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, 14 Apr.: Within a Budding Grove
Richard wrote: "During the glass reflection passage there's this:And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a rosy touch would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that had gone to sle..."
Great!
Richard wrote: "During the glass reflection passage there's this:And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a rosy touch would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that had gone to sle..."
BEAUTIFUL!
Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...But from what I have noticed, the usage of the word is varied... it can be a warm shadow, or a cold shadow, or the hidden soul of a person... ..."Eugene's comment about Proust knowing Kant, Kalliope's (corrected to Fionnuala's)
"...philosophy with narrative overlay..." and Schopenhauer surfacing later, brings this back to mind:
"Proust: 'Should I write a novel? A philosophical essay?...'"
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
"The same *notebook also contains the astonishing question that Proust posed to himself in 1908, the year he began work on “À la Recherche”: “Faut-il en faire un roman, une étude philosophique, suis-je romancier?” (“Should it be a novel, a philosophical study, am I a novelist?”) " http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs...
You can read those sentences in this first large *Kirby, on page ____.
You can click through the pages here:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1...
Richard wrote: "During the glass reflection passage there's this:And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a rosy touch would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that had gone to sle..."
Richard, you have such a great eye, we don't need Eric.
In this video from The Frick, you can see Lady Meux, but the focus is on Whistler's "Symphony in Grey and Green, The Ocean."
"Joanna Sheers discusses Whistler's "Symphony in Grey and Green, The Ocean" from the exhibition 'Portraits, Pastels, Prints: Whistler in The Frick Collection,' June 2 through August 23, 2009."
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=hVjG8M...
Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts of the boats compete with the roofs...""...Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit."
Fionnuala, I also am continually working through images and paintings in my mind, not unlike hearing the "little phrase" in my ear.
Typical of Proust...a gathering of images:
"Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit"
http://books.google.com/books?id=d5GS...
Marcelita wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...But from what I have noticed, the usage of the word is varied... it can be a warm shadow, or a cold shadow, or the hidden sou..."Marcelita, it was not me, but Fionnuala who spoke of philosophy with a narrative overlay.
I mentioned how Proust's favorite teacher and subject in the Lycée Condorcet was Philosophy.
Apart from the one posted by Richard above, there are these two other paintings by Whistler at the Frick with a relevance for Proust. Some have been posted here before.The Comte de Montesquiou:
and Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink.
Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts of the boats compete with the roofs..."Posting your picture, Fionnuala:
Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts of the boats comp.."Posting your picture, Fionnuala:"
I hoped you would, Kal.
I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't cracked the html code for posting images into these boxes...
Marcelita wrote: "Fionnuala, I also am continually working through images and paintings in my mind, not unlike hearing the "little phrase" in my ear. Typical of Proust...a gathering of images:
"Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit"
http://books.google.com/books?id=d5GS... "
Yes, me too, Marcelita, and thanks to this article you've posted from Proust's Imaginary Museums, I have many other images to run through in my mind when thinking of 'Le port de Carquethuit'.
Also, I'm pleased that I understood that this whole section with Elstir is about the narrator learning to 'see', whether it is with an artist's eye or a sculptor's.
Funny because I was imagining a more welded image, rather than the detached brushstroke of Derain. But in this book Proust in Perspective: VISIONS AND REVISIONS, the author mentions the work by Ariane Eissen who has compared a draft of this section from a Cahier, to the final and published form. Proust moved from an Impressionistic (more what I imagined) to one of an illusionistic kind..., which would be more in keeping to Derain's art.
http://books.google.es/books?id=_duh4...
Marcelita wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "...philosophy with narrative overlay..." brings this back to mind: "Proust: 'Should I write a novel? A philosophical essay?...'"
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
"
Thank you for this also, Marcelita. I'm going to save it for later as even though I'm now beginning to appreciate the philosophy and the art more than the plot, I still have a childish need to avoid reading anything that might reveal future story details. So I'm skipping the introductions in my editions, any critics comments, reviews, etc until I'm done.
What is really wonderful for me is the mutual support we give each other here on the weekly discussions, the sense of sharing and discovery which each new section offers...
Marcelita wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts of the boats comp..."Marcelita, thank you for this. Will put the book in the Group Shelf. But I will also do as Fionnuala and leave Auxiliary readings for later.. they are very tempting, but I will also postpone them.
Fionnuala wrote: "the sense of sharing and discovery which each new section offers... .."Yes.. I would not have thought of a Derain..
Here is another proposal, Impressionist this time, by Monet and of ... the port of Honfleur...!There is a church too...
Kalliope wrote: "Funny because I was imagining a more welded image, rather than the detached brushstroke of Derain. But in this book Proust in Perspective: VISIONS AND REVISIONS, the author mentions the work by Ar..."This is so interesting, Kalliope. Can we presume from this analysis of the drafts by Eissen that Proust's own taste and understanding evolved during the period between the first drafts and the later ones?
By the way, my footnotes don't offer any commentary on the Carquethuit painting unfortunately but they do say that Proust wrote Bergotte instead of Elstir in the drafts here and then corrected later because in Jean Santeuil, the artist character was called Bergotte.
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Funny because I was imagining a more welded image, rather than the detached brushstroke of Derain. But in this book Proust in Perspective: VISIONS AND REVISIONS, the author mentio..."Yes, it is a fascinating idea.. unfortunately the book makes reference to an article in a publication which is hard to get.
This would be of interest to Eugene also, who is very keen in learning more about Proust's creative process and therefore in being able to track his drafts.
The reference to Eissen's article:
Eissen, Ariane: "Les marines d'Elstir" in Art et Littérature: actes du congrès de la Société française de littérature générale et comparée. Aix-en-Provence. Université de Provence, 1988.
Actually, the preview offered by Amazon for the book that quotes the article (Proust in Perspective) is more complete than the one in Google. It is worth checking out.
Kalliope wrote: "Here is another proposal, Impressionist this time, by Monet and of ... the port of Honfleur...!There is a church too..."
Yes, that steeple could be a mast..
Another visual-detective work.. with Japanese prints this time."... à côté de la mince découpure du soleil rouge et rond comme la lune, un nuage jaune paraissait un lac contre lequel des glaives noirs se profilaient ainsi que les arbres de sa rive, une barre d'un rose tendre que je n'avais jamais revu depuis ma première boîte de couleurs s'enflait comme un fleuve sur les deux rives duquel des bateaux semblaient attendre à sec qu'on vînt les tirer pour les mettre à flot."
Kalliope wrote: "The reference to Eissen's article:Eissen, Ariane: "Les marines d'Elstir" in Art et Littérature: actes du congrès de la Société française de littérature générale et comparée. Aix-en-Provence. Université de Provence, 1988.
Actually, the preview offered by Amazon for the book that quotes the article (Proust in Perspective) is more complete than the one in Google. It is worth checking out. ."
Another I will save till I've finished - I think we are going to need another entire year to read all the auxilliary litterature...
On la "forêt de Brocéliande",mythical forest that first appears in the Norman Roman de Rou and was supposed to be somewhere in Brittany.https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocéli...
shorter version in English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocéli...
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...But from what I have noticed, the usage of the word is varied... it can be a warm shadow, or a cold shadow,..."Yes, I was responding in general to your comment of Fionnuala's...regarding
Kalliope's exquisite perception of "...philosophy with narrative overlay..."
Your point, that philosophy was Proust's favorite class, must never be forgotten.
Marcelita, I would love to take credit for it, but the "exquisite perception" was Fionnuala's in the first place...
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts ...""I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't cracked the html code for posting images into these boxes..."
It's a Mac issue for me, but Kalliope explained it here:
See: Message 34: by Kalliope, Priestess of Proust - added it Mar 27, 2013 05:41am
"In a mac is harder... I normally use Safari but for the images I have to use Firefox.. and when you have the image you like you do the following:
Click on it.
Go to Tools
There go down to Page Info
There click the Tab Media
Then scroll down until you get the image you like.
You drag it to this window text and frame it with the HTML instructions posted.
Beginning of frame:
In a PC it is much easier, since with the right button of the mouse you can find the "copy URL"
There may be a better way, but this is what I found..
Happy image posting...!! By Kalliope
I use Chrome on a MacBook, and to get the URL of an image I click with two fingers on the trackpad. On Safari it's called "Copy image address."I'm going off to look at cherry blossoms today, might have to cram the last few pages of this week's section this evening.
Richard wrote: "I use Chrome on a MacBook, and to get the URL of an image I click with two fingers on the trackpad. On Safari it's called "Copy image address."Thanks, Kalliope, Marcelita and Richard; I have a Mac and will try what you suggest.
Richard wrote: "I use Chrome on a MacBook, and to get the URL of an image I click with two fingers on the trackpad. On Safari it's called "Copy image address."I'm going off to look at cherry blossoms today, migh..."
In a PC it is very easy with the right button of the mouse. With a Mac, I do not succeed copying the URL of the photo with the track pack.
Richard wrote: "During the glass reflection passage there's this:And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a rosy touch would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that had gone to sle..."
Thanks Richard, so much nicer to be able to visualize it like this!!
Marcelita wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...But from what I have noticed, the usage of the word is varied... it can be a warm shadow, or a cold shadow, or the hidden sou..."THank you for that, Marcelita.
Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I love the narrator's analysis of Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit. The painting sounds a lot like André Derain's "Le Séchage des voiles" - the masts of the boats comp..."Thank you for posting it, I was just going to go look for it after you whetted our appetite.
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita, I would to take credit for it, but the "exquisite perception" was Fionnuala's in the first place..."Found Fionnuala's original sentence in message 31!
"But I think that instead of a narrative with philosophical digressions, this is going to be 'philosophy with a narrative overlay.' I quite like this approach."
Thank you for your persistent re-direction back to Fionnuala's keen description of the novel. So concise...so insightful.
Amelia wrote: "It seems from the posts that this week’s reading has had a rather exciting impact on all of us for varied reasons. I too am reading the English translation. I started reading the first volume not...""I wonder if that passage just fell from his pen or if he agonized over it, edited it time and again."
Amelia,
Eugene, Nick Wellings and I marveled at Proust's notebooks at The Morgan exhibit, albeit not together, which was a collective loss as both Eugene and Nick's magnetic energies remind me of walking Kirlian photographs.
When looking at the notebooks, it was obvious that Proust wrote and re-wrote the opening-first sentence many times from 1909 to 1913.
I believe Antoine Compagnon noted 13 different drafts. Here is AC discussing this process:
http://expositions.bnf.fr/proust/albu...
However, Proust would also write with little revisions.
When you have time, you may wish to look at his notebooks and galleys and see how he created the novel.
Search (for example) "Marcel Proust À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs"
Under: Manuscripts
http://gallica.bnf.fr/?lang=EN
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1...
Also this exhibit may interest you:
Marcel Proust: Writing and the Arts (exhibit)
http://expositions.bnf.fr/proust/angl...
Thank you, Marcelita! These are wonderful references!
Actually on my Mac popping up the context menu works more reliably for me when I click an image with two fingers while pressing down the control key. Not very intuitive!
Marcelita shares: "Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit"http://books.google.com/books?id=d5GS..." where the author says:
"But the descriptions of Elstir's marine paintings, especially Le Port de Caruethuit owe a particular debt to Turner, mediated by Ruskin..."
I disagree; I read and see the Narrator's descriptions of Elstir's marine works, as Fionnuala does, as Fauvist; however the 'pictures' of the sea and the sky, the 'hallucinatory' images seen from his window in the hotel room are definitely inspired by Turner. Yet I do agree when Townsend, the author, says that Elstir's function was to teach the Narrator to see as Fionnuala says and as Proust says on p. 315 ML:
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.
Eugene wrote: "Marcelita shares: "Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit"http://books.google.com/books?id=d5GS..." where the author says:
"But the descriptions of Elstir's marine paintings, especially Le ..."
Eugene, at dinner I reflected on your point...about the Fauvists. Suddenly, when the salad course arrived, after the entree, I flashed GREEN.
"The Hawthorns"...I saw the hawthorns in David Hockney's recent paintings.
"Hawthorne Blossom Near Rudston, 2008, David Hockney"
http://normsonline.files.wordpress.co...
David painting in nature:
http://tedsmum.blogspot.com/2012/04/b...
http://daily-norm.com/2012/03/29/para...
"Mr. Hockney achieved a cheery Fauvist immediacy but left behind the hallucinatory illusionism of the realist paintings."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/art...
Marcelita, you are a darling; thank you for the BNF links, I'll 'play' in them when I can; today Dominique has left us to grow vegetables, as planned, after mid-wifeing 317 lambs in the last month leaving me now to wet nurse them, as planned ;-)
Antoine Campagnon in his 3rd lecture at the College de France, Proust in 1913 (Marcelita provided a link to the lectures here), where he reads Swann's Way as a French reader might have read it 100 years ago and mentions the hallucinatory passages in ISOLT, speaking specifically of the first several sentences, but he said they are found throughout the work and written into it.Instead of hallucinations experienced by the Narrator laying on his bed between sleeping and waking; I think we also have a hallucination inspired by several glasses of port at Rivebelle while listening to music in this week's reading.
What is drunkenness but hallucination.
For these tunes, each as individual as a woman, did not reserve, as she would have done, for some privileged person the voluptuous secret which they contained: they offered it to me, ogled me, came up to me with wayward or wanton movements, accosted me, caressed me as if I had suddenly become more seductive, more powerful, richer. p. 534 ML
Interesting how Proust brackets the metaphoric action of the tunes with similes, "…as she would…" and "…as if I had suddenly become…"; in the remaining 6 sentences* of the paragraph he mentions both music and women confusing or blending the two. Port will do that.
*In the sentence following he get Kantian again ...a disinterested feeling for beauty...
Eugene wrote: "Marcelita shares: "Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit"http://books.google.com/books?id=d5GS..." where the author says:
"But the descriptions of Elstir's marine paintings, especially Le ..."
Yes, Eugene, in posts above # 64 and 70, there is a reference to the book
Proust in Perspective: VISIONS AND REVISIONS.
In this book the author mentions an article, in French and in a difficult publiccation to get hold of, an article by Ariane Eissen, that would agree with Fionnuala's take on the painting.
I think you would like this idea also because Eissen is comparing an earlier draft with the final shape of this section.
The best is to look up the book above in Amazon, and do a search inside the book for Eissen. You will see an account of Eissen's findings on how Proust had changed a depiction of a more impressionistic painting to one that corresponds more to the detached and broken brushstrokes as seen in Derain and in other Fauve painters.
Richard wrote: "Actually on my Mac popping up the context menu works more reliably for me when I click an image with two fingers while pressing down the control key. Not very intuitive!"Thank you. Will try with the Control key in the Mac.
I love Mac but that right button for the mice of PCs is very convenient.
Playing catch up here.To help me through I've made the acquaintance of a certain Mr Matthews who apparently completed the project in 2010 and did a blow-by-blow account of it:
http://proustproject.blogspot.de/p/da...
On day 61 he muses about the recommendation Legrandin made to the narrator that the latter should not go to Brittany, a recommendation that Elstir disagrees with. Brittany, Legrandin claims, is an unhealthy place "pour un esprit déjà porté en rêve." Mr Matthews finds this translated as someone who inclines to wistfulness. Seems an odd translation to me, those of you reading in English, was this also translated as wistfulness?
Just wondering.
...for a spirit (not a ghost) already given to (day?) dreaming...So...why not wistfulness?
Scribble wrote: "...for a spirit (not a ghost) already given to (day?) dreaming...So...why not wistfulness?"
Well, personally, I'd say that dreaming is a fairly positive sort of thing, creative, imaginative, you have to have a dream (Oh no! now that South Pacific musical number will play in my head for the rest of the evening) whereas wistfulness is more like nostalgia, sadness, longing for something you cannot have, or regretting something you did, or didn't do and should have.
Funny I was thinking about this again this morning when I woke up...the "esprit" also gives me more of a sense of something less concrete...and Brittany is a place unhealthy for dreamers, and dreamers tend to be pensive, lost in reverie, and wistfulness has the sense of all that, (in 1913 it meant less of melancholic and more of yearning but we seem to have married it with the former over time). And I think the Narrator qualifies as being a considered a dreamy sort who might slip from pensive/reverie/wistfulness (wist meant quiet as well) into a melancholy in Brittany...
Scribble wrote: "Funny I was thinking about this again this morning when I woke up...the "esprit" also gives me more of a sense of something less concrete...and Brittany is a place unhealthy for dreamers, and dream..."Well the Narrator,I have noticed,was trying in several occasions, to see the beach without sun and empty and the sea rough and gray maybe like the opening scenes of the film The French Lieutenant´s Woman.He is a romantic and in romanticism there is all that dark side of melancholy,illness...
Kalliope wrote: "Here is another proposal, Impressionist this time, by Monet and of ... the port of Honfleur...!There is a church too..."
I am catching up with my reading. I thought I had finished this week's reading when I read your postings and your various thoughts on Elstir's painting of the port at Carquethuit.
WHAT? How could I have missed this? The night before last I fell asleep with the Narrator obsessing about the girls and his Grandmother's urging to visit Elstir in his studio. He went and was viewing his sketches. I must have dropped my book open and my husband put the marker in...yesterday I opened to the sight of Albertine and there seemed no awkwardness in continuing! ;-)
Now I have sorted it out and read the lush description of Elstir's painting...and the discussion of the porch at Balbec. Thanks to all of you.
Elstir's work seemed to me to be atmospheric...and descriptive of light and haze...with a flattened perspective...even a hint of cubism in some of the prismatic components. I envision the work as Impressionist with flattened nearly abstract perspective...so beautifully illustrated in Monet's painting of the port of Honfleurs that Kalliope posted.
Hockney's Hawthornes are spectacular! I've not seen those paintings before. I'm filing the link for future reference. However, although perspective is flattened and simplified, in my humble opinion there's an exuberance in stroke and color in the earlier Fauvist movement that belies the melding of sea and land; boat and reflection; boat and abode; amphibious humans; the light after a storm...the storm still present if receding in a patch of black...the light emerging.
The description of Elstir's painting is one of my favorite passages...to think I nearly "slept" through it!
Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Here is another proposal, Impressionist this time, by Monet and of ... the port of Honfleur...!There is a church too..."
I am catching up with my reading. I thought I had finis..."
I was actually thinking of you as I was reading the part about Elstir's painting, knowing how much you would have relished it. I really loved it myself.
Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Here is another proposal, Impressionist this time, by Monet and of ... the port of Honfleur...!There is a church too..."
I am catching up with my reading. I thought I had finis..."
Glad you are catching up CeCe... yes, those sections with Elstir paintings are absolutely wonderful.
I jump when new postings are added from previously read passages, because I am able to re-live those images or see them with a different slant. One never, ever tires of beauty. Thank you Ce Ce for flying me back to Balbec.
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Proust in Perspective: Visions and Revisions (other topics)Proust in Perspective: Visions and Revisions (other topics)
In these final pages of this week's section, I also enjoyed the way Proust used the narrator's sense of disappointment with the church at Balbec as a strategy to enable Elistir/the author to hold forth on the wonders of medieval religious sculpture and the way it provided an illustrated bible for the mostly illiterate congregation.
Plus how interesting that now that he knows her name is Albertine, the previously nameless girl with the polo hat has to disappear forever. Nothing is ever simple in the narator's mind.