Through Sunday, 24 Mar.: Within a Budding Grove

[Kalliope]

Amelia wrote: "Thank you for the links in message 147. They are perfect to enjoy with a glass of wine - or two! And the painting above is stunning!"

Make it two!

[Ce Ce]

Karen wrote: "Grrrrrrrrr. I feel like the child in The Emperor's New Clothes. I really don't know why I'm reading this right now. Fionnuala, you had Gilbertitis last week, but I have a MASSIVE bout of it this we..."

Karen...I just finished this section last night. It took some time because I had decided the narrator had the emotional maturity of a gnat...and I could barely contemplate his "onandonandonandon"ness! I was thinking if the point is for us to physically, emotionally and spiritually feel his misery I promise I get it. Then the sun broke and he wrote that luscious passage of Odette and I forgave the previous bazillion pages of self-absorption.

I'm so glad you are feeling better...

[Eugene]

I remember certain passages from the times I'd read A l'ombre...before, and those I'd forgotten are now new. The narrators encounter with the milk girl at the early morning stop of the train to Balbec is something I'd looked forward to reading again:

"I felt in her presence that desire to live which is reborn in us whenever we become conscious anew of beauty and of happiness."

In this passage there is a memorable amalgam of reasons for living, terms of Kantian aesthetics, happiness, habit with a capital H, death, desire, change & parting. As Proust wrote it, the Narrator matures, he sees living, if not happiness, in a parting, in death; Proust lets the reader see through the Narrator's more mature eyes. The train leaves...

[Marcus]

Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Eugene and Marcelita,

I have succumbed and ordered the NY catalog!.. it may take some time to get here.

I wonder now that this is not a good time to visit the M..."

a gorgeous painting

[Fionnuala]

Yes the Sorolla is indeed a remarkable painting - one girl, expansive like an open umbrella, the other one more severe like a tightly furled umbrella.

[Patricia]

PIGEON VOLE sung by Charles Trenet my great-auntee Renee Rose favourite bard :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Epwd...

she had spend much of her early youth using her inherited money on the Grande Corniche

[Patricia]

I read the Ruskin had influenced Proust-in one of the posts here- and that when Proust translated Ruskin into French with his mother´s help he was even more so.I can see how that comes aobut in ISOLT vol. II as Marcel connecting art with society and nature is constant.

[Kalliope]

Patricia wrote: "PIGEON VOLE sung by Charles Trenet my great-auntee Renee Rose favourite bard :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Epwd...

she had spend much of her early youth using her inherited money on the..."

Patricia, I loved the song.. And I found a CD of Charles Trenet with this song in it which I have put in my basket.

[Kalliope]

Patricia wrote: "I read the Ruskin had influenced Proust-in one of the posts here- and that when Proust translated Ruskin into French with his mother´s help he was even more so.I can see how that comes aobut in ISO..."

Yes, some of us read Ruskin as Preliminary last Nov-Dec before we started this year with Proust. I also plan to read his translation La bible d'Amiens.

[Kalliope]

Fionnuala wrote: "Yes the Sorolla is indeed a remarkable painting - one girl, expansive like an open umbrella, the other one more severe like a tightly furled umbrella."

Fionnuala, you do have an eye.. perfect association between each "parasol" and their respective ladies.

[Kalliope]

Marcus wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Eugene and Marcelita,

I wonder now that this is not a good ti..."

Marcus, I posted another Beach scene by Sorolla in the following week thread which I think also illustrates well Proust's time.. although the light is more from a Mediterranean beach than from one in the Atlantic...

[Kalliope]

Eugene wrote: "I remember certain passages from the times I'd read A l'ombre...before, and those I'd forgotten are now new. The narrators encounter with the milk girl at the early morning stop of the train to Bal..."

Yes, some passages in the Balbec section, particularly more at the beginning are almost like poems.

[Marcus]

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Yes the Sorolla is indeed a remarkable painting - one girl, expansive like an open umbrella, the other one more severe like a tightly furled umbrella."

Fionnuala, you do have an ..."

yes, and the one with the open parasol is emanating light blue from her heart area

[Marcus]

Kalliope wrote: "Marcus wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Eugene and Marcelita,

I wonder now that this is not a good ti..."

Marcus, I posted another Beach scene by Sorolla in the followi..."

yes, another beauty - perhaps the same two women?

[Kalliope]

I found the one on the cover of my Kindle edition for the second volume. They have cropped the section with the girl for the cover.



it is less "finished"

[Patricia]

ssage 45: by Patricia (last edited Mar 27, 2013 12:31pm) Mar 27, 2013 12:26pm
More Faber-Castells-N°2=HB-pencil scribbled on the margin of the Budding Girls text:

If you read the opposite of what P says about Bergotte you´ll find exactly Proust´s "Ars Poetica" i.e. what P thinks real art is whether in painting,writing etc.

The Narrator is quite manipulative with Gilberte when they stop seeing each other the way he writes these last minute notes saying he is "desolée" but he won´t be able to see her.I bet she knows exactly the game he is playing being the daughter of Odette and Swann and having characteristics of both personalities.

Loved the metaphor on Odette living the "intimacy of her pearls" like other women show their jewels because she wanted to look beautiful in negligée as well as in a ball dress like the great coutesan she has been,a metaphor that is quite real. In the same way that she likes to use flowers as if they had been just lying around when really she is "producing" a theatrical scene. Really this character is quite histerical -in the psichological sense- with her "five o´clock tea" and all that nonsense."Some roles are so repeatedly represented as to be part of them" (my trans.).I like how Odette stands with her back to the glitting samovar.She is real actress.

Mme Verdurin is a witch she asks Odette if she is not afraid living in such a distant neighborhood,so cold and damp and maybe full of rats! And as she was leaving giving Odette a lecture on how to decorate with gladioli (which btw i think are awful,at least in my country, except in funeral wreaths which are worse still).

Bontemps,Cottard,Verdurin and Odette are such a sisterhood of mean-petit-bourgeois-reptile-tongued witches... AND NOW I´VE SAID IT! ;)

I wonder sometimes if it´s not Proust who puts his ideas in their lips.

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