The Year of Reading Proust discussion
This topic is about
The Guermantes Way
The Guermantes Way, vol. 3
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Through Sunday, 9 June: The Guermantes Way
Marcelita wrote: ""...the island in the Bois had seemed to me to be specially designed for pleasure..." I love this photo, Marcelita. Not easy to find.
Marcus wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Bathilde's husband is...Amédée (Amadeus).For more about the grandmother and Mozart...see "Around Proust" by Richard E. Goodkin.
He points out how that name "corresponds" to Aun..."
"So who then is Beethoven...?"
I will do some digging, but the way I read it...the "stark mad" sisters, sent the grandfather a telegram, which had something to do with Beethoven-which is "worth framing." Total mystery, but isn't that why we love to read and re-read Proust? He leaves these crumbs for us to follow.
Marcus wrote: "Yes, and why not "Beethoven", Marcus? not expressing surprise that someone should be called Beethoven but wondering whether this was the name of Narrator's maternal grandfather...seems maybe not..."
The sisters of the grand-mère have made a mistake and written Beethoven instead of Amédée in the telegram... and that is why they say that the telegram is worth framing and that the sisters are mad.
"-- Vous savez ce que ses soeurs nous ont télégraphié? demanda mon grand-père à mon cousin.
-- Oui, Beethoven, on m'a dit; c'est à encadrer, cela ne m'étonne pas.
-- Ma pauvre femme qui les aimait tant, dit mon grand-père en essuyant une larme. Il ne faut pas leur en vouloir. Elles sont folles à lier, je l'ai toujours dit."
Marcelita wrote: "Marcus wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Bathilde's husband is...Amédée (Amadeus).For more about the grandmother and Mozart...see "Around Proust" by Richard E. Goodkin.
He points out how that name "corr..."
Marcelita, I have just posted on this.. We must have written at the same time.
Marcelita wrote: ""...the island in the Bois had seemed to me to be specially designed for pleasure..."I love these photos! I'm just approaching the finish line for this week's reading, and I see some people havejump started next week's. We need to install some speed bumps!
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Marcus wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Bathilde's husband is...Amédée (Amadeus)."I have just posted on this..."
Ah, yes...the neon just flickered and is now blinding my eyes! Wow, for the sisters to confuse the names of the musicians, with the grandfather's..."mad," but so clever of Proust.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "reading, and I se..."Well done, Reem,
I am reading ahead because I am traveling in early July and my reading pace will suffer... but not my Proustian year since I am going to Paris+ Illiers/Combray+Cabourg...!!!
Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "reading, and I se..."Well done, Reem,
I am reading ahead because I am traveling in early July and my reading pace will suffer... but not my Proustian year since I a..."
That's wonderful!!!Enjoy your trip and take some photos!
I haven't read any of your posts yet as I've only covered about twenty pages of this week's reading section but I'm very moved by the telling of the grandmother's death. Not only moved, but in awe at the way Proust plays it out so delicately and respectfully but accompanied by various digressions about the Duc or the Professor or the cousin or the sisters in Combray or the cleric relative. There are so many passages I want to quote but I'm away from home and from my trusty computer so I'll refrain, but the image of the duc with his unfinished bow still waiting to be completed, and M Dieulafoy whose beautiful expression is suitably toned down to suit the circumstances, and the cleric spying on the sincerity of the Narrator's grief are unforgettable. Then there is the Françoise sub plot playing in the background. All so, so interesting.
Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "reading, and I se..."Well done, Reem,
I am reading ahead because I am traveling in early July and my reading pace will suffer... but not my Proustian year since I a..."
Kalliope, I will just miss you! This time, I am going to the casino and lose some money, just like Marcel, albeit a smaller amount. Paris, Cabourg, June 29th and 30th, Giverny, Chartres, Illiers-Combray, and Paris. Also, will visit the Le Chalet des Iles, in the evening, and play some passages of "Vinteuil."
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "reading, and I se..."Well done, Reem,
I am reading ahead because I am traveling in early July and my reading pace will suffer... but not my Prousti..."
We will almost coincide!!!. I fly on the 1st of July...!!! and in Cabourg by the 5th. I plan to go also to Honfleur and Caen.
Have tickets for the Garnier and for a Molière play.
Fionnuala wrote: "I haven't read any of your posts yet as I've only covered about twenty pages of this week's reading section but I'm very moved by the telling of the grandmother's death. Not only moved, but in awe ...""...Françoise sub plot playing in the background."
"I was surprised to find that at this stage, when my grandmother was so ill, Françoise was constantly disappearing. The fact was that she had ordered herself a mourning dress, and did not wish to keep the dressmaker waiting. In the lives of most women, everything, even the greatest sorrow, resolves itself into a question of "trying-on." A constant...Françoise's 'code.'
Marcelita, stick a few pink post-it notes in the places that you enjoy on your trip, and maybe Kalliope will find them when she goes. Let's see how many she can find.Keep reading Fionnuala, I can't wait for your review of this volume.
I have to say that I have enjoyed the narrator's reflections about " the terrible deceptions of love that it begins by engaging us in play not with a woman of the outside world but with a doll inside our brain--" ( MKE 507)
He also realizes how fickle his infatuations are for him. "But if I was surprised by the modification that had occurred in her opinion of me, how much more did it surprise me to find an even greater change in my feelings for her! Had there not been a time when I could regain life and strength only if-- always building new castles in the air!" (MKE 522)
What a delightful surprise at the end of the section!!!
As I'd promised myself I went to the Guggenheim to see New Harmony: Abstraction between the Wars 1919 to 1939 but I was disappointed in the display of 40 works assembled from the Guggenheim's permanent collection of Alberto Giacomettis, Fernand Légers, Francis Picabias et al; with the exception of a Piet Mondrian which I found myself standing before, acknowledging his greatness, and a Kurt Schwitters that made me want to see more of his work, I found the exhibition wanting. Every work was hard edged, an assemblage of pictorial ideas that seemed dated; what I was looking for was painting and I found that on my way out, on the floor below, in the Thannhauser Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting which I'd seen before but by contrast they bore another viewing and a welcome viewing.I'd likened drawing to prose for it's suggestion to the imagination and now I must liken painting to prose, particularly in the blending of colors of Manet, the rendering of form of early Picasso, the playing with space of Cezanne to name just several techniques and painters. I need realism to bend and the collection's paintings did it well, as does Proust in his writing, it's not dated but eternal.
It was the carpets which, with a view to my parents' return, the servants had begun to put down again, those carpets which look so well on bright mornings when amid their disorder the sun awaits you like a friend come to take you out to lunch in the country, and casts over them the dappled light and shade of the forest, but which now on the contrary were the first installations of the wintry prison from which, obliged as I should be to live and take my meals at home, I should no longer be free to escape when I chose. ML p. 537
Little is not of value, except the redundant, whether it is art, writing, people or exhibitions; I wondered of the New Harmony... and of the Thannhauser, having left the Guggenheim as I walked down Fifth Avenue across from Central Park, what and who were responsible for that liking and disliking taste I'd had when viewing art separated by so few years.
Telegram/sisters/Beethoven. Grandmother's sisters (whose eccentricities we saw in "Combray") have refused to come to their sister's deathbed, sending instead a telegram saying that they feel they can mourn better by listening to some Beethoven quartets. This would strike most of us as "mad," not to say "certifiable," and that is what the grandfather is talking about.
Elizabeth wrote: "Telegram/sisters/Beethoven. Grandmother's sisters (whose eccentricities we saw in "Combray") have refused to come to their sister's deathbed, sending instead a telegram saying that they feel they ..."Yes, thank you Elizabeth. That is a much better explanation. Which proves that La recherche needs to be read more than once, since there are so many intralinks...
Here is the text that comes earlier than the mention of Beethoven.
Prévenues par dépêche, ses soeurs ne quittèrent pas Combray. Elles avaient découvert un artiste qui leur donnait des séances d'excellente musique de chambre, dans l'audition de laquelle elles pensaient trouver, mieux qu'au chevet de la malade, un recueillement, une élévation douloureuse, desquels la forme ne laissa pas de paraître insolite.
Elizabeth wrote: "Telegram/sisters/Beethoven. Grandmother's sisters (whose eccentricities we saw in "Combray") have refused to come to their sister's deathbed, sending instead a telegram saying that they feel they ..."that makes sense, thank you Elizabeth.
Kalliope wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Telegram/sisters/Beethoven. Grandmother's sisters (whose eccentricities we saw in "Combray") have refused to come to their sister's deathbed, sending instead a telegram saying th..."Kalliope, please can you direct me to this passage in English (ML) trans, thanks.
Although the passage (p. 442) does not specifically mention Beethoven, it makes sense knowing Proust's personal feelings about the late quartets. "Proust as Musician" by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, explores Beethoven's influence on Proust and the novel. Read at risk...spoilers abound.
As I was blinded by neon earlier, I'm still in the dark about...."worth framing."
Remembered these drawings of Proust's, after reading..."...until the moment she (Duchesse) caught sight of me sitting alone like Mordecai at the palace gate; and, the sight of me having refreshed her memory, she wished like Ahasuerus, to lavish her gifts upon me." MP (p 518)
"Private Proust: Letters and Drawings to Reynaldo Hahn" from Harvard Univerity.
Source: proust-arts.com "Here Proust inscribes Hahn’s initials (RH) on the female figure’s crown and on the pages of the open book. He replaces the caption 'Concordia' with the biblical 'Esther,' the subject of a 1905 opera by Hahn, and he sets her next to her adoptive father 'Mordecai,' drawn from a statue of Saint Jerome. Below, Proust writes that Esther is shown 'with little bbirds,' while Mordecai is 'botsched.'"
http://www.proust-arts.com/drawings-4...
http://www.proust-arts.com/private-pr...
@MarcusThe sisters of grandmother, a telegram, chamber recital, etc.
ML p. 442
Eugene wrote: "@MarcusThe sisters of grandmother, a telegram, chamber recital, etc.
ML p. 442"
merci
Marcus wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Telegram/sisters/Beethoven. Grandmother's sisters (whose eccentricities we saw in "Combray") have refused to come to their sister's deathbed, sending instead a t..."Sorry, Marcus, but I do not have the English translation (nor the Spanish...!!).
Kalliope wrote: ""Et la porte du palier ne se refermait d'elle-même très lentement, sur les courants d'air de l'escalier, qu'en exécutant les hachures de phrases voluptueuses et gémissantes qui se superposent au ch..."THAT IS LOVELY MUSIC!THANK YOU!i feel i understand Proust better when i listen to the music quoted in this forum
Eugene wrote: "New York, New York, I'm going to the Guggenheim today to see New Harmony: Abstraction between the Wars 1919 to 1939 which reminds me of a T. S. Eliot line in French, "entre les deux guerres", so p..."I am fascinated by European writers between WWI & II,fiction and non-fiction specially the more mitteleuropeans.
I feel that since his grandmother's deathe the N has been *freed*.He suddenly becomes a ladies man and goes to the salon and flirts with several women that seem quite pleased with him and....chan!Albertine is back.
Saturday's Fashion Page"...I saw emerging, majestic, ample and tall in a flowing gown of yellow satin upon which huge black poppies were picked out in relief, the Duchesse herself." (p 507)
Designers began to bring nature into their designs around the turn of the century.
Butterflies....House of Worth, 1898
Source: metmuseum.org
Flowers.....Charles Frederick Worth, Paris 1900; Worn by Zinaida Yusupova.
Source: hermitagemuseum.org
Cherries...Designer: Jean-Philippe Worth. 1898
Source: metmuseum.org
Flowers...Jean-Philippe Worth, 1902
Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Page"...I saw emerging, majestic, ample and tall in a flowing gown of yellow satin upon which huge black poppies were picked out in relief, the Duchesse herself." (p 507)
Desig..."
So lovely!
Saturday's Fashion Page"...I was amazed to learn that it was he (Charlus) who painted the huge fan decorated with black and yellow irises which the Duchess was at this moment unfurling." (p 519)
Pansies.....Ronot-Tutin (painter-artist); French, 1890.
Source: collections.vam.ac.uk
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Page"...I saw emerging, majestic, ample and tall in a flowing gown of yellow satin upon which huge black poppies were picked out in relief, the Duchesse hersel..."
These are lovely dresses, Marcelita.
You may be interested in this book, which I gave a friend of mine for her birthday lately (bought at the Queen Sofía Museum), and my copy is on its way...
Paris Haute Couture
Kalliope wrote: You may be interested in this book, which I gave a friend of mine for her birthday lately (bought at the Queen Sofía Museum), and my copy is on its way...Thanks for thinking of me.Enjoy the book. I'll look forward to your review!!!!
The passage with Albertine's visit is extraordinary.. the way he tracks the changes in his friend not only from the way she now looks but from the changes in her language... and the Narrator's is peppered with references to Darwin.. Not only does he state that the word "naturel" has a different meaning post-Darwin, but he then proceeds to use terms such as "évolution" and "sélection" with all their charged implications.
We have commented on the Narrator's fascination with a person's cheeks. In the scene with Albertine, it comes back even more prominent than before.Albertine's cheeks now embody for him the Balbec scenes.
Il me semblait que j'aurais, sur les deux joues de la jeune fille, embrasse toute la plage de Balbec
and this is even better:
Mais en laissant mon regard glisser sur le beau globe rose de ses joues, dont les surfaces doucement incurvées venaient mourir aux pieds des premiers plissements de ses beaux cheveux noirs qui couraient en chaînes mouvementées, soulevaient leurs contreforts escarpés et modelaient les ondulations de leurs vallées.
And of course with such complex cheeks, the kiss takes on formidable significance, even if he realizes that kisses lack their own organ, since the lips are just not able to go beyond the surface of the cheeks..An extraordinary passage:
Mais les lèvres, faites pour amener au palais la saveur de ce qui les tente, doivent se contenter, sans comprendre leur erreur et sans avouer leur déception, de vaguer á la surface et de se heurter à la clôture de la joue impénétrable et désirée.....
and the lips are left alone ..
elles sont seules, le regard, puis l'odorat les ont abandonnées depuis longtemps
When the Narrator gets to Mme de Villeparisis's house and is late and has to wait in another room, he sits in a "bergère", an armchair with a lovely and evocative name. These armchairs come in many shapes, sizes and forms, but they are normally ample but for most often for one person.
Here is one Bergère Louis XV:
So when the Duchesse approaches him and says:
Vous permettez que je m'asseye un instant à côté de vous?... en relevant gracieusement son immense jupe qui sans cela eût occupé la bergère dans son entier
And when people see them sitting together in that seat they speculate that it is she and not the Duke who is having an affair.
Kalliope wrote: "When the Narrator gets to Mme de Villeparisis's house and is late and has to wait in another room, he sits in a "bergère", an armchair with a lovely and evocative name. These armchairs come in m..."
Thanks Kalliope, it's always great to have a visual. That is funny. I'm beginning to think that the narrator has issues of intimacy. Any time the woman that he is infatuated with becomes interested in him, he retreats.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "When the Narrator gets to Mme de Villeparisis's house and is late and has to wait in another room, he sits in a "bergère", an armchair with a lovely and evocative name. These ar..."
He seems to be in love with desire.
Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Page"...I saw emerging, majestic, ample and tall in a flowing gown of yellow satin upon which huge black poppies were picked out in relief, the Duchesse herself." (p 507)
Desig..."
Marcelita wrote: "Remembered these drawings of Proust's, after reading...
"...until the moment she (Duchesse) caught sight of me sitting alone like Mordecai at the palace gate; and, the sight of me having refreshed ..."
that link with the letters between Proust and Hahn are priceless to my curiosity .
AND THE DRESSES!!!! I'll be with my nose in those links like forever.I can know WHO wore them and why .Unbelievable.What make! the details! this is a historical Hello!What a treat!
Marcelita,now i can see why those dresses were called haute couture compared to present*haute* the modern ones looked as if they'd been done by a beginner seamstress in a dark room.
Kalliope wrote: "When the Narrator gets to Mme de Villeparisis's house and is late and has to wait in another room, he sits in a "bergère", an armchair with a lovely and evocative name. These armchairs come in m..."
I suppose the arms were low so the ladies could fit with their wide skirts.
i thought the bergere was the arm chair that has like two ears on each side so that you can sit by the fire without getting scalding ckeeks.
Patricia wrote: "i thought the bergere was the arm chair that has like two ears on each side so that you can sit by the fire without getting scalding ckeeks."You are very right, Patricia. I was expecting a more specific kind of armchair (I had one in particular in mind) but in fact a Bergère can be of many types. The one I posted is a Louis XV. The one you mention is une Bergère à Oreilles.
I looked for one of "ancien régime" type and that would sort of allow a young man and a lady with huge skirts to be able to share the seat, and these more open ones seemed to me more likely.
Here is one with oreilles, but which would make hard the seating for two.
Here is one with oreilles and which opens up a bit the sides of the seat:
He seems to be in love with desireKalliope, I think you've hit the nail on the head. That explains so much.
Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "reading, and I se..."Well done, Reem,
I am reading ahead because I am traveling in early July and my reading pace will suffer... but not my Proustian year since I a..."
Wow! I can't wait to hear about this when you return. I am planning to go in September!
Kalliope wrote: "Here is one with oreilles and which opens up a bit the sides of the seat:"
I prefer this one, less claustrophobic. Thank you for these illustrations. Patricia, I never knew that the purpose of the oreilles was so that one does not scald one's ears.
Once again, many many thanks to all of you providing all those wonderful pictures, and all of you with such insights.I thought at first we were back to the idea of the 'decalage' between how much you want things and whether you get them - like with Norpois and the introduction to the Swann's - that once you stop wanting them, or at least showing that you want them, that's when it all falls in your lap.
But maybe it's just that the narrator matured. He's no longer infatuated with the unattainable. Isn't that a stage in sexual development? Having a huge crush on some 'safe' object that is so far from us that it does not pose any actual threat?
Eugene wrote: "I'm dim on the grandfather since Combray when the great aunt called "Bathilde, come in and stop your husband drinking brandy," as grandmoth..."When I read of the grandfather as the Narrator's grandmother was dying I too wondered if I had missed something...OR if there was a phantom in the room.
As I was catching up on your comments I thought I would pull out my kindle and search "grandfather" in ISOLT.
The very first notation reads: "'Why I must have fallen asleep before Mamma came to say good night,' for I was in the country at my grandfather's, who died years ago; and my body, the side upon which I was lying, faithful guardians of a past which my mind never should have forgotten..."
It is #391 in my Kindle. I do not know the corresponding page number in my book...but it is the section where the Narrator is recalling a succession of bedrooms he has slept in...he recalls his bedroom in Combray, in his grandparent's home,"in those far distant days".
It seems the grandfather was a spirit in attendance at his grandmother's passing.
I think the Grandfather is really there...though you're right, he hasn't exactly been a major presence. Sometimes it seems as if he was possibly separated from Grandmother, and still living in Combray, while she preferred to live in Paris. Or perhaps he has, really, very little importance to the Narrator...
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Paris Haute Couture (other topics)La Chartreuse de Parme (other topics)
Yes, there is a tender aspect in him which is very touching. But it is just a reminder that he is still young even if he has already shown signs of greater self-knowledge and recognizes the now familiar pattern of falling in and out of love.