The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah, vol. 4
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Through Sunday, 18 Aug.: Sodom and Gomorrah
Elizabeth wrote: "I don't know how apocryphal this story is, but here it is. Montesquiou had a valet named Iturri (who was a South American Indian) who made the following score. He discovered that a convent near V..."You are a fount of most interesting titbits!
What unfortunately I did not know at that moment and did not learn until more than two years later was that one of the chauffeur's customers was M. de Charlus...If I had known this at the time...many of the sorrows of my life in Paris in the following year, much of my trouble over Albertine, would have been avoided...I report the conversation (Charlus/Morel) at one of these meals, which may give an idea of the others... ML p. 550What's curious about this narrative construction is that the 1st person Narrator (the reflective) becomes omniscient (the 1st time in the novel, but moreover a very rare usage in all of literature) and that would be no problem if Marcel Proust were speaking but Brian Rogers flatly states in Proust's Narrator found in the Cambridge Companion To Proust, ed. Bales.
The Narrator is not Marcel Proust.
Be that as it may and we must assume (in "sour mysticism") too that Morel plays piano or, as Charlus expands, "standing", plays the piano transcription on his violin. In the meal at the restaurant M. de Charlus says,
"You were playing the other day the piano transcription of the Fifteenth Quartet, which in itself is absurd because nothing could be less pianistic. It Is meant for people whose ears are offended by the over-taut strings of the glorious Deaf One. Whereas it is precisely that almost sour mysticism that is divine. ML p. 555
Very interesting points made in this thread.Okay, I'm here to report another derogatory use of the word - literary.
"He practices a sort of literary medicine, whimsical therapy, pure charlatanism." (MKE 510)
Just noticed that Eugene is way ahead of me.
ReemK10 wrote: Just noticed that Eugene is way ahead of me. Don't worry Reem, it only appears that way. I usually finish the weekly reading on Tuesday then go back to the parts that interest me or that need a rereading to comprehend them.
Phillida wrote: "The Verdurin dinner gives us so many laughs and so much entertainment. This one spluttered my tea: Mme. Verdurin says, "'It will make a party, which...my husband must have arranged already. I don'..."The Verdurin dinner is like a Molière comedy.
Staged out and with "doubles entendres" and more than one conversation going on at the same time on the stage.
Eugene: "need a rereading"...C.S. Lewis says that no one can consider himself a Reader if he only reads a work once.
Elizabeth wrote: "Eugene: "need a rereading"...C.S. Lewis says that no one can consider himself a Reader if he only reads a work once."Elizabeth, you are such a lovely addition to this group. You have a large repertoire of trivia that readers tend to find most interesting.
Eugene, it's good that you are doing your reading and rereading allowing you to study the text and then share your carefully observed observations with us all.
My problem in this year of trying to read differently is that I am too involved in reading my articles online, then tweeting them, and that has seriously affected my reading of Proust. I used to juggle three books at a time. Too much to read these days!!!
Kalliope wrote: "The Verdurin dinner is like a Molière comedy. Staged out and with "doubles entendres" and more than one conversation going on at the same time on the stage. "
Hah! Sometimes goodreads is like a Molière Comedy - with many conversations going on at the same time on the same page...
Reem: my day is made! Came in from a sweaty session of lawnmowing and garden-weeding and tomato-picking and found your message. Just what I needed!
Phillida wrote: "The Verdurin dinner gives us so many laughs and so much entertainment. This one spluttered my tea: Mme. Verdurin says, "'It will make a party, which...my husband must have arranged already. I don'..."The dinner at La Raspalière does sound like a comedy at times. Proust's wit never ceases to surprise me and I really enjoy this whole section at the Verdurin so full of wit, charm and poetry, especially when the Narrator drops by unexpectedly with Albertine. Hilarious!
Re-reading is indeed a must, especially with Proust. It takes me several readings sometimes too to understand properly a sentence. I wonder if CS Lewis meant a re-reading at a different time. There are books I have read 3 or 4 times and I also get something different from them. I am re-reading Madame Bovary for at least the third time and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. There are sometimes some wonderful parallels with La Recherche.
Elizabeth wrote: "Reem: my day is made! Came in from a sweaty session of lawnmowing and garden-weeding and tomato-picking and found your message. Just what I needed!"As a gardener you must also have the patience to be a great nurturer.
Jocelyne: hilarious classroom moment. My seniors were talking about reading things at different times in their lives. One guy, 18, told us his little ten year old brother was reading the Narnia books, so he had picked them up again. "I never realized it before, but Aslan is Jesus! I TOTALLY missed that the first time around!" It was so cute. I think the re-reading can come at any time...instantly, or years later. I do both, myself.
Elizabeth wrote: "Jocelyne: hilarious classroom moment. My seniors were talking about reading things at different times in their lives. One guy, 18, told us his little ten year old brother was reading the Narnia ..."LoL!
I've asked before, but there are so many different threads...would some of our image experts give us an idea, a painting, a photo, of what Albertine's "Italian straw toque and veil" would have looked like?
She was gazing at him with rounded eyes. For a minute or two I felt that one may be close to the person one loves and yet not have her with one. They had the appearance of being engaged in a mysterious private conversation, rendered mute by my presence, which might have been the sequel to meetings in the past of which I knew nothing, or merely to a glance that he had given her—at which I was the terzo incomodo from whom their secret must be kept. ML p. 564Proust writes of eyes; he writes so simply and, of course, beautifully even about the Narrator's incipient jealousy.
A question that I read with is how does jealousy figure in with art: Swann was jealous of Odette, the Narrator was jealous of Gilberte, and now of Albertine, but free of it with his other confessed love (a phantom), Mme. de Guermantes. Maybe because she was older and married...and not 'kissable'. Perhaps it was a more of a crush rather than a "love", similar to his 'stalking' of Mme. Swann.
Still, jealousy and art?
How about this ELizabeth?
I always understood a toque to be a small, very round hat. Well, I suppose all hats are round, as heads usually are too, but a toque doesn't have a brim, or at least not much of one, so no distortion of the roundness.
If it looked that pretty, I can see why Aimé was so vicariously proud of Albertine (to say nothing of the new car!)
BTW...devastating comment in past week's reading: the Narrator says, "I perhaps felt love for Albertine, but did not dare to let her see it...it seemed to me to be unrealizable, and outside the plane of life." And for some reason, that reminds me of a changing line in the I Ching. It's in Hexagram 61, "Inner Truth."
Six in the third place means:
He finds a comrade.
Now he beats the drum, now he stops.
Now he sobs, now he sings.
Then the Commentary says:
"Here the source of a man's strength lies not in himself but in his relation to other people...if his center of gravity depends on them, he is inevitably tossed to and fro between joy and sorrow. Rejoicing to high heaven, then sad unto death--this is the fate of those who depend upon an inner accord with other persons whom they love. Here we have only the statement of the law that this is so. Whether this condition is felt to be an affliction or the supreme happiness of love, is left to the subjective verdict of the person concerned." To which I say: Ouch!
Oh, and another BTW: when the Book of Changes was mentioned in a short story my advanced senior class read, I brought my copy in and taught them to cast it (they loved it), and my husband said, "Lizzie, one night we're going to wake up and the villagers will be on the front lawn with torches and pitchforks." (In case you haven't guessed, I live in a very, very rural area).
I've been a little slow this week, but here I am. Charlus remains the absolute champion of the insulting put down. After the 'augustes orteils' we now have those wonderfully cutting remarks on the champagne cup, those rotting strawberries floating in alka seltzer. Ha!
I love the hat; this is not what I had in mind. Elizabeth's I Ching commentary is quite a propos when it comes to the kind of jealousy we have witnessed so far.
Eugene, you made me wonder too why jealousy played no role in the case of the Narrator's infatuation with Mme de Guermantes, but I don't think that age or the fact that she was married can be factored in.
If Robert Montesquiou disliked being a model for M. de Charlus (Carter), how did Madeline Lemaire feel about being a model for Mme. Verdurin (Painter).
Marcel Proust, as Dominique, reviews a Madeline Lemaire salon in Le Figaro, 11 May 1903."...and Mme Lemaire says to her friends: "Be sure to come early next Tuesday..."
http://www.yorktaylors.free-online.co...
BTW Madeline Lemaire referred to her friends as "the faithful"
Elizabeth wrote: "I've asked before, but there are so many different threads...would some of our image experts give us an idea, a painting, a photo, of what Albertine's "Italian straw toque and veil" would have look..."From the Saturday Fashion Pages...
Toques are brimless hats...the veil is necessary to keep the hat on in the wind. This may give us a sense of the style:
http://fountainheadauto.blogspot.com/...
This is rather chic, which the narrator would be inclined to give as a surprise:
French straw, with label (in crown lining) "Maison Virot, Societe Maison Virot Limited Successeur, Paris, 12. Rue de la Paix.
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/...
"'My request on the contrary to prove that I do like them, since there are no roses here' (Morel appeared surprised) 'but as a matter of fact I do not care much for them. I am rather susceptible to names; and whenever a rose is at all beautiful, one learns that it is called Baronne de Rothschild or Maréchal Niel, which casts a chill.'" MP p551.
Baronne de Rothschild, 1868
Maréchal Niel, 1864
Souvenir de Marcel' Proust Rose
Breeder: Georges Delbard
Year: 1993
Here is another possible toque et voile..., with ribbons...
Jocelyne wrote: "I just ate but all these galettes and pies are making me hungry again already.Given how much time Proust did spend living horizontally and how interested he was in sleep, dream, memory and consci..."
I have not read this one, Matière et mémoire. I have read this other one Le rire : Essai sur la signification du comique
For the whole section on dreaming I think Bergson's concepts are crucial. Not only was Proust very aware of them, but knew that his readers also were.
I just added to GR this other book, and chapter 2 is part of the Academic Syllavbus in France.
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience: Texte intégral
My edition has a large footnote with additions that were part of the dream section. The grand-mother figures in these additions, one of them with a reference to his writing.Et pourtant je sais que ma grand-mère est à côté, qu'elle sera heureuse de me trouver au travail
One wonders what drew Proust to withdraw some of these sections.
Another note points out yet another case of the unfinished editing.When Charlus criticizes Morel for his soulless playing of the piano transcription of Beethoven's quartet, that is because originally Charlus (when still called Fleurus) was supporting a pianist.
A violin cannot play a full quartet transcription given that the instrument can only handle one line of melody (the transcription of a quartet is precisely the four voices in one instrument)
Sodome et Gomorrhe II, the volume that we now read, was published in April 1922 (Marion Schmid); future volumes are posthumous publications, although being written, they do not have Proust's final revising and editing before publication.Being fond of The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's posthumously published novel, I look forward to a close reading of Proust's final volumes. There, I suspect one will be able to see the workings of the author, more so than in reading the polished work that preceded it, and feel closer to him as the 'seams of construction' become more apparent.
Great posts!I love how Albertine's toque and veil has captured our imagination."Try," Mamma went on, not to become like Charles de Sevigne,of whom his mother said: "His hand is a crucible in which gold melts." (MKE 567)
[image error]
"But Mme. de Sevigne had two offspring, two love objects to choose from. And psychoanalytic literature about possessive, sexually repressed mothers has led us to expect that such women choose sons rather than daughters as the center of their fixations. Moreover, the extravagantly affectionate, devoted, ever-present Charles de Sevigne, unlike his aloof, secretive sister, looked to his mother as his closest confidante. Mrs. Mossiker offers a rather pretentious Proustian theory - ''One loves only what one cannot wholly possess'' - to explain why Mme. de Sevigne favored her elusive, unresponsive daughter over her effusively tender, communicative son. " (
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/08/boo...)
It seems sad that the mother favored the daughter over her son.
"Charles was characterized as an intellectual, a spendthrift and a hedonist. He was also regarded to be sweet-natured, warm, and likeable—very much like his mother, Madame de Sévigné. Oddly enough, he never appeared to resent his mother's obvious preference for his sister." wikepedia
Phillida wrote: "Jocelyne wondered "why jealousy played no role in the case of the Narrator's infatuation with Mme de Guermantes, but I don't think that age or the fact that she was married can be factored in."It..."
Yes Phillida, maybe the word "possession" is instrumental here and the Narrator's possessiveness goes hand in hand with his jealousy.
@Eugene, the similarities with some real life characters are so striking indeed that I keep wondering how Proust's books did not cause more of a backlash among his friends. I understand that he defended himself against charges of portraying them in his books, but if we can see the similarities I don't understand how they could have bought Proust's denials.
Marcelita wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "I've asked before, but there are so many different threads...would some of our image experts give us an idea, a painting, a photo, of what Albertine's "Italian straw toque and vei..."This is the one I had in mind while I first read about it.
Kalliope wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "I just ate but all these galettes and pies are making me hungry again already.Given how much time Proust did spend living horizontally and how interested he was in sleep, dream, ..."
Thank you for these references, Kalliope. I hope they are not too hard to read.
@Reem, it does seem sad. You would think from just reading about Me Sevigné'letters to her daughter that she was her only child. I had actually forgotten about her son entirely.
Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "I just ate but all these galettes and pies are making me hungry again already.Given how much time Proust did spend living horizontally and how interested he was ..."
There is also this one which must be very well annotated because it is the edition prepared for academia. It has the famous chapter 2 only. This probably is enough to get an idea, and my guess is that a great deal of what we are reading in Proust related to this theme is very much indebted with what one could read in Bergson.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Great posts!I love how Albertine's toque and veil has captured our imagination."Try," Mamma went on, not to become like Charles de Sevigne,of whom his mother said: "His hand is a crucible in whic..."
Thank you Reem.
Here are photos of the portraits of Mme de Sévigné (top and window reflection) and of her daughter taken in the mother's palace, now Musée Carnavalet.
His creative approach was essentially thematic: he worked around an idea, character, or place, giving little attention to chronology and plot; only at a later stage, when he had a clearer vision of his project, did he assemble hitherto disparate fragments into a more coherent sequence by means of a sophisticated 'cut and paste' technique not dissimilar to the 'montage' used by modern film makers...The practice of constant recycling of earlier fragments and of restructuring his material gave Proust's drafts a unique flexibility and elasticity, which allowed him to incorporate vast textual expansions even at a relatively advanced stage of the novel's evolution. Marion Schmid, Birth & Development of A la recherche du temps perdu from The Cambridge Companion to Proust, ed. Richard BalesHow we read A la recherche... one word after another, one sequence after another, one volume after another, etc. was not how it was written. Characters and their situations were not composed in the sequence that we read them. I'm not saying that this is why there is jealousy expressed in regard to Odette, Gilberte, then to Albertine and not to Oriane but we have to 'go with the flow' and how Proust composed his work, this possibility of different writing times, of different feelings, of different knowledges, is part of Proust's magic. Knowing this fact enriches what we read.
Oriane has a husband; the 'loving' Narrator can not be jealous (suspicious) only envious, if at all.
Hello all and greetings from NZ. Didn't start till April but have now caught up and wish to thank all for valuable elucidation over the past two months I've been lurking. My set of mixed editions has been put together over the years and well read but this is only the second reading after 35 years that's right through from start to finish - my big winter read 2013.This week's part in my set is found in vol 8 of the Chatto & Windus edition (Moncrieff) illustrated by Philippe Jullian with a drawing of Albertine in her toque being greeted by Mme Verdurin. (Facing p. 204)
Philippe Jullian was also the author of a biography "Robert de Montesquiou: A Prince of the Nineties" (1965)
see below
Hi Unregistered* and welcome.You can easily upload a photo from your own computer to the photo page of this group where it will automatically acquire a web address and then you can transfer it here using html.
That works for me....
thank you, Fionnuala
Unregistered* wrote: "thank you, Fionnuala"
This is wonderful, thank you Unregistered*
Kalliope wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Jocelyne wrote: "I just ate but all these galettes and pies are making me hungry again already.Given how much time Proust did spend living horizontally and how i..."
Here is the one I meant
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience - Chapitre 2.
It is just the famous Chapter 2 and very well annotated.
Well, I couldn't post my comment. I'll try again. Anyone interested should really read Mme de Sevigne's Letters. There are many good editions. And her daughter "that tiresome Mme de Grignan" was a trip...however, she is the main reason we have the Letters in the first place; so many of Marie-Chantal's letters to other people were lost, not through carelessness, but through admiration. People were continually borrowing them to read to guests, etc. Her daughter carefully saved each one she got, locking them away in a chest that survived the French Revolution, and the destruction of the Grignan chateau.
Trying it in two separate parts, I am. Reem: I think the article you quoted is dead on about Proust's attitude to love. It seems that he regarded himself as essentially unlovable. Was it guilt? What do you think?
Unregistered* wrote: "thank you, Fionnuala"
Welcome Unregistered and thank you for the illustration. Mme Verdurin certainly looks the part.
@Kalliope, thank you for the Bergson reference.
@Elizabeth. I look forward to reading Me Sevigné's Letters. Do you have an edition you could recommend? The article which Reem posted also makes me want to read more from F.du Plessy Gray.
The Year of Reading Proust
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The King's Way (other topics)Lettres choisies (other topics)
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (other topics)
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (other topics)
Matière et mémoire (other topics)
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Thank you, Elizabeth.
I will look for it but will read it later on, when I have finished TM's book. Several of us in the Proust group are also reading the Mann reading.. So, expect to see some comparisons.. They were contemporary after all.