The Year of Reading Proust discussion
This topic is about
Within a Budding Grove
Within a Budding Grove, vol. 2
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Through Sunday, 21 Apr.: Within a Budding Grove
Fionnuala wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Another reference to the word literary.What do you think it means in this context?"."
Yes, this is the second use of "littérature" in a pejorative way. I alluded to this second use when we discussed the first in, I think, last week's thread. I would say this second case is even more clearly derogatory.
The Narrator has been describing how Bloch as an intellectual has a tendency to generalize things, and then qualifies Bloch's sentence, quoted above by Reem, as what I would translate as something like "it was just blahblah".
And fully agree with Fionnuala in that the "lui" refers to herself and not to Bloch. She is concerned that his pretentious babble, will damage her reputation.
Unfortunately nothing to add except a thank you for an enjoyable thread.
Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few year's time women will be able to ..."
In spite of what Proust said (and Carter), Mariano Fortuny was not Venetian but Spanish. He was born in the south of Spain to a Spanish family of artists and who travelled to Paris and to Venice.
Marcelita, I think you had posted in your pages the exhibition in NY organized by the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute.
http://spanishinstitute.org/exhibitio...
And his bio at the Museo del Prado site (I think Spanish only).
http://www.museodelprado.es/enciclope...
Several of the works at the Prado, by his father, were donated by him to the Museum.
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: ".But in a similar way to a Cubist painting, it is worthwhile to identify the different planes and sections and fragments and to try and understand how the artist has thereby repres..."I loved this view of ISOLT as a cubist painting! I agree that the use of the word literary is being used in a derogatory manner, and wonder why it is used like this. I did not pick up on Albertine being concerned with being judged by Bloch although I can see this now. I was curious by this description as being literary. Perhaps Proust was labelled as being literary in the same derogatory way and expressed it here.
ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: I was curious by this description as being literary. Perhaps Proust was labelled as being literary in the same derogatory way and expressed it here.I think you may be in the right track. My sense is that Proust was very aware that with this work he was redeeming himself of many accusations.
I should add that the expression "this is just literature" or "this is no more than literature" meaning "this is just blahblah" is also used in Spanish. I encountered it in a newspaper recently and I almost posted it here.
Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: I was curious by this description as being literary. Perhaps Proust was labelled as being literary in the same derogatory way and expressed it here.I think you may b..."
Yes, I would agree that he is trying to redeem himself and perhaps he might have also felt that writing this novel for 14 years others had considered this to have been a waste of his time. Oh there is Marcel "being literary" scribbling in his notebook again. He should do something useful.
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few year's time wome..."
Kalliope, you are correct. Fortuny's Spanish heritage, and his father's decision to settle in Moorish Granada, influenced his art forever. I saw the Queen Sophia-Fortuny show four times and bought the exhibition book. It was Fortuny that led me to start my website...trying to find, and remember, those exquisite one-of-a-kind works of art. One can see in the design and patterns every culture of the Mediterranean.
Now for the Saturday Fashion Pages:
Albertine commenting on Mme. Elstir's clothes, "She's very simply turned out, I admit, but she dresses wonderfully, and to get what you call simplicity costs her a fortune." (page 634)
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...
"At the races, Mlle. Léa had a little white hat and a little white sunshade that were simply enchanting. I don’t know what I wouldn’t give for that little sunshade.” Albertine page 654.
http://www.helleu.org/v_eng/huile_006...
"...an insatiable desire to see there and then with my own eyes white linen dresses and flags against the sea..." Narrator (pp. 657-8)
http://www.helleu.org/v_eng/huile_005...
"You see, there are very few good couturiers at present, one or two only, Callot-although they go in rather too freely for lace-Doucet, Cheruit, Paquin sometimes. The others are all ghastly." Elstir (page 655)
You can 'page through' this book and see all the Paris designers of Paris.
http://archive.org/stream/lescreateur...
“So, there's a vast difference between a Callot dress and one from any ordinary shop?” I asked Albertine.
“Why, an enormous difference...Only, alas! what you get for three hundred francs in an ordinary shop will cost two thousand there. But there can be no comparison; they look the same only to people who know nothing at all about it.” Elstir (page 665)
Callot
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...
Doucet
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...
Close-up:
http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages...
Cheruit
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/...
Pacquin
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/...
J.A. wrote: "Beyond POV, there are also different "personas": the poet, the art critic, the social critic, the satirist, etc."Yes, J A, good point and not to forget the fashion enthusiast....
Wonderful links, Marcelita, especially the one to that book from the Éditions du Figaro. Amazing to be able to leaf through it so easily.
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few ..."
Marcelita, thankyou.. These are just in time for Sunday best tomorrow...!!!
Les Créateurs de la Mode is wonderful...
I forgot to post that I received about 5 days ago the Chicago/Metropolitan catalogue... It is a treasure..
Kalliope wrote: "Eugene wrote: "@Fionnuala, messages 15 & 29@Kalliope, messages 27 & 30
As you know, there are a minimum of 3 narrators in ISOLT: the 1st person younger Narrator, the 1st person older Narrator, th..."
I am so glad to see the different POV confirmed. I was confused at times and wondering if I had not missed something. It seems odd that the author could have gotten away with such a departure from convention. It must have been intentional.
Fionnuala wrote: not to forget the fashion enthusiast.Yes! Clothes do make the person (especially in that time and space when clothes were a way to mark a person's socio-economic place in society). It was interesting that the Bloch sisters' way of dress is described as being kind of slutty. The female reputation seems to be a big part of the Balbec section. Connected to this, the concern for how much or how little you can dress at a seaside resort. Like the description of Saint-Loup's dress:
"Dressed in a clinging, almost white material such as I could never have believed that any man would have the audacity to wear..."
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few ..."
J.A. wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: not to forget the fashion enthusiast.
Yes! Clothes do make the person (especially in that time and space when clothes were a way to mark a person's socio-economic place in societ..."
What a great link, Marcelita.
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few ..."
I can just imagine the thrill of getting dressed in such gorgeous outfits! Thanks for sharing them Marcelita. So pretty!
I'm sprinting breathlessly to catch up with you here, a stitch in my side and red in the face.And then this afternoon WHOOSH! The narrator ruminating on portraits of Odette, well that's OK because he may have seen these pictures of her, but then it suddenly occurs to him that Elstir is the painter, and makes that connection with the ridiculous and perverse painter who had been adopted by the Verdurins.
"Je lui demandai s'il les avait connus, si par hasard ils ne le surnommaient pas alors M.Biche."
It's as if the ground opened up under my feet and I found myself falling, like Alice in Wonderland, down a deep deep hole in reality!
Yes, yes, I know you've been over this ground. I'm not the only one who's paying attention here I know. But it's amazing, because he collapses the narrator planes into each other. What the young narrator knows at the age of what? 16, 17 did we say? is what only the older narrator can possibly know. It's as if he's a time traveller, has future knowledge. Because surely (I mean I don't know, but assume) that Love of Swann's was either told to the narrator much later, not when he is still hardly more than a child himself, or was all created by the narrator of this seven volume novel we're reading - and the young narrator is a figure created by that older narrator, so how can young narrator know what old narrator knows?
It is the most fantastic collapsing of these narrative planes, which for me has the effect of throwing up into a spotlight the fictionality of the text, it points to the fact that this is a fictional world we're in, and one where we cannot expect the same rules to apply as in the world we (think we) know.
Sorry to revive something you've already talked about, but I'm just so flabbergasted by this kind of 'metafiction', a reference to storytelling, a pointing up of its artificiality, so modern. Love it.
Love your very 'cubist' reaction. See points Eugene and Kalliope made above...
Karen wrote: "I'm sprinting breathlessly to catch up with you here, a stitch in my side and red in the face.And then this afternoon WHOOSH! The narrator ruminating on portraits of Odette, well that's OK becaus..."
Very well expressed Karen.. The surprise of the week is what I meant in #2. I was also floored, but given it was early in the week, did not want to discuss it yet.
And the extraordinary way in which the ambiguity (mixing the Swann's very personal experiences and thoughts with the Narrator's own) that we discussed in the Amour de Swann section, has been folded in, seamlessly, into being the Narrator's own, is just so baffling...!!
I like your "time traveller" notion.
Marcelita wrote: ""You see, there are very few good couturiers at present, one or two only, Callot-although they go in rather too freely for lace-Doucet, Cheruit, Paquin sometimes. The others are all ghastly." Elstir (page 655) You can 'page through' this book and see all the Paris designers of Paris.
http://archive.org/stream/lescreateur..."
Leafing through those pages and seeing all the whaleboned matrons with flamboyant headwear mostly makes me think of Margaret Dumont in those old Marx brothers films, or maybe Hermione Gingold in Vincente Minnelli's film Gigi.
I think we're being forced to stop thinking of this 'je' as a unity, a self. Wasn't it Auden who spoke of Kafka as an I without a self? We've already noted that there are multiple narrating 'je's - so we're back with the theme of fragmentation of self, self as created by our memories, perceptions: and here it is an autonomous self which is created within the narration. It is both narrator and protagonist, but not really either of those. This 'je' is a fiction. Proust could only arrive at any sense of self through narrating?There was a a wonderful image, actually in last week's reading. about the tide of genius washing over life, and the metaphor of the course of a river reappearing in its bed when the tide recedes - life taking its course again. It's almost as if the narrator feels that he will not survive the end of the book.
Karen wrote: "I think we're being forced to stop thinking of this 'je' as a unity, a self. Wasn't it Auden who spoke of Kafka as an I without a self? We've already noted that there are multiple narrating 'je's -..."Very perceptive Karen. In Carter's bio it says precisely that. Proust was running against his own clock when writing this.
Karen wrote: This 'je' is a fiction.All 'je' is a fiction, which, I think, is Proust's point. Just as "she/he" is a fiction, subject to our own perception, time, memory triggers, situation, mood at any one time, etc. We're all in flux and the idea of single narration a fantasy.
I want to return the Narrator's first mention of Elstir:They were soon to strike me all the more forcibly inasmuch as Mme de Sévigné is a great artist of the same family as a painter whom I was to meet at Balbec and who had such a profound influence on my way of seeing things: Elstir. ML p. 315
Obviously this is the older Narrator speaking as he knows the younger Narrator's future.
In English "seeing" means perceiving by the eye, but it also means understanding by the mind which would be communicable in language. Proust and the Narrator are writers using language, not painters like Elstir using paint, to make their pictures. What we read in ISOLT is language that describes understanding or misunderstanding by the mind.
Let me go again to an example of the influence on 'seeing' that Elstir had on the younger Narrator, message 23, when he says that while he looked at the sea before he'd excluded the contemporary context of what he saw, "the bathers", "the yachts"; he says that no longer did he screen his eyes with his hands while looking at the sea to shut out the "wearisome improvements of industrial civilization", or the context. p. 657… ML
Seeing text with context was a "profound influence" of Elstir.
To see 'seeing' in writing we return to Swann's Way, to the Martinsville steeples seen from Dr. Percepied's carriage (described by Proust in the voice of the younger narrator) as to what the Narrator experienced (their context) as he was looking at the steeples, then the juvenile fragment, reproduced here, that the Narrator wrote of them which was almost devoid of context.
A real mystery is from what point in time does the older Narrator write; is it from Volume 7 Time Regained or preceeding that, unless identified by an occurance that can be dated in the narrative it's unknown.
Is there anyone else who finds the story of the grandmother's drawing master ambiguous?I assume it's meant to show that all those good ladies are quite wrong to think that the girl resembles the drawing master since he only ever saw her mother with her hat on. But then why, in the very same sentence, is he referred to as the father?
"Je ne sais pas, répondit le père. Je ne l'ai jamais vu qu'en chapeau."
Funny, anyway.
I see even more fragmentation of the self as the narrator sets off to Elstir's little morning reception to meet Albertine. He examines how certain elements work in him, as if he is detached from them, as if they are forces that are not in his control; intelligence, volonté, sensibilité - parties de notre moi. At war with one another in him.
Eugene wrote: "A real mystery is from what point in time does the older Narrator write; is it from Volume 7 Time Regained or preceeding that, unless identified by an occurance that can be dated in the narrative i..."Absolutely. If the figure being narrated, the one who appears in the novel is so detached from real time and detached from events then the place that the older narrator is writing from is even more foggy. Impossible to situate in time or place. So far, anyway.
Marcelita, thank you for those wonderful links. The ones from the Met are phenomenal; you can zoom in close, get a back or side view - and see similar products. All that's missing is the function to choose the size and payment method!!
Karen wrote: I assume it's meant to show that all those good ladies are quite wrong to think that the girl resembles the drawing master since he only ever saw her mother with her hat on.I think the father who never saw the woman without her hat on is the father of one of the ladies who had set up the annuity and not the girl's father, the drawing master.
Karen wrote: "Eugene wrote: "A real mystery is from what point in time does the older Narrator write; is it from Volume 7 Time Regained or preceeding that, unless identified by an occurance that can be dated in ..."Absolutely. If the figure being narrated, the one who appears in the novel is so detached from real time and detached from events then the place that the older narrator is writing from is even more foggy. Impossible to situate in time or place. So far, anyway.
This question is one which I think is going to become more and more relevant as we read further. I'm glad it has been raised as I will read in future with more alertness for the difference in the narrator's younger and older self.
As to the story of the drawing master's daughter, I think there was no doubt that she was his daughter since she looked like him. I understood that the 'père' who brought her to visit the ladies who had agreed to pay her allowance was a priest from the orphanage where the child lived since her mother was dead and her father was described as 'demi-mort'. That the priest said naively that he had only ever seen the mother with her hat on must mean he hadn't ever slept with her but that's only my guess....
J.A. wrote: "I think the father who never saw the woman without her hat on is the father of one of the ladies who had set up the annuity and not the girl's father, the drawing master."
Well, I wasn't sure to begin with if it was the girl's father, because I understood he'd died, so how could he bring his daughter to see the ladies? But I checked back again: this setting up of the annuity happened in the final months of the drawing master's life.
He's referred to as 'the father', which implies the only possible one, doesn't it?
I think we have to look back at the context in which this anecdote is told. The narrator has been writing about how we create the feeling of love ourselves, and it needs very little to go on in order to arise, and not much more to keep going, even in those affairs that have been consummated.So if the père was a completely uninvolved holy father from an orphanage, then this whole anecdote kind of loses all sense doesn't it?
Lordy, does that mean she kept her hat on? Joe Cocker style?
Or maybe it means that the father never really looked at his mistress.
Yes, I think it must mean that he never really looked at her properly after the first time he met her, when she probably did have a hat on. The public figure with hat was the surface onto which he projected all the feelings he had for her, the roles she should play for him, so that any other images that came between that first meeting and her death were never stored away in his memory.
Marcelita wrote: "The fashion pages tucked in this weeks's reading:"But I hear that a Venetian artist, called Fortuny, has rediscovered the secret of the craft, and that in a few year's time women will be able to ..."
Fortuny´s dresses wil be modernby todays standards.They are minimalistic and chic.I´ve seen some in your blogspot if I´m not mistaken,
@Fionnuala & Karen: I think we need to ask Proust for a rewrite on the pere section. He obviously needed us as beta readers. ;)
ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Another reference to the word literary.What do you think it means in this context?"Bloch said of her:"She is outstretched on her couch, but in her ubiquity has not ceased to frequent simultane..."
"vague golf courts and dubious tennis courts" that man has the tongue of a viper :)
Thank you all for the links and pictures in this forum it makes my reading more intersting.The proustproject.blogspot is great.
Kalliope wrote: Another is “la petite phrase”..... comme une phrase de Vinteuil qui m’avait enchanté dans la Sonate et que ma mémoire faisait errer de l’andante au finale.... So, it fascinated the Narrator and not Swann, and which now turns out to belong, once the Narrator has had the chance to explore the actual score, to the Scherzo (possibly a third or final movement), instead of the Andante (presumably middle movement).Here is the sentence in question:
Then, just as a phrase of Vinteuil which had delighted me in the sonata, and which my recollection allowed to wander from the andante to the finale, until the day when, having the score in my hands, I was able to find it and to fix it in my memory in its proper place, in the scherzo, so this mole, which I had visualized now on her cheek, now on her chin, came to rest for ever on her upper lip, just below her nose. ML p. 624
Recall that the Narrator has heard the sonata before chez Swann and that a phrase delighted him is not surprising, as we know a phrase, perhaps not the same one according to the sentence, delighted Swann.
No matter. Note that a wandering "phrase of Vinteuil" is likened (it is a trope, a simile be exact) to the 'wandering' mole on Albertine's face which the Narrator has had trouble fixing. The sentence is about the mole and the younger Narrator is speaking.
The passage about strolling with Albertine in which the sentence appears is also spoken by the younger Narrator; the sentence continues until Proust changes to the older Narrator mid-sentence keyed by the words, "until the day when, having the score in my hands..." The future is foretold.
By Proust's accepted convention--the rules of genre that apply to realism--only the older Narrator or Proust himself can know what is ahead for the younger Narrator.
Karen wrote: "I think we have to look back at the context in which this anecdote is told. The narrator has been writing about how we create the feeling of love ourselves, and it needs very little to go on in ord..."You are right Karen. I did look back at the earlier context this morning, having just hastily reread the main scene late last night, and I realize that my interpretation of the anecdote was wrong. The keywords are that "Il en est (des amours) qui non seulement peuvent se former mais subsister autour de bien peu de choses." And later we are told that the drawing master's love was so great for this mistress that he died of it. It was in the last months of his life that the grandmother and the others came to the assistance of his daughter so he was the 'père' who took her to thank them and he was indeed the one who hadn't even seen his mistress without her hat. So his love was indeed based on 'bien peu de choses'. And notice how the grandmother's humanity is underlined once again in this scene.
Eugene wrote:Recall that the Narrator has heard the sonata before chez Swann and that a phrase delighted him is not surprising, as we know a phrase, perhaps not the same one according to the sentence, delighted Swann.
That he was familiar with the sonata from hearing it chez Swann is not surprising but it is the stress on the word 'phrase' that confuses. We need to imagine Swann telling of his fascination with that 'phrase' in the presence of the young narrator because that scene was never recounted. Interesting that we are required to supply missing text ourselves...
I'm also more aware now of the difference between the experience of reading this work for the first time and rereading it later as you and others are doing. A la Recherche is a bit like an onion and as the layers are peeled back, we cover the same ground again and again but with different details revealed. I can well imagine that in some future section, that scene of Swann explaining the 'petite phrase' to the young narrator may actually be recounted.
Eugene wrote: "Kalliope wrote: Another is “la petite phrase”..... comme une phrase de Vinteuil qui m’avait enchanté dans la Sonate et que ma mémoire faisait errer de l’andante au finale.... So, it fascinated the ..."I think that it is precisely because Proust has chosen not to write his novel in the Realist or in the Naturalist traditions that "la" petite phrase (not "une" petite phrase) has been transferred from Swann to the Narrator.
This is all part of the fragmentation of the self that Karen was discussing above, that is often a characteristic of Modernist literature, although here we are tracking the particular way in which Proust goes about it.
Kalliope wrote: I think that it is precisely because Proust has chosen not to write his novel in the Realist or in the Naturalist traditions that "la" petite phrase (not "une" petite phrase) has been transferred from Swann to the Narrator.You make me chuckle, thank you...the beauty of today's world is that you can think anything you want "....comme une phrase de Vinteuil..."
I'm sure you'll all be vastly gratified to know that I have managed to catch you all up. And I have at last found the gâteaux instruits and the tartes bavardes - priceless!I also love how the narrator is so convinced, so utterly convinced that Gisèle is panting for him - showing us how love can form itself autour de bien peu de choses.
Has anyone else noted how seldom we actually hear the narrator speak? He mostly just reports what he said, but rarely the actual words.
Vastly gratified and hugely impressed.The issue of the narrator's speaking was raised in last weeks discussion, I think and if I remember correctly, Charlus was the first person to whom he offered direct speech. I remember thinking that might be significant....
Eugene wrote: "Kalliope wrote: I think that it is precisely because Proust has chosen not to write his novel in the Realist or in the Naturalist traditions that "la" petite phrase (not "une" petite phrase) has be..."Yes, you are right Eugene and in this extract the sentence is “comme une phrase”. I was at work and did not have the book when I wrote the comment.
But as the Narrator would say: “Probablement ce qui fait défaut, la première fois, ce n’est pas la compréhension, mais la mémoire”.
And rereading the way he accounts his discovering that the phrase was not, as he thought, in the andante but in the scherzo, and also bearing in mind an earlier discussion of the understanding of the phrase in the context of the difficulties of understanding music, and the need of memory for this understanding because it is a self-referential art, this extract has interest if it is yet another development of a familiar element, la petite phrase from Swann and Odette, that shifts positions and not just movements.
This is becoming a familiar pattern in this whole work, the transformation and dislocation of perceptions and their representation.
But no one possesses Proust, as may be not even himself did, and he probably knew this because “je ne la possédai jamais tout entière: elle ressemblait à la vie”
Karen wrote: "I'm sure you'll all be vastly gratified to know that I have managed to catch you all up. And I have at last found the gâteaux instruits and the tartes bavardes - priceless!I also love how the nar..."
Well done Karen.
And yes, as Fionnuala says, the direct speech was discussed and though it does not appear often, there were a few cases in which what he says is in inverted commas.
wow. Wow. WOW. This level of analysis and interpretation is simply astounding. I think ISOLT as a novel is read at different levels of understanding. There are those of us who read it at a very superficial level and can still enjoy it. Others who try to come up with theories that allow the novel to resonate in a meaningful manner, and then those of you who bring such vast knowledge with you to your reading of ISOLT that you see it from all those amazing cubist angles.I ask myself, did you understand those posts and I think at least it got me to think differently than I did before.
The more you bring to the table, the more you get out of the novel. I tip my hat to you seasoned, experienced readers!!!
Kalliope wrote: This is becoming a familiar pattern in this whole work, the transformation and dislocation of perceptions and their representation.I just finished listening to the Mar 25th lecture Proust in 1913 given by Antoine Campagnon; he was talking about "absence and presence" (according to the translator) likening what a character found out (became present) was said when he was absent was like 'falling through a looking glass' (translator) & cites interactions with Bloch, Uncle Adolf, Norpois, etc. in what we've read so far, then Swann on the omnibus with Mme Cottard, "your ears must be burning..." all Odette talked of was you.
M Campagnon says that this "absence and presence" theme or subject is a regular occurrence in ISOLT, in other words Proust intended it and M Campagnon goes no further than what Proust writes on the page (or pages as he is familiar with unpublished versions); here about "Our social personality is a creation of other people's thoughts..."
M Campagnon is not seeing "a familiar pattern" in Proust, he is not guessing, but he does say that often Proust describes the effects of an action/situation and does not speak of its causes (they've been omitted and are in unpublished versions) leaving the first time reader to guess.
Perhaps these omissions in some way amplified or caused "the transformation and dislocation of perceptions and their representation" that you suspect. But too, maybe they're true.
As M Campagnon says "What can you say new about Proust" but everybody hears music differently.
Eugene wrote: "As M Campagnon says "What can you say new about Proust" but everybody hears music differently."Yes to differently!
There may be nothing 'new' to say but there is so much for us to discover 'anew' and that is why we seek to read the original text with a fresh eye instead of skipping straight to the many dissections of this work which have been done already.
It is the pleasure to be got from each fresh discovery which drives us, and, in answer to
@Reem's point above, each of us, in our individual readings of Proust will have an entirely 'new' experience, unique and valuable to each of us.
Fionnuala wrote: "Eugene wrote: "As M Campagnon says "What can you say new about Proust" but everybody hears music differently."Yes to differently!
There may be nothing 'new' to say but there is so much for us to..."
Absolutely, everybody does hear music differently.I believe that we are trying to do with ISOLT is to try to experience in ourselves what the narrator has felt, as written by Proust. We're trying to see if we can see the way he sees. But, for many of us, we lack the knowledge base to do so because we haven't lived in that era, haven't read the books he read, the music he listened to, the plays, the travels, the people he's met...so we're seeing through very foggy glasses.What this group has done, is point out those parts that need more depth of understanding which helps us to travel through this novel.
The music we hear is when what we know to be true mixes with what Proust shares with us about what he knows to be true and how it affects the way we see the world, the people around us.
I think that if we just pray at the altar of Proust, we miss out on what we( having read so many other authors) bring to our reading. Proust may open the door, but it is we who walk through it.
"Bloch said of her:"She is outstretched on her couch, but in her ubiquity has not ceased to frequent simultaneously vague golf-courses and dubious tennis courts."
He was simply being "literary," of course, but in view of the difficulties which Albertine felt that it might create for him with friends whose invitations she had declined on the plea that she was unable to move, it was quite enough to make her take a profound dislike to the face and the sound of the voice of the young man who said these things."(MKE 629)..."
I think the Narrator means this is just Bloch's typical high flown and exaggerated prose style.
But the translation here doesn't seem right to me. It was the difficulties which Albertine felt that it might create for 'her' rather than for 'him'.
The problem is that the indirect pronoun, 'lui' is the same in French for masculine and feminine but it is always clear from the context.
And here is what Bloch said in French for the fun of it, because it is funny, especially because he has used the longest words he can think of tp say something quite ordinary:
"Elle est sur sa chaise longue, mais par ubiquité ne cesse de fréquenter simultanément de vagues golfs et de quelconques tennis."
And this must be one of the only occasions when a translation into English is longer than the original French - it's usually the opposite.