The Year of Reading Proust discussion
This topic is about
Swann’s Way
Swann's Way, vol. 1
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Through Sunday, 3 Feb.: Swann's Way
Not to the depth of his being, I think, just to a level where he was vulnerable.
Fionnuala wrote: "But did she play hard to get? I don't think so. She just maneuvered Swann into a position where he forgot about his many reservations regarding her beauty and her intelligence (and her background),..."That's a pretty good summary once you add in cattleyas.
I wouldn't have said that he was looking for a more permanent relationship though.
He sounded to me like a "confirmed bachelor" (not necessarily of the homosexual type) who was content to play the field and he even continued his "safe" liaison with the younger girl for a while.
Wheter or not Odette played hard to get, she was suggested to Swann as someone who would be a bit more difficult or a hard case.
She certainly seems to have been very flirtatious from the beginning and let Swann know exactly what she wanted.
If anything, Odette seduced Swann.
I don't think you have to exactly match IQ's or interests in relationships.
A little, even some considerable, difference can be healthy, as long as there is mutual respect.
Fionnuala wrote: "But did she play hard to get? I don't think so. She just maneuvered Swann into a position where he forgot about his many reservations regarding her beauty and her intelligence (and her background),..."
I think I mistated my thoughts. I don't think she was necessarily playing hard to get in terms of the game of love. If anything he made some rather poor attempts to do that. What I mean is that up to now it sounds like the women he was with prior to were putty in his hands whereas now we have someone who dictates when and where he can see her and this creates different feelings than what he is used to.
I think I mistated my thoughts. I don't think she was necessarily playing hard to get in terms of the game of love. If anything he made some rather poor attempts to do that. What I mean is that up to now it sounds like the women he was with prior to were putty in his hands whereas now we have someone who dictates when and where he can see her and this creates different feelings than what he is used to.
What bothers me is that Swann is made out to be some sort of a witless victim of Odette's. I don't believe that at all. I believe he knows exactly what he's getting himself into, but made a conscious decision to follow through with what he was attracted to.
Aloha wrote: But I'm curious what it is about her that inspired his delusion. It went deeper than a simple seduction. Intellectually, he's aware she's not for him, but something about her hooked him to the depth of his being. I really think, as I wrote previously, it was the tea. Having someone give him the perfect cup, saying that she knew just how he'd like that cup of tea. Of course, it's not the tea but the idea that there would be someone always available to him who would understand and fulfill his needs. That there would be someone who could and would take care of him. At his age, I think that's the one thing he was vulnerable to.
Ironically, what he wants is a courtesan. But like so many men, he thinks what he wants is a wife.
On p203 of LD, the narrator says that the old friend who introduced Odette to him had previously "spoken of her as an entrancing woman with whom he [Swann] might have some success," but made "her out to be more difficult than she really was in order to appear to have done him [Swann] a bigger favour by introducing her to him."He then proceeds to say that she seemed to be "not without beauty, certainly, but of a type of beauty that left him indifferent, that aroused no desire in him, even caused him a sort of physical repulsion, one of those women...who are the opposite of the kind our senses crave."
I don't see Swann as a victim at all. His problem was a problem of his own making. He went in open-eyed.
There is definitely an implication that the women/girls Swann was used to were "easier" to deal with.
J.A. wrote: "Aloha wrote: But I'm curious what it is about her that inspired his delusion. It went deeper than a simple seduction. Intellectually, he's aware she's not for him, but something about her hooked hi..."Like Proust hooked us with madeleine and tea, Odette hooked him with some sweet and tea? I'll have to try that. :oD
Ian wrote: "On p203 of LD, the narrator says that the old friend who introduced Odette to him had previously "spoken of her as an entrancing woman with whom he [Swann] might have some success," but made "her o..."At any point, he could have called off the whole thing. He knew of her courtesan past before he married her. He was aware that she's shallow and not as intellectual as he is.
Yes, perhaps he is not witless but the opposite. His motivations are so complex that even he himself can't figure them out, the tea, the carriage, the cattleyas, the Verdurins, the music, all operate on him in different ways.
@Aloha, that old saying is true: the way to a man's stomach... ;)Seriously, what is more seductive than having someone say with more than words, "I understand you..."
And...making someone their perfect cup of tea is darn hard...
Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, perhaps he is not witless but the opposite. His motivations are so complex that even he himself can't figure them out, the tea, the carriage, the cattleyas, the Verdurins, the music, all oper..."I agree with that based on how intellectuals still get into silly hot water with each other and themselves. We can never really know ourselves.
Ian wrote: I don't see Swann as a victim at all.I agree. They both went into the relationship wanting something. Odette, money and connections. Swann, a living collectible with a side of cozy domesticity.
J.A. wrote: "@Aloha, that old saying is true: the way to a man's stomach... ;)Seriously, what is more seductive than having someone say with more than words, "I understand you..."
And...making someone their ..."
That's why some men would be willing to pay tons of money to have someone understand them yet give them great sex.
J.A. wrote: "Seriously, what is more seductive than having someone say with more than words, "I understand you...""Haha, works on me ever time.
@Aloha, I suppose the modern equivalent to a courtesan is the trophy wife? ;)
J.A. wrote: "@Aloha, I suppose the modern equivalent to a courtesan is the trophy wife? ;)"True. At some point, the trophy wife, like Odette, starts focusing on trips to the spa and shopping.
Aloha wrote: "What bothers me is that Swann is made out to be some sort of a witless victim of Odette's. I don't believe that at all. I believe he knows exactly what he's getting himself into, but made a cons..."
I haven't seen any indication that Swann is a witless victim, though I do think he has become witless! He seems to have gone off the deep end really. That said, Odette is clearly taking advantage of his hysteria. And I'm not saying she is a bad person for doing that, it just seems like a fact in my interpretation.
I haven't seen any indication that Swann is a witless victim, though I do think he has become witless! He seems to have gone off the deep end really. That said, Odette is clearly taking advantage of his hysteria. And I'm not saying she is a bad person for doing that, it just seems like a fact in my interpretation.
Aloha wrote: "That's why some men would be willing to pay tons of money to have someone understand them yet give them great sex."And some men would be willing to write haiku and verse for the same reason ;)
Aloha wrote: "J.A. wrote: "@Aloha, I suppose the modern equivalent to a courtesan is the trophy wife? ;)"True. At some point, the trophy wife, like Odette, starts focusing on trips to the spa and shopping."
I don't think her trophy status is the issue.
I have assumed that most men would have wanted to make cattleyas with Odette, but nobody would have wanted to marry her, because she was a courtesan and therefore a "fallen woman".
I'm not sure what to say about the distant future of the relationship, because of spoiler concerns, but her history as a courtesan didn't prevent that occurring.
Something in the relationship was sustained, despite the courtesanship.
Of course, it might have been the quality of the cattleyas.
I think it's the "la phrase" that changed everything. It goes back to the complexity of memory. When something is associated with a vivid memory, we have a tendency to apply an emotion to it, regardless of what the item is. Kind of like a Pavlov's dog.
Ian wrote: "Aloha wrote: "That's why some men would be willing to pay tons of money to have someone understand them yet give them great sex."And some men would be willing to write haiku and verse for the sam..."
Is it working? :o)
Aloha wrote: "I think it's the "la phrase" that changed everything. It goes back to the complexity of memory. When something is associated with a vivid memory, we have a tendency to apply an emotion to it, reg..."
I agree. One of my favorite quotes from this week's reading, on 248: "alone with his convalescing soul, little by little he became himself again, but possessed by another"
Swann really does experience a rejuvenation, a resurgence of interest in the arts, and Odette becomes tangled up in it -- mistaken for the catalyst, which is really the little phrase, and given increasing power over his sense of well-being.
J.A. wrote: "I agree. They both went into the relationship wanting something. Odette, money and connections. Swann, a living collectible with a side of cozy domesticity."
Yes, this sums up my reading of the situation.
I agree. One of my favorite quotes from this week's reading, on 248: "alone with his convalescing soul, little by little he became himself again, but possessed by another"
Swann really does experience a rejuvenation, a resurgence of interest in the arts, and Odette becomes tangled up in it -- mistaken for the catalyst, which is really the little phrase, and given increasing power over his sense of well-being.
J.A. wrote: "I agree. They both went into the relationship wanting something. Odette, money and connections. Swann, a living collectible with a side of cozy domesticity."
Yes, this sums up my reading of the situation.
Aloha wrote: "Is it working? :o) "No, of course not.
But there seems to be a suggestion emerging in this thread that Swann's age of 50 means he's past it.
At my age, therefore, it seems that all I have is a remembrance of pastimes.
Madame X wrote: "I agree. One of my favorite quotes from this week's reading, on 248: "alone with his convalescing soul, little by little he became himself again, but possessed by another""At some point, we must discuss the significance of "possession" in Proust.
Ian wrote: "At some point, we must discuss the significance of "possession" in Proust."
I have the impression that sometimes he uses possession to mean "sex" but most often he uses it to mean, literally, a sense of power over another person, of control and ownership.
One of the reasons why every time I read the word "love" in regards to Swann's feelings for Odette I cringe. He would be better off buying a pet.
I have the impression that sometimes he uses possession to mean "sex" but most often he uses it to mean, literally, a sense of power over another person, of control and ownership.
One of the reasons why every time I read the word "love" in regards to Swann's feelings for Odette I cringe. He would be better off buying a pet.
Ian wrote: "But there seems to be a suggestion emerging in this thread that Swann's age of 50 means he's past it.
..."
The 50 was a typo in the eformat of a translation. The quotes from the original French text are ambiguous on his age (they are included a few posts up). Several of us think he must be in his 30s when he meets Odette.
Madame X wrote: "I have the impression that sometimes he uses possession to mean "sex" but most often he uses it to mean, literally, a sense of power over another person, of control and ownership. "Definitely a sense of a male having "property" or ownership in a female spouse.
You've probably seen it, but there are some alternative attempts at chronologies here:http://www.tempsperdu.com/chrono.html
They don't mention Swann's age.
To me, "possession" was defined from the passage regarding the Celtic belief. When you "possess" someone, you captured that essence that was contained in them, that undefinable something that you recognize, that stirred something in you.
I'm going to hypothesise that Swann was born in 1850.If you start to assume that it was later (say up to 1853), he would presumably be too young for the Franco-Prussian War.
If Swann in Love occurred in 1877-1878, then he was 27 when he first met Odette.
If the narrator was born in 1878 and the (view spoiler) took place in 1903, then the narrator would have been 25 at the time, more or less the age that Swann had been, when the narrator was born.
This reminds me a little bit of the game Nabokov plays with age and time at the beginning of Lolita. The fun you can have with math. (See, Aloha?)
Aloha wrote: When you "possess" someone, you captured that essence that was contained in them, that undefinable something that you recognize, that stirred something in you. Which leads back to being possessed by the music and that reawakening which takes him to Odette in a mass/mess of confusion.
Based on my original reading, though, I had felt that Swann was in his late 30's or early 40's when he met Odette. Old enough to have a more "mature" attitude to love, where it was a storehouse of past memories.In the mathematical approach, I haven't seriously considered that he might have been born earlier than 1850.
I will leave this to a re-read and the input of others.
I really think 20s is too young for Swann when he meets Odette. Given the kind of life experiences that he's had - rising from middle-class beginnings into the highest echelons of society, finishing school, starting projects and abandoning them for so long that they begin to feel distant and lost, growing tired of the highest echelons of society and taking them for granted, looking elsewhere for amusement...
I'd believe that he's in this 30s, at the youngest. Maybe late 30s or early 40s.
I'd believe that he's in this 30s, at the youngest. Maybe late 30s or early 40s.
Aloha wrote: "To me, "possession" was defined from the passage regarding the Celtic belief. When you "possess" someone, you captured that essence that was contained in them, that undefinable something that you ...""Behold, one of the moments whose series will go to make up their sum, a moment as genuine as the rest, if not actually more important to ourself because our mistress is more intensely a part of it; we picture it to ourselves, we possess it, we intervene upon it, almost we have created it: namely, the moment in which he goes to tell her that we are waiting there below."
"I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life."
Ian wrote: "Aloha wrote: "To me, "possession" was defined from the passage regarding the Celtic belief. When you "possess" someone, you captured that essence that was contained in them, that undefinable somet..."Thanks, Ian. That's it. People who have fallen madly in love (almost a fatal attraction) tunes in to a particular something that stirs the "high", but not really seeing the person in reality, ignoring anything that doesn't fit in the "high. It's more about the person who's in love, rather than the object of love. So the "possession" is that ideal. That's why there's usually a let down the moment the person sees the object of attraction in reality.
Aloha, your comments are getting to the essence of Swann in Love for me.I could resort to a lot of cliches, well, damn it, I will, but love is a drug, and some of us need a fix, even in our 50's.
It is a high, and Proust defines it in terms of aesthetic "type", almost the "kit" that is required to replicate the high.
However, he also raises this issue that as you get older, you are not actually reconstructing a new high each time, but you are simply adding another layer on the memory of the previous experiences of love.
Each new experience of some sort of love taps into the memorised residue that is still sitting in the brain.
The new experience is just a spoon or a key that opens the door to the full experience, which is a composite of old and new, newly sensed or perceived (on the one hand) and stored (on the other).
The sad thing is that, if this is true, the Object is just a key or a vehicle to experiencing a selfish pleasure.
The Subject is simply in love with love, and the Object is just a pathway.
It's interesting that one of Proust's passages that I quoted uses the language of a painting.
We possess that painting or image or stored experience inside our storehouse.
We use the Object to remind us that it is there and access it.
We mightn't even need an Object if we could access our stored experience of love.
But what we would have is selfish pleasure, not a relationship between two equal people. The latter is what I call love.
Now if I could only reduce that down to a haiku.
Ian wrote: "Aloha, your comments are getting to the essence of Swann in Love for me.I could resort to a lot of cliches, well, damn it, I will, but love is a drug, and some of us need a fix, even in our 50's...."
Terrific, Ian! I can't add anything to that.
Fascinating discussion. This is exactly the basis for a Buddhist reading of the Recherche: desire as not only selfish but ultimately self-defeating. The desire to possess another person is impossible and thus insatiable, binding the would-be possessor in suffering through jealousy and craving that which cannot be had.
Hence, non-attachment?
I have a conundrum. As I have read Swann's ambivalent thoughts about his feelings for Odette, I have been struck by the thought that he is obsessed. I originally think of this in a psychiatric way. He has an obsession. However, if I step back and look at it from the spiritual angle (i.e. Celtic belief) then the definition of obsession changes some.Obsession, from Latin obsidere (to besiege), is a form of insanity caused, according to traditional belief, by the persistent attack of an invading spirit from outside the individual. Figuratively, Odette's spirit persistently attaches Swann's. Obsession is the opposite of possession, control by an invading spirit from within. Swann frequently seeks to possess Odette (that part of time he does not spend with her becomes an obsession but he is seeking to account for that lost time as well) Both, obsession and possession, however, involve the usurpation of the person's individuality and control of the body by a foreign and discarnate entity. Is Odette not trying to control Swan by controlling his access to her thereby stoking his desire? Is Swann not trying to possess Odette as he tries to account for what she does when they are not together?
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/obsessio....
On Swann's Age. I also like Fionna's comment #204 and imagining Swann in his early 30s feels comfortable.Ian, as for the years in which meeting Odette happened, Proust leaves it more open than just 1877-78. As said in an earlier post, Gambetta's funeral is mentioned in the novel and he died in 1882.
Kalliope wrote: "On Swann's Age. I also like Fionna's comment #204 and imagining Swann in his early 30s feels comfortable.Ian, as for the years in which meeting Odette happened, Proust leaves it more open than 1877-78. As said in an earlier post, Gambetta's funeral is mentioned in the novel and he died in 1882."
Thanks, K, that's why I put it solely as an hypothesis.
1877-78 is based on the chronologies.
Plus, as you say, Proust is treating time in a very elastic manner.
We shouldn't assume that he was consistent.
Hopefully, an hypothesis will allow us to test it and refute it.
Denise wrote: "Obsession is the opposite of possession, control by an invading spirit from within. Swann frequently seeks to possess Odette (that part of time he does not spend with her becomes an obsession but he is seeking to account for that lost time as well) Both, obsession and possession, however, involve the usurpation of the person's individuality and control of the body by a foreign and discarnate entity....."Denise, I liked your contrast between obsession and possession.
Swann was so used to be the one in control, that he does not realize that in his desire to possess, he becomes the one possessed.
Kalliope wrote: "On Charles Ephrussi's role as an Art Historian.http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians...."
Thank you for posting this article, Kalliope.
It helps to fill in the background of the portrait of Swann which we are discovering slowly but intriguingly in Un Amour de Swann.
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "On Charles Ephrussi's role as an Art Historian.http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians...."
Thank you for posting this article, Kalliope.
It helps to fill in the backg..."
Note that the article mentions how he visited the Salon of Mme Straus. She is the same woman as Mme George Bizet, the sitter in Proustitute's comment #151 above.
Ephrussi is the man in top hat in the background of Renoir's:
Denise wrote: "I have a conundrum. As I have read Swann's ambivalent thoughts about his feelings for Odette, I have been struck by the thought that he is obsessed. I originally think of this in a psychiatric way...."
Ummm...were you reading my thoughts? I was about to type a post about how I felt Swann was obsessed. But your post is right along the lines of what I was thinking only better.
Ummm...were you reading my thoughts? I was about to type a post about how I felt Swann was obsessed. But your post is right along the lines of what I was thinking only better.
Kalliope wrote: "Swann was so used to be the one in control, that he does not realize that in his desire to possess, he becomes the one possessed." ... And Odette knows this. (Which is why I think her character was so well done by Proust.) The discussions so far have captured this well. She knows what he wants, and the lengths he will go to get it, and so she can get away with almost anything.
In LD, pg 256: "And so he denied himself those places, taking pleasure in telling himself that it was for her sake, that he chose not to feel things, love things, except with her."
Phillida wrote: "I skimmed the comments looking for the word "obsession," until finally it appeared. What I read is obsession, possession, and jealousy. These, and not love, seem to me to be Swann's way, and the ..."In that case, I feel I must put on my devil's advocate hat and ask, is obsession such a different thing than love? It seems to me that obsession is simply the degree to which something occupies your thoughts and feelings. Wouldn't a mother be obsessive about the well-being of her child? Or a dog lover who tries to spend every moment with their dog (you know the type I mean)?
Where is that line between loving/desiring, and obsession? At what point has someone crossed into an unhealthy boundary?
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Marcel Proust: A Life (other topics)Madame Bovary (other topics)
Proust and Signs: The Complete Text (other topics)
But I'm curious what it is about her that inspired his delusion. It went deeper than a simple seduction. Intellectually, he's aware she's not for him, but something about her hooked him to the depth of his being.