The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Swann’s Way
Swann's Way, vol. 1
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Through Sunday, 10 Feb.: Swann's Way
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Elizabeth
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Feb 04, 2013 05:37AM
"He weaves such a multiple level story." What Is Art? A question that has been around since the Lescaux cave paintings, probably. One criterion: it gives you something to think about, and think about a long time. When I was a young woman, I did farm work for a living; I had a cabin near some prosperous seed farms, and mostly worked alone. I would go out into a 10 acre cabbage field, to hoe all day; and I would pick a book to think about. Some of them...I would start thinking/musing at 8:00 am...and be done by 8:15. Others I could think about for weeks at a time; Proust, obviously, is in this category.
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"A few days later Odette told Swann that she had just had a rude awakening, on discovering that my uncle was the same as other men: he had tried to take her by force."What is the opinion of this group: did great-uncle Adolphe actually try to take Odette by force, as she tells Swann, or did she just make that up- to anger Swann, or to discredit Adolphe, so that Swann would no longer ask for or take his advice?
Uncle Adolphe: there is no doubt about this one. Odette was lying. You'll find out more about this later. Trust me on this one. She was lying.
Fionnuala wrote: "And what about that name, Forcheville, fort cheville, strong ankle? Achilles' opposite so is Swann Achilles?"Aha, so we have the ankle pitted against the uncle?
Fionnuala wrote: "So how could she have found time to write that letter? "Time is squeezed and stretched all over isn't it? I mean I keep on referring to the excellent notes at the back of the folio classique edition, and all this, which took place before the narrator was born, and is thus fixed clearly within the narrative, nevertheless moves fluidly around dates ranging from 1871 to 1887. Just a few examples: that Fete de Paris-Murcie 1879, the cabaret Chat-Noir opened in 1881, Serge Panine 1882, the école du Louvre founded in 1882, Danicheff 1876, re-staged in 1884, Une Nuit de Cleopatra 1885, Francillon 1887.
And while we're on this squeezing and stretching of time, and since we all are fairly sure that the Dame en rose that the narrator met at Oncle Adolphe's is, in fact, Odette, when did that happen? Obviously well after the birth of said narrator.
Karen wrote: "Time is squeezed and stretched all over isn't it?"Time as fluid, diaphenous, bending, and stretching--impossible to capture. My skull may be thick, but I'm getting it now. When I first started this, I preferred "Remembrance of Things Past" over "In Search of Lost Time." That attitude has now changed, especially since we see how the story bends and weaves through time. Try as you might, you can't grab those threads physically, you can clasp them to your heart; but they won't fit a linear pattern. Proust was brilliant.
... kind of a ramble there, sorry.
Karen wrote: "And while we're on this squeezing and stretching of time, and since we all are fairly sure that the Dame en rose that the narrator met at Oncle Adolphe's is, in fact, Odette, when did that happen? ..."It seems plausible that Proust, or any writer might decorate his story, which he sets in the past, with a variety of real life events which happened around the time of the story, give or take a couple of years, so the fluid dates don't bother me. But when time in the plot/fiction part is also fluid, that's more disorientating. The Combray section was puzzling at times for the same reason. That leaves me wondering again over the meaning of the title, lost time, forgotten time, suspended time, wasted time...
Jonathan, you are right about the letters.
Elizabeth wrote: "Uncle Adolphe: there is no doubt about this one. Odette was lying. You'll find out more about this later. Trust me on this one. She was lying."Ah, I must wait and see. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Ian wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "And what about that name, Forcheville, fort cheville, strong ankle? Achilles' opposite so is Swann Achilles?"Aha, so we have the ankle pitted against the uncle?"
Ian, you are funny :)
Maybe it's not ankle, it's heel, and so Forcheville is Swann's Achilles Heel?
Karen wrote: "And while we're on this squeezing and stretching of time, and since we all are fairly sure that the Dame en rose that the narrator met at Oncle Adolphe's is, in fact, Odette, when did that happen? ..."Yes, remember that it was this incident (allowing the youth meet the cocotte) what created problems between the uncle and the Narrator's parents.
Karen, thank you for listing all the dates that can be identified.
And I agree with Fionnuala on the disorienting effect of the duration of time in the actual plot.
In the section in which it is mentioned that he develops a new enriching interest, music, there is a hint to the time that has passed, and it is not clear whether this is the duration of his relationship with Odette or may be a more undefined period.
"qu'un autre besoin qui caractérisait cette période nouvelle de la vie de Swann où à la sécheresse, à la dépression des années antérieures avait succédé une sorte de trop-plein spirituel...... cet autre besoin qui se développait aussi en dehors du monde réel, c'était celui d'entendre, de connaître de la musique"
Do you get the sense that Un amour de Swann takes place over quite a few years (which would vaguely correspond to 1871-87 that Karen has framed above)?
Yes, Kalliope, I just came across another reference to the passage of time- it's where Swann looks at some photographs of Odette from two years before and reflects on how much she has changed in that time. There was also an earlier reference to a period of six months having passed. Proust must intend that Un Amour de Swann takes place over several years. Does he intend that the narrator is born during this period? That it was only the initial meeting between Swann and Odette that took place before his birth? Or is all of this search for a chronology on our part not important to him at all?
I've just read the section you quoted: "où à la sécheresse, à la dépression des années antérieures avait succédé une sorte de trop-plein spirituel" and it does imply a passage of years but whether those 'arid' and 'depressed' years were spent with Odette is not clear.
What is fascinating is that out of such sterility should be born a 'trop-plein spirituel'.
I'm not reading this with a carefully enough trained eye or taking notes but it has not seemed once to me that Swann in Love is taking place over a 16 year period. My instinct tells me a couple of years at most. But since this is my first time, anyone reading it more closely or having read it multiple times or using auxiliary sources - I guess it is a possibility.
The discussion of time being stretched has made me think about stretching of time in my own life. My grandmother said many times to me when I was younger how time seems to go faster and faster as you get older. And at some point I started feeling that life was indeed going by at a much quicker pace. What would seem painstakingly slow as a child, such as a long drive or sitting in the waiting room, now seems like an instant to me. But in the past couple of years I have had more of a feeling of time playing tricks on me. Sometimes it seems fast and sometimes slow. Sometimes a week feels like a month and a day feels more like two days. Something that happened yesterday feels like two weeks ago where something that happened a month ago seems like yesterday. Is this the type of idea that you all are getting at in these posts regarding Proust stretching time?
One important thing in this section that I believe has gone without discussion thus far is how Swann fell out of favor with the Verdurin's. It is touched on in message 27. What really stuck out for me is how Mme Verdurin shunned Swann by inviting Odette into her carriage with Forcheville and is basically attempting (with some success) to control Odette's lovelife. Right here is where I felt that if Swann was in his right mind he would have severed his connection with Odette for the main reason that she is continuing to hang out with a group of people that has turned their back on him and made every attempt to embarass him. That he continues his pursuit of Odette is, to me, the symbol of this section. He is unwilling to see the facts for what they are and is blinded by the fictional character that he has created in Odette. Though at the very end of this week's reading block he does recognize that Odette's feelings have changed.
One other thing that strikes me is there is a subtle change to Odette's POV in which we find that she actually does not find Swann all that attractive and in fact a bit silly. This is the first time that I have found in this novel that perhaps Swann is not as Rico Suave as the Narrator has portrayed him to be.
And gazing at that face which was only a little aged by his recent anxieties (though people now thought of it, by the same mental process which enables one to discover the meaning of a piece of symphonic music of which one has read the programme, or the resemblance of a child whose family one knows: "He's not positively ugly, if you like, but he's really rather absurd: that eyeglass, that toupee, that smile!" - adumbrating in their suggestible imaginations the invisible boundary which separtes, at a few months' interval, the face of a successful lover from that of a cuckold), she would say: "Oh, I do wish I could change you, put some sense into that head of yours." ML edition near page 455
The discussion of time being stretched has made me think about stretching of time in my own life. My grandmother said many times to me when I was younger how time seems to go faster and faster as you get older. And at some point I started feeling that life was indeed going by at a much quicker pace. What would seem painstakingly slow as a child, such as a long drive or sitting in the waiting room, now seems like an instant to me. But in the past couple of years I have had more of a feeling of time playing tricks on me. Sometimes it seems fast and sometimes slow. Sometimes a week feels like a month and a day feels more like two days. Something that happened yesterday feels like two weeks ago where something that happened a month ago seems like yesterday. Is this the type of idea that you all are getting at in these posts regarding Proust stretching time?
One important thing in this section that I believe has gone without discussion thus far is how Swann fell out of favor with the Verdurin's. It is touched on in message 27. What really stuck out for me is how Mme Verdurin shunned Swann by inviting Odette into her carriage with Forcheville and is basically attempting (with some success) to control Odette's lovelife. Right here is where I felt that if Swann was in his right mind he would have severed his connection with Odette for the main reason that she is continuing to hang out with a group of people that has turned their back on him and made every attempt to embarass him. That he continues his pursuit of Odette is, to me, the symbol of this section. He is unwilling to see the facts for what they are and is blinded by the fictional character that he has created in Odette. Though at the very end of this week's reading block he does recognize that Odette's feelings have changed.
One other thing that strikes me is there is a subtle change to Odette's POV in which we find that she actually does not find Swann all that attractive and in fact a bit silly. This is the first time that I have found in this novel that perhaps Swann is not as Rico Suave as the Narrator has portrayed him to be.
And gazing at that face which was only a little aged by his recent anxieties (though people now thought of it, by the same mental process which enables one to discover the meaning of a piece of symphonic music of which one has read the programme, or the resemblance of a child whose family one knows: "He's not positively ugly, if you like, but he's really rather absurd: that eyeglass, that toupee, that smile!" - adumbrating in their suggestible imaginations the invisible boundary which separtes, at a few months' interval, the face of a successful lover from that of a cuckold), she would say: "Oh, I do wish I could change you, put some sense into that head of yours." ML edition near page 455
"if Swann was in his right mind he would have severed his connection with Odette for the main reason." I think Proust is making the point that no one in love is in his/her right mind. As another writer once said, "Why can't we choose who we love, instead of where the lightning strikes." (I think it was Theodore Sturgeon). And regarding Odette's POV...I think Swann really is pretty classy, and this passage is to underline Odette's basic lack of perception.
It's hard to tell how old the Narrator is during his visit to Uncle Adolphe...pre-pubescent, I think; but not tiny, either. 8 or 9? 10 or 11? Those are my guesses.
Elizabeth wrote: "It's hard to tell how old the Narrator is during his visit to Uncle Adolphe...pre-pubescent, I think; but not tiny, either. 8 or 9? 10 or 11? Those are my guesses."Yes, I get a similar impression, 8-11, may be closer to 11, since he was on his own.
I said this before but it still baffles me. I would have expected Proust to make the Narrator of a similar age to himself, but when the Narrator begins the Swann in Love section saying that it happened before he was born, I immediately placed the account in the Second Empire. But then all those cues to the late 1870s and 80s, means that he has conceived him as younger...
I agree with Proustitute.. all these attempts at fixing the times are very elusive, and that is fine, it is part of the attraction of this work.., but to try and trace these time posts help us in understanding what Proust is saying about perceived time...
Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Kalliope, I just came across another reference to the passage of time- it's where Swann looks at some photographs of Odette from two years before and reflects on how much she has changed in that time. There was also an earlier reference to a period of six months having passed. "Quite a few pages before the Narrator mentions 6 months having passed he notes that Swann had been visiting the Verdurin's for 1 year. I was surprised that a year had passed with Swann, Odette and the Verdurin's - it seemed a few months.
I just encountered another time reference. The Narrator mentions that Swann had been invited, one year before, to the marriage of his mother. This happens when the basket of fruit for the Princess of Parme episode.
So Proust Is doling out these time references sparingly but intentionally. He must want us to keep the chronology in mind. He must want us to be able to situate Swann in his own time, and in relation to the narrator's time. Proust, Swann, the narrator, it's like a holy trinity, all distinct but all one....
Later: I've just come across "ces années du début du Septennat" which the notes in my edition say refer to Jules Grévy's first presidential term from 1879 to 1885. His second was from 1885 to 1887. Swann mentioned Grévy earlier in Un Amour de Swann when he admitted to the Verdurin's that he dined with him, I think.
I could be wrong, but I don't get the feeling that Proust wants us to keep chronology in mind. If anything, it seems just the opposite—there's a lot of temporal fluidity here, and the chronology is secondary to the observations of memory and relationships, etc.Also, there are certain passages here that make me think of Clarissa Dalloway, specifically the ones concerning everyday objects that have new meaning applied to them by the narrator's observations of them. So it's interesting that people are talking about time references here because I've always thought time is pretty fluid in Mrs. Dalloway, too. Which could maybe possibly be a common thread among novels whose structure is mostly internal, possibly maybe.
Proustitute wrote: "It's more a suggestion of the time period than a specific delineation of a year span....it's more subjective time than actual time."Yes, of course and an author should always be free to play about with chronology for his own purposes. But time is something which helps readers keep their bearings in a complex narrative.
Jason mentioned about time also being fluid in Mrs Dalloway. Virginia Woolf certainly allowed the characters to meditate freely over events in their past lives but she punctuated Mrs D's day with subtle reminders of real time nonetheless: church bells, meal times, we always knew where we were in time during the day the action takes place. Similarly in Ulysses, the chronology of the day is carefully followed.
All these time questions have me wondering: what was the name of Vonnegut's character who came unstuck in time?
Elizabeth wrote: "All these time questions have me wondering: what was the name of Vonnegut's character who came unstuck in time?"Billy Pilgrim.
I read that Proust in a letter to his editor, the reference escapes me now, said that he made mistakes in his narrative (time?) but that he refused to correct them. When I run across the reference again, I'll post it.
There is a definite discrepancy regarding time whether accidental, on purpose, or a happy accident, especially with reference to the pink lady. I think it was mentioned here who the pink lady was, and in the LD translation intro. That is one spoiler in the intro. that you might want to avoid. I'll put a spoiler in my explanation.(view spoiler)
Eugene wrote: "I read that Proust in a letter to his editor, the reference escapes me now, said that he made mistakes in his narrative (time?) but that he refused to correct them. When I run across the referenc..."
This may give a clue as to why Proust decided to let his mistake stay. This is from The Guermantes Way, but I don't think it gives away spoilers.
"...No doubt, whenever we see again a person with whom our relations-however trivial they may be-have now changed, it is like a juxtaposition of two different periods..." ML
Aloha, re juxtaposing two periods, and understanding Proust's approach to chronology, how about this quote from this week's section: "Par le souvenir Swann reliait ces parcelles, abolissait les intervalles..." (By means of memory, Swann connected these fragments, eliminated the intervals of time..my translation) I had a feeling P would get around to explaining these shifts in time!Phillida, if we presume Odette is Gilberte's mother and also the lady the narrator met at his uncle's apartment, why doesn't he recognize her when he sees her again at Swann's place with Gilberte? Perhaps the answer is that there's a time gap between the two episodes and Odette has changed from the demimondaine in pink who visits men in their homes to a more select lady in white who entertains men in her own home....and yes, poor Swann.
"Karen wrote: "Odette is like an object which he [Swann] desires and onto which he projects all sorts of qualities, ideas, and ideals. None of which Odette would necessarily recognise as part of her furniture if she knew. But the process is similar: by observing and thinking of her so much, he turns her into a screen onto which he projects all his feelings."As I completed this section of reading this morning and contemplated Odette I was reminded of an exercise in figure drawing where we substitute scissors for a drawing implement...the scissor is our pencil so to speak. We then observe the model and cut out the figure (a la Matisse)...what we are left with is a paper doll...evocative in its outline...but with little detail. We the viewer are free to bring our own knowledge & association to flesh it out...which we do readily.
Then I recalled the reference to how we perceive others...as a "transparent envelope"...early in Swann's Way.
"We pack the physical outline of the person we see with all the notions we have already formed about him, and in the total picture of him which we compose in our minds those notions have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice as if it were no more than a transparent envelope." ML
And then Odette hands Swann a nearly transparent envelope to mail to Forcheville.
"At first he could distinguish nothing, but the envelope was thin, and by pressing down on to the stiff card which it enclosed he was able, through the transparent paper, to read the concluding words....He took a firm hold of the card which was sliding to and fro, the envelope being too large for it, and then, by moving with his finger and thumb, brought one line after another beneath the part of the envelope where the paper was not doubled..." ML
The notions we have of Odette are almost exclusively through the Narrator's telling of Swann's experience...which is really all about Swann and very little about Odette. I felt Swann's mind had been channeling mine and I was holding in hand his "transparent envelope" that contained Odette.
I felt uneasy...in a sense a voyeur.
Fionnuala wrote: "Aloha, re juxtaposing two periods, and understanding Proust's approach to chronology, how about this quote from this week's section: "Par le souvenir Swann reliait ces parcelles, abolissait les int..."Yes, that would be more of the blending of the memory. Thanks, Fionnuala.
...Par le souvenir Swann reliait ces parcelles, abolissait les intervalles, coulait comme en or une Odette de bonté et de calme pour laquelle il fit plus tard (comme on le verra dans la deuxième partie de cet ouvrage), des sacrifices que l’autre Odette n’eût pas obtenus....
...In memory Swann joined these fragments together, eliminated the intervals, cast, as though in gold, an Odette formed of goodness and calm for whom (as will be seen in the second part of this story) he later made sacrifices which the other Odette would never have won from him...(LD)
...By the process of memory, Swann joined the fragments together, abolished the intervals between them, cast, as in molten gold, the image of an Odette compact of kindness and tranquillity, for whom (as we shall see in the second part of this story) he was later to make sacrifices which the other Odette would never have won from him....ML
Jason wrote: "I could be wrong, but I don't get the feeling that Proust wants us to keep chronology in mind. If anything, it seems just the opposite—there's a lot of temporal fluidity here, and the chronology is..."I agree Jason. Right at the beginning...in the episode of insomnia the Narrator lets us know we are going to be time travelers. Confusion as to who he was, where he was, reincarnation, not knowing what time it was when he woke a myriad of times in one night...drifting to an earlier time in his life in his dreams or nightmares.
The narrator speaks of humans instinctively knowing "the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly bodies." And then we are warned that "this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks."
"...the magic chair will carry him at full speed through time and space, and when he opens his eyes he will imagine that he went to sleep months earlier in another place."
and more..."when I awoke like this, and my mind struggled in an unsuccessful attempt to discover where I was, everything revolved around me through darkness: things, places, years."
I wrote a note that time was about to be subverted...stretched, twisted, tossed about...a literary Dali's clock and landscape.
Thanks for posting those quotes, Aloha, and so quickly. You're good at this.Cheryl, what an interesting insight about the outline, the envelope, and it is further backed up by Swann's thoughts, also in this week's section about the difference between the real live Odette, or even a photo of her, and the other Odette, the one who lives inside him, who he has created.
Also interesting those quotes from the Combray section about the narrator's thoughts on time. So he had explained all this earlier and I missed it!
Fionnuala wrote: " if we presume Odette is Gilberte's mother and also the lady the narrator met at his uncle's apartment, why doesn't he recognize her when he sees her again at Swann's place with Gilberte? ....and yes, poor Swann...."My sense on the Combray episode is that the lady in white was further away, because when she shouts (cria d'une voix perçante) to Gilberte, it comes as a surprise to the Narrator because he had not seen her...
As for "poor Swann", that is also what the N's grandfather says soon after: "Ce pauvre Swann, quel rôle ils lui font jouer..."
In this weeks section I was surprised by the expression: "... qui sépare à quelques mois de distance une tête d'amant de coeur et une tête de cocu"
Similarly to the use of cocotte for the lady in pink.
(my bolds).
Just finished this week's piece and came across the line about the 'tête de cocu', Kalliope. Why do I think that cocu is far more devastating than cocotte but so it seems to me. And again we have the reference to time passing, only a few months separating Swann's status as lover from that of cuckold.
It's hard for me to think why folks are so sypathectic toward M. Swann when it's perfectly obvious that he is full of the most damaging flaws. He is selfish, self-regarding, superficial and lacking in consciousness toward a woman he supposedly loves. Anything he does for her he does for purely selfish reasons. He doesn't even wish to really know her and her life except as it revolves around him. Pehaps it should really be, "Pauvre Odette!"
MMR. wrote: "It's hard for me to think why folks are so sypathectic toward M. Swann when it's perfectly obvious that he is full of the most damaging flaws."I think because people can identify with those flaws. Even the most self-serving of characters can have traits we identify with sometimes. I'm sure lots of people have been in codependent relationships, have used rationalizations to justify their jealousies, manipulation as an attempt to control the other person's feelings, etc. These are certainly not attractive qualities in a person and objectively not the kind of relationship one hopes to ever find himself in, but if you've ever experienced it, the author pretty much nails it.
Eugene wrote: I read that Proust in a letter to his editor, the reference escapes me now...The reference: What Proust actually wrote to Jacques Rivière was
"I am forced to depict errors without feeling obliged to say that I consider them errors." (P.122)
Joshua Landy, The Texture of Proust's Novel in The Cambridge Companion to Proust, edited by Richard Bales.
I have The Cambridge Companion. I'll have to peek in.
Eugene wrote: "Eugene wrote: I read that Proust in a letter to his editor, the reference escapes me now...The reference: What Proust actually wrote to Jacques Rivière was
"I am forced to depict errors without..."
Listen to a conversation with Professor Joshua Landy about the vocation of literature and Marcel Proust. November 1, 2005.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ita...
Eugene quoted Proust: "I am forced to depict errors without feeling obliged to say that I consider them errors." There seems to be a host of hidden meanings within that surprisingly short sentence. Or maybe not...
Marcelina, I listened to half of the Landy discussion - the second part gets into the later books in too much detail for me - but Landy made a good point about not seeking logic in literature. I need to keep that in mind regarding Proust.
Eugene wrote: "Eugene wrote: I read that Proust in a letter to his editor, the reference escapes me now...The reference: What Proust actually wrote to Jacques Rivière was
"I am forced to depict errors without..."
What is interesting is that Proust does bother to include events that can be dated, even if he so chooses not to restrict himself to their implied order in the chronology. He could have avoided them completely but by incorporating them he makes a stronger case for his conception of perceived time past as something elastic and changeable.
It is as if a contemporary writer were to include events such as the première of Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Met in NY, or the Academy Awards to the film Titanic,… etc, but then played around in his plot with their implied dates. That would have a different effect from not mentioning them at all.
Jason wrote: "I could be wrong, but I don't get the feeling that Proust wants us to keep chronology in mind. If anything, it seems just the opposite—there's a lot of temporal fluidity here, and the chronology is..."
I don't know what Proust's intention was, but he doesn't seem to go out of his way to make a strict timeline. It is not until late in Swann's Way that a reference of time even jumped out at me.
Curious that you mention Mrs. Dalloway. Knowing that Woolf was so enamored by Proust, I felt that the stream of consciousness from different points of view style were similar to parts of Swann's Way.
Fionnula mentions that in Mrs. Dalloway there are specific references to time mainly with the clock chiming, which is a great point but Dalloway occured all in one day so it makes a lot more since that she had the linear time in the phsyical world but in the mental world of the characters time jumped all over the place and stretched. Proust did not seem to have the desire to try to make many of the specific events tied together to specific times. Though I got the impression that Swann's Way is fairly linear in plot and he is consistently tying back to certain events that occured earlier in the story.
I don't know what Proust's intention was, but he doesn't seem to go out of his way to make a strict timeline. It is not until late in Swann's Way that a reference of time even jumped out at me.
Curious that you mention Mrs. Dalloway. Knowing that Woolf was so enamored by Proust, I felt that the stream of consciousness from different points of view style were similar to parts of Swann's Way.
Fionnula mentions that in Mrs. Dalloway there are specific references to time mainly with the clock chiming, which is a great point but Dalloway occured all in one day so it makes a lot more since that she had the linear time in the phsyical world but in the mental world of the characters time jumped all over the place and stretched. Proust did not seem to have the desire to try to make many of the specific events tied together to specific times. Though I got the impression that Swann's Way is fairly linear in plot and he is consistently tying back to certain events that occured earlier in the story.
What Swann feels (as Proust donning the hat of an omniscient narrator who well details his feelings, as it's his story: Swann in Love, as Swann--whether you like him or not--is the thinking & acting protagonist) is not always what he shows, in a modern vernacular we might call him "cool", regardless. It's often stated in introductions to works about Proust, but seldom referenced, that many times in ISOLT 'acts have multiple yet contradictory motivations.' Some might call them errors.I have been thinking about the moods of Swann from a tender, considerate love to inflamed rage to the rationality of
"And this pleasure, different from every other, had in the end created in him a need of her, which she alone, by her presence or by her letters, could assuage, almost as disinterested, almost as artistic, as perverse as another need which characterized this new period in Swann's life, when the sereness, the depression of the preceding years had been followed by a sort of spiritual superabundance, without his knowing to what he owed this unlooked-for enrichment of his life, any more than a person in delicate health who from a certain moment grows stronger, puts on flesh, and seems for a time to be on the road to a complete recovery:—this other need, which, too, developed in him independently of the visible, material world, was the need to listen to music and to learn to know it." Moncrieff
and back again to lover & hater & so forth that that is a novelist's way of showing; by showing the opposing poles that make up a person, by antithesis; a well "rounded character" to quote E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel, 1927.
But even though he is a feeling character, is not Swann an act with multiple yet contradictory motivations. Maybe they are layers of the same.
Thinking about the abrupt change in thoughts and emotion...does he even know himself? "And doubtless Swann's voice was more perspicacious than Swann himself when it refused to utter those words full of disgust with the Verdurins and their circle, and of joy at having shaken himself free of it, save in an artificial and rhetorical tone and as though they had been chosen rather to appease his anger than to express his thoughts. The latter, in fact, while he abandoned himself to his invective, were probably, though he did not realise it, occupied with a wholly different matter, for having reached home, no sooner had he closed the front-door behind him than he suddenly struck his forehead, and reopening it, dashed out again exclaiming, in a voice which, this time was quite natural: 'I think I've found a way of getting invited to the dinner at Chatou tomorrow!' But it must have been a bad way, for Swann was not invited."
Just found this from Joshua Landy, "...related art of self-deception."
(Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust)
Marcelita wrote: "Thinking about the abrupt change in thoughts and emotion...does he even know himself? "And doubtless Swann's voice was more perspicacious than Swann himself when it refused to utter those words f..."
The whole Swann/Odette section is Swann losing his head. LOL.
Fionnuala, Karen: I have wondered about the chronology of the lady in pink for years. Yes, it is obvious that the Narrator and Gilberte are virtually the same age...and: (this week's reading) I think I know when Odette got pregnant. Proust says, "Physically, she was passing through an unfortunate phase; she was growing stouter." I know this sounds insane, to make such a deduction, but this is the era when people would go out for "supper" after the theater and have "wing of chicken." What? A wing? One chicken wing? That's crazy. Then one of my old cookbooks cleared it up; "wing of chicken" means a chicken breast that is cut with the first joint of the wing attached. I mean, heaven forbid we should say "breast." (Remember that in this era they also put lace drawers on grand piano legs). I think Odette's visit to Uncle Adolphe occurred after (obviously) Gilberte's birth, but before Swann finally married her.
Yes, Elizabeth, I think you've summed it up and although I've been convinced by other posts not to constantly search for logic in the chronology, like you I'm very satisfied when I finally find some. I noticed that passage about the change in Odette's appearance too and the notes in my edition stated clearly that this refers to Odette's pregnancy. And so we wonder about who Gilberte's father might really be...
Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Elizabeth, I think you've summed it up and although I've been convinced by other posts not to constantly search for logic in the chronology, like you I'm very satisfied when I finally find som..."Fionnuala, I think you are using the Jean Milly edition. I wonder if Karen's edition by Compagnon has a similar comment on her change of appearance. For me it was just an indication that she was getting older, since similar indications for Swann himself also occur.
Even without the notes, Kalliope, I read the changes in her appearance as resulting from pregnancy. There is a mention of her staring into space, her face absent of expression, and of Swann finding her unattractive in bed (and I was surprised at this open reference to bed), which must be a reference to her growing bump revealed without the camouflage of clothing. What is not clear, and Milly didn't elaborate on it, is if Swann is meant to be as unaware as he seems of her condition.By the way, that article you posted about Proust and the Louvre was very interesting. Who would have thought that the curators sought out his opinion on what paintings to acquire and how to display them. His views on these subjects prove how well developed was his artistic sense, and without any formal training. And there was a mention of his unfinished study of, not Vermeer, but Rembrandt....
FWIW: I recently read that thing about the covers on piano legs happened more in the USA and that it was to prevent scuffing rather blushes. (Whatever).If Gilberte is around the same age as Our Narrator then Odette will have to be pregnant some time fairly soon.
