The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Swann’s Way
Swann's Way, vol. 1
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Through Sunday, 20 Jan.: Swann's Way
In an earlier post I said that Anatole France was the first contemporary writer mentioned, but I have just noticed that earlier on M. Legrandin had asked the Narrator if he knows the verses by Paul Desjardins (1859-1940): "Les bois sont déjà noirs, le ciel est encore bleu".Paul Desjardins belonged to the André Gide, Jacques Rivière, André Maurois, Martin du Gard circle.
From that cork-lined room, cut off from practically everyone, Proust knew the human heart as no other ever has. In "Swann's Way," with the episode with Uncle Adolphe, after the young boy innocently tells his parents all about it, and says "..I had no thought of causing my uncle any unpleasantness. How could I have thought such a thing, since I did not wish it?" And a bit later he says, "I imagined, like everyone else, that the brains of other people were lifeless and submissive receptacles with no power of specific reaction to any stimulus which might be applied to them..." Think about that; isnt that us all? Notice he does say "everyone" and not "most people."
He certainly knew the shape of the human heart like no other, and more, could xpress it beautifully. Not for nothing did he think to title his book as Intermitencies of the Heart.Out of that episode with Adolphe comes, for me one of the top three (saddest) parts/episodes in Proust. I can't say the others here without spoilers but I think I got thoroughly choked up over a "profound" one that was only a sentence long.....and I still do a little.
But the one I am thining of here is where the young Narrator who's caused a family argument by visiting his uncle and meeting the Lady in Pink. He sees his uncle in the street and just turns his head away from his Uncle's approaching carriage, petrified as to how to greet him, if at all:
"My uncle thought that in doing so, I was following my parents' orders, he did not forgive them, and he died many years later without any of us ever seeing him again." How sad! a single action, and gesture from the young narrator leads to severence, a fracture in the family, unto death. Proust was good at economical, powerful sentences too.
Nick wrote: He sees his uncle in the street and just turns his head away from his Uncle's approaching carriage, petrified as to how to greet him, if at all: How sad! a single action, and gesture from the young narrator leads to severence, a fracture in the family, unto death.Wasn't it shame that had the Narrator averting his eyes? Shame for having broken his promise and gotten his uncle into trouble? That, for me, gave the episode special resonance and circularity.
Yes, shame, but perhaps more. One can imagine him wishing to cry out, or apologise for what he did, perhaps. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing, and Uncle Adolphe thought the young lad was "cutting" him. He didn't know what he was doing either really (visiting his Uncle), until he had done it. The episode marks a small crack in his childhood life. An encounter with the adult world he's yet to enter fully into.
So many great comments and insights here, I'm learning so much...
Just finished the weekly reading and came here to read all the comments.
I'm curious that so many people have said that Proust is non-judgmental, or that his caricatures are presented without judgment. It seems to me that all the pages we read this week were about judging - judging Legrandin after being judged by Legrandin, judging Dr Percepied after Dr Percepied judges Vinteuil; Vinteuil judging Swann after Swann condescends to him; passing judgment on Francoise; Gilbert's snap judgment of the narrator.
To me, it seemed like the narrator ran a list through the flaws of these characters, shining a light on the ugliest facets of their personalities. And then, on page 152 of my Lydia Davis hardback, this beast of a sentence which is hard to parse but delivers a moral on all the moralizing:
"the mean-spirited attitude of men whose behavior those people who despise them the most when contemplating them impartially are quite capable of adopting, when actually playing one of life's vulgar scenes"
i.e., the qualities we most despise in others we display ourselves, when life gets ugly.
I don't see him refraining from judgment. I see him judging and forgiving. Or judging and then explaining, offering some sympathy or insight.
And I thought it was most curious because at the end we have that scene of the narrator on his solitary walks -- first wishing for a woman, so that he can project his fantasies onto her, and then hating the woman for not appearing. To me, this was absolutely horrific; reading over it, I thought, "Well, this is how crimes are committed," because as romantically as he writes the passage, he's having fantasies that are, at best, covetous and possessive in an ugly way.
But having run through the faults of everyone else, I allowed the narrator to have sympathy for himself, too.
I'm curious that so many people have said that Proust is non-judgmental, or that his caricatures are presented without judgment. It seems to me that all the pages we read this week were about judging - judging Legrandin after being judged by Legrandin, judging Dr Percepied after Dr Percepied judges Vinteuil; Vinteuil judging Swann after Swann condescends to him; passing judgment on Francoise; Gilbert's snap judgment of the narrator.
To me, it seemed like the narrator ran a list through the flaws of these characters, shining a light on the ugliest facets of their personalities. And then, on page 152 of my Lydia Davis hardback, this beast of a sentence which is hard to parse but delivers a moral on all the moralizing:
"the mean-spirited attitude of men whose behavior those people who despise them the most when contemplating them impartially are quite capable of adopting, when actually playing one of life's vulgar scenes"
i.e., the qualities we most despise in others we display ourselves, when life gets ugly.
I don't see him refraining from judgment. I see him judging and forgiving. Or judging and then explaining, offering some sympathy or insight.
And I thought it was most curious because at the end we have that scene of the narrator on his solitary walks -- first wishing for a woman, so that he can project his fantasies onto her, and then hating the woman for not appearing. To me, this was absolutely horrific; reading over it, I thought, "Well, this is how crimes are committed," because as romantically as he writes the passage, he's having fantasies that are, at best, covetous and possessive in an ugly way.
But having run through the faults of everyone else, I allowed the narrator to have sympathy for himself, too.
Madame X wrote: "Just finished the weekly reading and came here to read all the comments. I'm curious that so many people have said that Proust is non-judgmental, or that his caricatures are presented without jud..."
There's a lot of obsessive love that borders on hate in the stories. I think that is a better description of the mechanics, judging and forgiving.
Well, I think there's a difference in the way that he judges Francoise &, say, Legrandin.
Francoise is such a fully rounded character that seeing her awful side is only fair. On top of which, after describing her cruelty to the pregnant kitchen made he turns around and cites an example of the narrator performing a very similar kind of sympathy-only-from-afar where he admires grief in books but needles Francoise for mourning Leonie.
With Legrandin, the explanation is an additional cruelty - the paragraph in LD that begins, "And this certainly does not mean that M. Legrandin was not sincere when he ranted against snobs....It was never Legrandin's snobbishness that advised him to pay frequent visits to a duchess. It would instruct Legrandin's imagination ot make that duchess appear to him as being endowed with all the graces. Legrandin would become acquainted with the duchess, filled with esteem for himself because he was yielding to attractions of wit and virtue unknown to vile snobs."
So other people just can't see the "intermediary work of his imagination". Legrandin still seems horrible and ridiculous, but I absolutely recognize that process - that "work of the imagination" - in myself, and so I recognize a bit of myself in Legrandin, which forces me to be a bit more sympathetic.
But we haven't *yet* seen the narrator succumb to that glamor - only its reverse, in fact, by assuming that any friend of his grandmother's must be quite an ordinary person.
Francoise is such a fully rounded character that seeing her awful side is only fair. On top of which, after describing her cruelty to the pregnant kitchen made he turns around and cites an example of the narrator performing a very similar kind of sympathy-only-from-afar where he admires grief in books but needles Francoise for mourning Leonie.
With Legrandin, the explanation is an additional cruelty - the paragraph in LD that begins, "And this certainly does not mean that M. Legrandin was not sincere when he ranted against snobs....It was never Legrandin's snobbishness that advised him to pay frequent visits to a duchess. It would instruct Legrandin's imagination ot make that duchess appear to him as being endowed with all the graces. Legrandin would become acquainted with the duchess, filled with esteem for himself because he was yielding to attractions of wit and virtue unknown to vile snobs."
So other people just can't see the "intermediary work of his imagination". Legrandin still seems horrible and ridiculous, but I absolutely recognize that process - that "work of the imagination" - in myself, and so I recognize a bit of myself in Legrandin, which forces me to be a bit more sympathetic.
But we haven't *yet* seen the narrator succumb to that glamor - only its reverse, in fact, by assuming that any friend of his grandmother's must be quite an ordinary person.
Thank you! And I'm trying to! I think if I counted up all the hours I spent reading this week's quota I would be ashamed - I managed something less than ten pages an hour. And not because I find Proust to be "hard" or "difficult" to read, but because every page is so abundant, I have to stop and make notes or unpack the idea or let the connections unfurl.
Actually, one of the thoughts I have been having over and over again as I read is that this abundance of ideas is what separates a good author from a great one. You can make a very good book with one good idea and a handful of original metaphors. Proust doesn't have to be miserly with his beautiful images or his profound thoughts because he has so many of them. They just go on and on.
Actually, one of the thoughts I have been having over and over again as I read is that this abundance of ideas is what separates a good author from a great one. You can make a very good book with one good idea and a handful of original metaphors. Proust doesn't have to be miserly with his beautiful images or his profound thoughts because he has so many of them. They just go on and on.
On the issue of the narrator wishing he could meet the girl of his dreams as he walks about Combray: my thoughts run along the lines that he is extremely well connected with nature: in fact almost a perfect symbiosis of man and nature, but that when it comes to people, he exhibits a Plato-nian disconnect in the sense that there is some nebulous ideal in a realm he can not reach and in the case of the girl, he is enamoured more of the thought of her than the actual person. He also manifests this pining after an ‘ideal’ in his remiscences over Bergotte and to an extent, Swan. Whereas the hawthorns, say, get an ‘Aritotlean’ treatment. I am also intrigued by the love/hate element brought up in the comments above. Following on from P’s realisation that others do not share his existenz (the episode with uncle Adolphe quoted above), P goes on to say, that his desires’ were never realised, as being shared by othes, or having any existence part from myself’. ...They were in no way connected with nature, with the world of real things, and from now on lost all charm and significance’...
So, it would appear perhaps that he is disillusioned at the discovery of the idea of ‘separateness’, perhaps from one’s ideal, and thus the loss of worldy innocence, and it may be this which prompts him to be resentful in some way.
I've had a sense that the narrator is making preparations for life and love to start in these scenes.Physically, he might have all of the sexual apparatus in place, but there is no one to practise it on. Yet.
So the ideal takes shape in his mind and becomes so intense, that it would probably be oppressive for any man or woman to have to comply with his expectations.
Is it like a female being forced to comply with the anatomically correct and detailed pornographic imagination of the male mind?
And how quickly can a sexual partner bring such a mind back to reality, one by intercourse and two by changing their attitude?
knig wrote: "On the issue of the narrator wishing he could meet the girl of his dreams as he walks about Combray: my thoughts run along the lines that he is extremely well connected with nature: in fact almost ..."
The first time I read the book, maybe because I was younger, I very much sympathized with the narrator. His longing and selfishness. This time around, I'm thinking more about the girls he wishes to objectify, how invisible they are beneath the projection, how the identity of the woman only seems important because he hasn't yet figured out that women are "the interchangeable instruments of a pleasure that is always the same".
It's not a neutral position he's taking, or a purely philosophical one. It causes real harm (already has, in fact, in the Adolphe incident). I really found that passage, and the beauty of it, chilling.
And now that I think about it - that moment when he's hugging the hawthorne bushes, cutting and scraping himself, ruining his new clothes - romancing the flowers, the petals repeatedly described as fabrics of silk and velvet, anthropomorphized into maidens with blushing bodices that can be undone with a breath - and pitying himself?
Really bad sign.
The first time I read the book, maybe because I was younger, I very much sympathized with the narrator. His longing and selfishness. This time around, I'm thinking more about the girls he wishes to objectify, how invisible they are beneath the projection, how the identity of the woman only seems important because he hasn't yet figured out that women are "the interchangeable instruments of a pleasure that is always the same".
It's not a neutral position he's taking, or a purely philosophical one. It causes real harm (already has, in fact, in the Adolphe incident). I really found that passage, and the beauty of it, chilling.
And now that I think about it - that moment when he's hugging the hawthorne bushes, cutting and scraping himself, ruining his new clothes - romancing the flowers, the petals repeatedly described as fabrics of silk and velvet, anthropomorphized into maidens with blushing bodices that can be undone with a breath - and pitying himself?
Really bad sign.
That is a really interesting take on it, MmeX. I can't say I share the interpretation, but I can see how it is a valid point. As to the Adolphe incident: how do you mean it caused harm? I understand by telling his parents he inadvertently caused the rift, but how do you tie in the episode with the notion of objectifying women?P.S. Love your interpretation of the hawthorn hugs, and can see it.
Oh, he says he made the misstep with Adolphe because he assumed his parents would see what he saw and want what he wants.
So, presumably, would he have felt about the girl he never meets.
As for the hawthornes - all this flower imagery - and how divine it's been - but we're about to start a l'ombre de jeunes filles en fleur. Young girls in flower. Blah. It's not even subtle.
So, presumably, would he have felt about the girl he never meets.
As for the hawthornes - all this flower imagery - and how divine it's been - but we're about to start a l'ombre de jeunes filles en fleur. Young girls in flower. Blah. It's not even subtle.
Oh, I see now that this is also the title of his second volume, (which I haven't read). So I guess not too subtle.
Madame X wrote: "...Well, I think there's a difference in the way that he judges Francoise &, say, Legrandin. "To me, there's a difference in the way he depicts Françoise and Legrandin because of an underlying difference in their respective roles in the narrative. The character of Françoise we suspect is based on that of a real person, Ernestine, the cook at his aunt Léonie's house at Illiers. She also represents an entire class of people, servants and country people unacquainted with the slightly more sophisticated and urban world in which the family moves and therefore she is like a foreign country to the Narrator. He explores her, seeking out the mysteries of her culture, which is so different from his own.
Legrandin, and a few other minor characters like the great aunt who always chimes in to the family conversations with a particularly discordant note, seem to me simply strategies Proust uses to highlight attitudes that he wishes to depict and which don't fit with the the personalities he has constructed for the principal characters.
Fragmented thoughts based on reading the section and these comments:
Much was said of the hawthorns. What really struck me after seeing many comments and then finishing the section is just how siginificant a portion of reading the hawtorns took up. Starting with the church and then on the Swann property. As Madame X points out they become a metaphor for his longing.
I cannot at this point see the Narrator as objectifying women in its very negative meaning. This could be because I am male (and also perhaps because I do not know the future of this novel or character). I am seeing this more as his lack of experience but his desire to have said experience. Of a young man near puberty who, yes, thinks of women in a certain way objectively but because to this point that is the only way he knows how. To this point he seems rather isolated from girls his age and lacks the opportunity to know them beyond the "carnal" feelings that he is beginning to feel. Again, having not read beyond this section and not knowing how the Narrator turns out, I would like to think that the actually meeting and having relationships with girls his own age he will find that there is much more to discover beyond the physical realm and that they are not and in fact refuse to be "interchangeable instruments of pleasure".
Much was said of the hawthorns. What really struck me after seeing many comments and then finishing the section is just how siginificant a portion of reading the hawtorns took up. Starting with the church and then on the Swann property. As Madame X points out they become a metaphor for his longing.
I cannot at this point see the Narrator as objectifying women in its very negative meaning. This could be because I am male (and also perhaps because I do not know the future of this novel or character). I am seeing this more as his lack of experience but his desire to have said experience. Of a young man near puberty who, yes, thinks of women in a certain way objectively but because to this point that is the only way he knows how. To this point he seems rather isolated from girls his age and lacks the opportunity to know them beyond the "carnal" feelings that he is beginning to feel. Again, having not read beyond this section and not knowing how the Narrator turns out, I would like to think that the actually meeting and having relationships with girls his own age he will find that there is much more to discover beyond the physical realm and that they are not and in fact refuse to be "interchangeable instruments of pleasure".
Much discussed about symbolism, of course, but one important plot highlight I must bring up is the notion that Swann has gone on some excursion to allow his wife to have other male company? I am yet unsure if this is only the opinion of the characters, or this is truly the lifestyle of the Swann household.
Edit: This makes me think of the presumed illicit affairs of the Vinteuil househould and the Narrator's family's feelings toward his uncle's behavior. That the class distinctions are not entirely about money but also about esteem. I think my natural inclination was to think that the rich were going to only associate with the rich and the middle class were below them as a matter of how much wealth each had. But also here in the upper middle class they are choosing not to associate with certain people based upon their "private" sexual lives.
Edit: This makes me think of the presumed illicit affairs of the Vinteuil househould and the Narrator's family's feelings toward his uncle's behavior. That the class distinctions are not entirely about money but also about esteem. I think my natural inclination was to think that the rich were going to only associate with the rich and the middle class were below them as a matter of how much wealth each had. But also here in the upper middle class they are choosing not to associate with certain people based upon their "private" sexual lives.
Jeremy wrote: "I cannot at this point see the Narrator as objectifying women in its very negative meaning. .."I'm with Jeremy on this. The nature of desire is complex. It is a dominant theme in ISOLT.
Jeremy wrote: "Much discussed about symbolism, of course, but one important plot highlight I must bring up is the notion that Swann has gone on some excursion to allow his wife to have other male company? I am y..."Yes, there's a scandal that was hinted at with Charlus.
Re Swann: I was also bemused by the reference Jeremy brings up. Now, earlier,there was mention that Swann had married this 'madame' for the sake of his daughte, with whom he is besotted, probably to make her 'legitimate''. If thats the case, then it reads like a marriage of convenience and a fully 'open' marriage. How plausible does it sound? Well, having read the Georgiana: Duchess of DevonshireI would say its right on the money. (albeit it the latter refers to England a couple of centuries earlier, but the notion of marriage a la aristocracy mode still stands).The class distinctions I gather are never about money at all, of course I know this quite well from the UK experience.
Fionnuala wrote: "Madame X wrote: "...Well, I think there's a difference in the way that he judges Francoise &, say, Legrandin. "To me, there's a difference in the way he depicts Françoise and Legrandin because of..."
This is why ISOLT is a fascinating read. It reads like an autobiography, but clearly its not. Pessoa coined the term 'heteronym' in 1910, but in fact, this is exactly what Proust is doing in ISOLT. Apropos this, so far in my readig I have not discerned the narrator's name: has he been addressed by name or do we know his family's name at all?
Aloha wrote: "Jeremy wrote: "I cannot at this point see the Narrator as objectifying women in its very negative meaning. .."I'm with Jeremy on this. The nature of desire is complex. It is a dominant theme in..."
Agreed that desire is a complex theme in ISOLT. In fact, I am almost persuaded that the narrator is very pleased with the concept of 'unfulfilled desire' and realises osometimes the latter is a better state than one of 'fulfilled desire'.
I am pretty sure that the family name has yet to be mentioned, and the same for his name.
Nick wrote: "I am pretty sure that the family name has yet to be mentioned, and the same for his name."Agree, it has not. Nor the profession of the father.
It's pretty odd I think, Proust has totally subverted one of the most essential novelistic devices, that of having his narrator named early on. Even in first person POV books, a narrator will be addressed fairly early on, or his name given indirectly. Part of his strategy of us receiving his world through his eyes, I suppose?
Nick wrote: "Yes, his name is rarely mentioned, but last time I said that, Proustitute messaged me to ask me to think about "spoiler-ing" that fact! (and quite rightly I guess, it is a spoiler of a kind!) :D"Okay, I've deleted the comment. The spoilers I was referring to were other elements of the plot though.
I removed my comment too, Richard. can't be too careful!!
And my friend David was just accusing the Proust readers of being gossipy. We, being the souls of discretion, have just proved him wrong! LOL.
It's hard to separate an author from his culture. I mean, no one has remarked upon the fact that while Swann is seeing Odette at the Verdurins' every night, he is having an affair with "a little working girl" and "preferred to spend the first part of the evening with her." Swann has the nerve to be jealous? I love Proust, I really do; and have been reading and rererereading him since I was ten...but still; doesn't anyone else find this a bit offensive?
BTW...has anyone else ever read Jean Santeuil? An early version of ISOLT, "discovered" in the late 1950s. Much as I adore Proust, I cldnt finish it...
I guess it was an open secret, Elizabeth. Men kept mistresses! It (reportedly...) led to more stable marriages.I am about halfway through JS. Let's just say, it's no "Search" :P But, it has moments of beauty. No surprise MP abandoned it. Proustians owe a lot to Bernard de Fallois,who discovered (i.e. closely edited and assembled JS and CSB) into their current states.
When we read a book, we have to consider the time and culture of the author's influence. What we call sexism now in countries where women are liberated may not be considered sexism in that environment.
Aloha wrote: "When we read a book, we have to consider the time and culture of the author's influence. What we call sexism now in countries where women are liberated may not be considered sexism in that environ..."True, it wouldn't - sexism wasn't even a term then, at least not meaning what it means now. But then that doesn't mean sexism and oppression didn't exist, or that we shouldn't see it as wrong - simply that there was less awareness of the implications of certain cultural norms back then. Men could easily see and treat women in a certain way because this was the norm and wasn't challenged.
I wondered about that too, Aloha - if I was judging the narrator too harshly based on standards he couldn't have been aware of or met.
Maybe a little? But mostly not. Proust was gay, for one, which means the fact that the narrator desires women is misleading - there's a reason why the women he desires most, like Gilberte, have men's names. So the sex of the object of his desire is irrelevant.
Also, think of what Richard said - that this style of desire is acceptable if we think of it as a sort of nascent stage, and presume that he'll grow up and out of it. He has no real human girl to shove away his interest in a sort of local spirit or golem to possess and use, to show him that she is a person.
That's totally fair. Children are sort of monstrous & the narrator works with what he's got. (except that he very clearly leaps ahead to that 'instruments of a pleasure that's always the same' line, which is harsh in any day and age).
I still think that image of the narrator scratching himself on the hawthorn bushes and crying for himself crystallizes a lot of the themes of this section we've been reading & invites us to worry.
Maybe a little? But mostly not. Proust was gay, for one, which means the fact that the narrator desires women is misleading - there's a reason why the women he desires most, like Gilberte, have men's names. So the sex of the object of his desire is irrelevant.
Also, think of what Richard said - that this style of desire is acceptable if we think of it as a sort of nascent stage, and presume that he'll grow up and out of it. He has no real human girl to shove away his interest in a sort of local spirit or golem to possess and use, to show him that she is a person.
That's totally fair. Children are sort of monstrous & the narrator works with what he's got. (except that he very clearly leaps ahead to that 'instruments of a pleasure that's always the same' line, which is harsh in any day and age).
I still think that image of the narrator scratching himself on the hawthorn bushes and crying for himself crystallizes a lot of the themes of this section we've been reading & invites us to worry.
Madame X wrote: "I wondered about that too, Aloha - if I was judging the narrator too harshly based on standards he couldn't have been aware of or met.Maybe a little? But mostly not. Proust was gay, for one, whic..."
I think it helps to consider that Proust was gay and to not note that the sex of the object of affection is female. In Proust in Love, it was said that he had a tendency to feel obsessive love, which is in keeping with his nature to feel everything too deeply. This often caused his object of affection (men) to feel suffocated and escape from him. Also, in those days, gay men often have men of the lower classes work for them in more than the normal servant capacity, that is, also as a lover. So, if you consider people being used as an object of pleasure and desire, you would have to think it in terms of the male sex, in Proust's case. Madame X, I think you will have a lot to say about outgrowing that type of intense desire as you read on. :o)
Gail wrote: "Aloha wrote: "When we read a book, we have to consider the time and culture of the author's influence. What we call sexism now in countries where women are liberated may not be considered sexism i..."I think in Proust's case, we can take the male/female equation out of this, and consider more the objectification of the object of desire, male or female. Proust is very well aware of this, in his illustrating throughout the book the mental image of the object of desire, the reality of seeing the object of desire as more than an object, and the evolution of passion in relationships.
Aloha wrote: "Madame X, I think you will have a lot to say about outgrowing that type of intense desire as you read on."
This is a re-read for me & this is one of the things that's changed since my first go-round. My first time, my sympathies followed the narrator. This time, they've branched.
This is a re-read for me & this is one of the things that's changed since my first go-round. My first time, my sympathies followed the narrator. This time, they've branched.
Mme. X and Aloha: Proust once said (and I paraphrase totally) that: the only romantic, sentimental love he had ever felt was for women, and the only physical, sexual love he had ever felt was for men. I don't know about you, but I say: wow.
Elizabeth wrote: "Mme. X and Aloha: Proust once said (and I paraphrase totally) that: the only romantic, sentimental love he had ever felt was for women, and the only physical, sexual love he had ever felt was for m..."I think lust factors strongly in behavior and contributes to objectification of people, male or female. Basically, people can go crazy with lust.
There's also a strong element of the object of our desire having the power to control us, to torture us. That can result in a dangerous infatuation, a blaming and anger.
I'm finding it interesting that thus far, only Swann has appeared without great flaws (excluding the Narrator's mother and grandmother). In fact, his gracious behavior towards Vinteuil was quite remarkable. Swann seems strangely above everything and everyone at Combray, almost as if he were an alter ego of the Narrator. Or perhaps an older, sympathetic counterbalance.
Nick had mentioned that he didn't know what the Narrator's name was. I did a quick Google search which provided an article with that information as well as some other more blatant spoilers. Nick mentioned what you had said earlier about not naming the Narrator. So we both decided to delete our respective comments.
J.A. wrote: "I'm finding it interesting that thus far, only Swann has appeared without great flaws (excluding the Narrator's mother and grandmother). In fact, his gracious behavior towards Vinteuil was quite r..."Ho, ho, ho, read on, read on.
Yes, Richard and I had a little interchange. As you know I am deathly allergic to spoilers and in answer to a question from king, Richard supplied the answer. I wondered if it might constitute a spoiler of sorts. No matter :) we've now given readers a further incentive to get to book five: the quest to find the name!
OK I googled as well. This only serves to confuse matters. So not a true heteronym after all. Yet, not autobiographical. So, some sort of hybrid.
Proustitute wrote: "Nick: I recall saying something else was a spoiler, not his name. :)"It's the orange that's the spoiler!
Ah, in that case, perhaps I misread your message, P. I forget what else I put beside the name :-/
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Anglo Guide to Survival in Quebec (other topics)Proust in Love (other topics)
Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (other topics)
Marcel Proust: Biographie (other topics)
House of Leaves (other topics)
More...
Yes, I agree. My husband says I see him in almost every character, which I deny...with a smile.
Regarding memories and trying to see truth in fiction, it is interesting to read, in Bill Carter's "Marcel Proust: A Life" on pages 26-27, about Ernestine Gallou, (in the Amiot household) who was one of the models for Francoise. Also, Celine Cottin on cooking (surprise awaits) on pages 476-477.