Through Sunday, 2 June: The Guermantes Way

[Patricia]

Kalliope wrote: "An exhibition of Fantin-Latour is mentioned, in relation to Mme de Villeparisis flowers.

These would be in Odette's taste, for they are Chrysanthemums.

I love the way you post pictures .It lightens reading like the books for children I used to read did.



And here some Pivoines:



Some roses wi..."

[Patricia]

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "My edition of Le Côté de Guermantes II is divided into two volumes and the editors make the break just after the grandmother's attaque in the public toilets of the Champs Elysées ..."

So is my spaish edition.It´s divided in two and has chapters with subtitles of what is to come.

[Patricia]

Eugene wrote: "As Proust writes, between the salon and his arrival home, on the walk with Charlus, the Narrator is made to be so much younger and innocent."

I think Charlus has it in his mind to pick the Narrator up,that is why he is made to sound innocent.

[Patricia]

·Karen· wrote: "I feel so inadequate this week as all I can say is me too, yes, I do so agree. You're all fantastic.
I'm still here, and keeping up with you. I'm v. preoccupied with re-reading The English Common ..."

I´d love to be your pupil and learn about Victorian England and Dickens.I love that era and i so enjoy its lit. the Brontës,Hardy.

[Marcelita]

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I loved the section about the neurotics.

"Everything we think of as great has come from the neurotics. It is they and they alone who found religions and great works of art. The world will never r..."

"...what they have suffered in order to bestow their gifts on it."

Thinking about "neurotics" and Eugene's comment on doctors...led me back to Kay Redfield Jamison's masterful book, "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament"
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36...

Dr. Jamison, bi-polar herself, is a wise voice.

After remembering two creative souls, who I loved and attempted to stay off the roller-coaster, Kalliope's flowers were soothing.

[Jack]

Patricia wrote: "·Karen· wrote: " I'm v. preoccupied with re-reading The English Common ..."

I´d love to be your pupil and learn about Victorian England and Dickens.I love that era and i so enjoy its lit. the Brontës,Hardy.


Dickens usually strikes me as a 2nd-rate concoction of Gothic & Grimms Fairy Tale, leavened with a patina of social commentary. Perhaps its because my Grandfather, starting out as a Liverpool street-urchen, ended up marrying the granddaughter of an Austrian-Jewish Countess, so Disney's "Lady & the Tramp" is more my speed!

[Marcelita]

The Grandmother
"'I heard the whole of the 'Marquise's' conversation with the keeper,' she told me. 'Could anything have been more typical of the Guermantes, or the Verdurins and their little clan? "Ah! in what courtly terms those things were put!"' And she added, with deliberate application, this from her own special Marquise, Mme de Sévigné: 'As I listened to them I thought that they were preparing for me the delights of a farewell.'"

"Grand-mère, Mme Amèdée watching Marcel as they listen to
the water-closet attendant on the Champs-Elysées" by David Richardson
Website: "Resemblance: The Portraits & etc"
Warning...Spoilers lurk. Here: http://resemblancetheportraits.blogsp...

Source: resemblancetheportraits.blogspot.com Warning...Spoilers lurk!

[Ce Ce]

I'm catching up on the threads and relishing all of your observations...and the depth of knowledge you bring to the discussion...and our reading.

I may be scrambling the sections, so forgive me if that is the case...but is this where the Duc de Guermantes calls upon the family, makes callous remarks about the care his physician could have provided, insisting on the presence of the Narrator's mother when she is grieving the imminent loss of her mother?

I have been enthralled with the prism Proust has so deftly painted of each character. One minute I am laughing at their absurdity...and then my mouth open in laughter...ice water of some cruelty is thrown...and then they are forgiven...and capable of kindness or generosity...which we are then told, at least in the case of the aristocracy, may look like a kindness or generosity but in fact is simply a masquerading habit with roots in their ancestry that doesn't translate to any depth of connection.

As Marcus stated, it is all painted with a humble eye...a reportage...that allows room for us to experience all facets.

I am beginning to sense we are free to experience all facets of our own very human self.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Ce Ce wrote: "I am beginning to sense we are free to experience all facets of our own very human self. "

I would agree with you there Ce Ce. He may be asking us to err in the direction of kindness.