had written the same events that transpire in Swann's story, evenings at the Verdurins, carriage rides, the Maison Dorée, etc. from inside Odette's being expressing her thoughts and feelings we would have a different story. Akira Kurosawa tells of the same events from four characters and we have four different stories in Rashomon.

I like Odette. She has drive, she breaks the rules, she's her own woman who plays life like she wants it. As Proust portrays her, and as many would say, she does well, she marries well, she's rich and has a beautiful daughter.

[[deleted user]]

Eugene wrote: "But this is not Odette's story; it is the story of Swann in love. Proust enters into the fictional being of Swann and tells you what his thoughts & feelings are being in love as he is. Other actors, even Odette, play their roles to facilitate his story; they create situations for the protagonist Swann to deal with. That's the story."

Proust shows us something of the internal life of many characters.

If you're trying to argue that we're only supposed to sympathize with one, you'll need a stronger argument than the title of the sub-section.

[Jason]

Is it weird that I don't sympathize with either one? I loved reading the entire arc of their relationship and find its depiction incredibly accurate and engaging, but as characters go, I think they're both kind of douche-y.

[Kalliope]

Eugene wrote: "ReemK10 wrote: "... Perhaps, just like music has the ability to touch a chord inside us, so has Odette as an object of suffering and injustice."

But this is not Odette's story; it is the story of ..."

I agree with this view. We are presented with the Narrator's interest in Swann's story.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Eugene wrote: "ReemK10 wrote: "... Perhaps, just like music has the ability to touch a chord inside us, so has Odette as an object of suffering and injustice."

But this is not Odette's story; it is the story of ..."

Or Odette as a subject of injustice and insuffering is not allowed to have a voice and we're to look at how we judge her based on what we think about her or what people say about her. Is Proust asking us to rethink our attitudes and our perceptions? Are we to think of her as pink or scarlet?

[[deleted user]]

Good authors write secondary characters who are as alive as their protagonists - who have their own goals and motivations, which are in fiction, as in life, sufficient to create conflict for the protagonist.

Proust is a good author, not the sort of hack for whom secondary characters are mere props to the hero.

@Jason - thanks for the correction. You're right that sympathy isn't the word; neither are particularly sympathetic to me.

But I was surprised to realize that Odette had a voice, and a clear point of view. I hadn't seen that on my first read of the book and it raised my opinion of the novel several notches. Swann abuses her, but Proust doesn't silence her. That's an important distinction to me.

[Jason]

Madame X wrote: "But I was surprised to realize that Odette had a voice, and a clear point of view."

I think this is what makes her character so real (i.e. genuine).

[[deleted user]]

My perspective is at first I was thinking negatively of both characters and mostly because I didn't understand why they would sustain the relationship. But then through thinking and discussion I started to realize how I gone through some of this myself (no, I was not a courtesan nor did a date one!). By the end I actually started to feel sympathetic in a way to both characters. I don't feel that Proust was trying to make us feel a certain way about Odette - but we are feeling a certain way based on our life views and experiences. I mean, yes, he paints Odette to be cold at times but also Swann to be a bit ridiculous and hypocritical.

I don't feel that Swann abused Odette, I mean in the classical sense of the word abuse. He had strong emotions and if anything they abused each other.

[Ce Ce]

Jeremy wrote: "My perspective is at first I was thinking negatively of both characters and mostly because I didn't understand why they would sustain the relationship. But then through thinking and discussion I s..."

Thank you Jeremy. Your post reminds me that our reading is informed by three - Proust as author, the Narrator and each of us as readers. It's obvious...but in a reading as complex, multilayered and evocative as this is it's good to be mindful that each of us is the third factor.

I rated Swann's Way 4 out of 5 stars because I was jolted out of Proust's universe told through his narrator...when it came to Swann in love. (I think I noted it in the Feb 10th thread). I felt I was reading of Proust...rather than immersed in his novel...for a relatively brief time...but it took a bit for me to settle back in. I am going to go back and try to pinpoint that experience and re-read it with your comment (and awareness of my own life experience) in mind. Thanks again.

[Kyle]

Jason wrote: "Is it weird that I don't sympathize with either one? I loved reading the entire arc of their relationship and find its depiction incredibly accurate and engaging, but as characters go, I think they..."

I would agree on their douche-iness traits. :) But though they both may be written with an intent to highlight those traits, it's easy to recognize some of those douche-y moments/thoughts as ones we are/have been all prone to from time to time. Perhaps we sympathize with them in more of a pitying way, rather than a "aw, I feel for you, poor thing" sort of way?

But no, definitely not weird of you.

[J.A.]

In the end, I was only able to make sense of the structure of Swann's Way if I thought of it as a musical composition with three movements. The first movement has the themes of the Narrator's childhood and memory; the second is a song of Swann and Odette; the third, a variation of the previous movements: childhood, memory, places, and finally, a song of boy and girl.

Now that I think about it, Swann and Odette could be an ironic, brittle version of Tristan and Isolde.

[Kyle]

J.A. wrote: "In the end, I was only able to make sense of the structure of Swann's Way if I thought of it as a musical composition with three movements...."

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I like it, though!

[Aloha]

J.A. wrote: "In the end, I was only able to make sense of the structure of Swann's Way if I thought of it as a musical composition with three movements. The first movement has the themes of the Narrator's child..."

J.A., I'm planning to approach my review through a musical composition perspective, along with many other things. Let's see whether I can pull it off. I did a review of a fiction from a Physics perspective, and it was fine.

[J.A.]

@Kyle: Thanks!

@Aloha: Music approach makes tons of sense with Proust. I wonder if he didn't plan Swann's Way as a sonata because the Verteuil sonata is such an important part of the book. It's the only way I can explain to myself the inclusion of "Swann in Love" since that section is so different, like the middle section of a sonata often is. And then you get the variation in themes during the last section. I confess, I'm skewed towards this because one of my novels is done this way. And strangely, my novel is all about memory so maybe a memory theme lends itself to sonatas!

[Aloha]

J.A., there are a lot of metaphorical association with a musical composition in Proust's work, including the tied in with narration, hence "la phrase." I can see all the themes tied together in my head, but I'm not sure how it will go down on paper.

[Aloha]

BTW, I see it more than as the three movements of a musical composition. I'll explain more in the review. If only the concrete is as beautiful as the amorphous. Now for the pain of writing.

[Eugene]

Eugene wrote: "But this is not Odette's story; it is the story of Swann in love..."

Madame X wrote: "Proust shows us something of the internal life of many characters. If you're trying to argue that we're only supposed to sympathize with one, you'll need a stronger argument than the title of the sub-section."

Madame X, I didn't mean to offend you, my apologies. I agree with you that "Proust shows us something of the internal life of many characters," and no, I'm not arguing that we are "only supposed to sympathize with one" moreover to project an empathy.

[Eugene]

ReemK10 wrote: "Or Odette as a subject of injustice and suffering..."

Read Edith Wharton's House of Mirth where you are privy to the feelings of her protagonist, Lily Bart.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Eugene wrote: "ReemK10 wrote: "Or Odette as a subject of injustice and suffering..."

Read Edith Wharton's House of Mirth where you are privy to the feelings of her protagonist, Lily Bart."

I have read it. My point was not really about trying to feel empathy for Odette as much as it was about Proust wanting us to look at things differently, as in not look at anything ever the same way.

[Aloha]

J.A., while we're on the topic of correlation to music, I'm currently reading The Captive/The Fugitive. Now, I can see the whole 6 volumes (6 with The Captive/The Fugitive as one) as a sonata. In The Captive/The Fugitive there's a recapitulation, much as in the sonata form. I would guess that Time Regained is the coda of the sonata that is ISOLT. So, for those who think it's enough to stop only at Swann's Way, they are mistaken. That's like only listening to the most catchy part of the sonata without ever listening to the whole piece, like those albums of classical music greatest hits.

[Andrew]

The end of Swann's Way is of course no ending at all but an establishment of the place-name-memory combination which Proust used for the duration and will continue to use (I assume) through the next six volumes. I remember the ending troubling me the first time I read it, wondering how Swann could marry Odette after so determinedly renouncing her, after his love for Odette is shown as just as much overly emotional and impulsive as Marcel's love for Gilberte (which may help explain the link between them in this section...Marcel recognizes Swann as a fellow romantic lost in memory, one who gives in to the powers of imagination and hope). But in thinking of why Swann fell for Odette at all...perhaps Odette is his way of recapturing the past as Marcel is attempting to do, to find his memories of something in youth and innocence by transferring them into a person who can call forth his youthful emotions. Of all possibilities, this appears to be the most sensible for me.

The tragedy lies in the head-on collision between the perceptions of imagination and the concrete reality, i.e. Marcel describing the architecture of cities he has never visited. Either there is no correspondence, or the concrete lies so out of reach as to not even disabuse notions, leaving the thinker with only the imagination and nothing to truly perceive, nothing to store in memory.

[J.A.]

Aloha wrote: That's like only listening to the most catchy part of the sonata without ever listening to the whole piece, like those albums of classical music greatest hits.

I read somewhere that in France, "Swann in Love" is what's taught in schools so most French don't go beyond that. It will certainly be interesting to look back on the entire structure after reading the last word. Hope I have the stamina...

Good luck with the writing!

[Fionnuala]

Kalliope wrote: "Odette's cruises with the Verdurins, which take almost a year, do not support the idea discussed in earlier posts that her putting on weight was due to her being pregnant."

I've just finished Du Côté de Chez Swann and am finally reading some of the comments on this week's section - I don't know if I have the courage to read them all.
With regard to Odette's pregnancy, I understood that her being away with the Verdurins was the strategy Proust used to allow Swann to be ignorant of her state for as long as possible so that his finally marrying her becomes such a drama since we know he's had enough time axay from her to recover from his infatuation and might have taken a different path in life were it not for his 'offstage' discovery of Gilberte's existence. Proust also has the Cottards leave the cruise well before the birth, and so Mme Cottard doesn't tell Swann about it. I presumed it was intended that Odette had the baby somewhere on route and that the baby would have been sent back to France with a nurse.

[Aloha]

J.A. wrote: "I read somewhere that in France, "Swann in Love" is what's taught in schools so most French don't go beyond that. It will certainly be interesting to look back on the entire structure after reading the last word. Hope I have the stamina...

Good luck with the writing! ..."

That's too bad that they don't go beyond Swann in Love, because Captive is really good, and I'm only halfway into it. I can't wait to see what Time Regained will be like, since I love to see masterful wrap-ups.

Thank you. Good luck with finishing the whole ISOLT! It's worth it. At the very least, you won't have this nagging feeling following you that you never finished ISOLT. On the other hand, following the philosophy in ISOLT ( (echoing Schopenhauer's), the visceral feeling of desire and the unattainable is more intense and addictive, in which its satisfaction results in disappointment.

[[deleted user]]

Fionnuala wrote: "I presumed it was intended that Odette had the baby somewhere on route and that the baby would have been sent back to France with a nurse."

This is possible, of course, but I can't see how it's likely. A courtesan who shows her patron a baby might expect an increased allowance, but not an offer of marriage -- and Swann, from what he know of him, doesn't sound like the sort of family man who anyone would expect to go gaga over a child.

I don't remember what happens & would just as soon wait and find out, but at a guess I'd say that when Odette returns, she realizes Swann has grown indifferent to her. She'd put on a bit of charm, Swann -- reverting to his indifferent playboy self -- would sleep with her, just because he's not particular and maybe for nostalgia's sake, and voila, baby on the way.

[Fionnuala]

Madame X wrote: ".I don't remember what happens & would just as soon wait and find out, ."

Yes, that's the best approach.

I've just read all the comments for the week and have been struck by many of your insights, particularly by those which referred to the beauty of the final section, Noms de Pays: le Nom. I loved the Combray section, admired Un Amour de Swann but was completely bowled over by this last section. It replayed all the themes from the earlier sections: the role of imagination in memory, the power of sunlight to sculpt what we see (la colonne de poussière), how memory remains faithful to its own constructs, the juxtaposition of nature and the gothic, the necessity of creating a double of the real world in the imagination, the writing as painting, the 'faith', not yet lost, in women, how vain it is to search for our memories in the historical past, and finally music, the music in names, and in particular in the sound of the word spoken aloud, 'Swann'

[J.A.]

Fionnuala wrote: "I presumed it was intended that Odette had the baby somewhere on route and that the baby would have been sent back to France with a nurse."

Madame X wrote: This is possible, of course, but I can't see how it's likely.

For heaven's sake, Proust, you're driving us all crazy! ;)

[[deleted user]]

Andrew wrote: "The end of Swann's Way is of course no ending at all but an establishment of the place-name-memory combination which Proust used for the duration and will continue to use (I assume) through the nex..."

Just want to say that this was a great comment.

[Marcus]

caught up with the vanguard, at last...thank you moderators for setting up this amazing group - so grateful to be a part of it; my tuppence worth: the link between Swann/Odette and Marcel/Gilberte is jealousy, that's the common denominator...??

[Aloha]

Marcus wrote: "caught up with the vanguard, at last...thank you moderators for setting up this amazing group - so grateful to be a part of it; my tuppence worth: the link between Swann/Odette and Marcel/Gilberte ..."

Something like that. It's more of the idea of desiring to possess something. How something that you don't have is more attractive than something you have. The attraction of the negation and not having, such as how intense it was for the child Narrator to not have his mother's good night kiss. The more you feel you don't have something, the more you want to possess it.

[Aloha]

And the pain. The pain...

[Marcelita]

Madame X wrote: "Andrew wrote: "The end of Swann's Way is of course no ending at all but an establishment of the place-name-memory combination which Proust used for the duration and will continue to use (I assume) ..."

Agree completely...this group nourishes my Proust-life.

[J.A.]

Marcus wrote: my tuppence worth: the link between Swann/Odette and Marcel/Gilberte ...

Aloha wrote: It's more of the idea of desiring to possess something...

Also too is the way the Narrator and Swann both overlay their fantasies onto the objects of their obsessions. Even before the Narrator meets Gilberte, he's formed ideas of who she is from everything that he's heard about her. In that way, Gilberte to the Narrator is very much like the place names he loves so much.