Through Sunday, 13 Oct.: The Captive

[Fionnuala]

Elizabeth wrote: "OK. One: the Narrator asks Albertine's concierge where she has gone. This implies that she has a separate apartment? However, she has been living fulltime with the Narrator.
Two: the Narrator s..."

I'll answer this in the thread for October 20th, Elizabeth.

[Marcelita]

Elizabeth wrote: "From a Proust bio (don't remember which one): he was very disappointed at first with his player piano; he thought to order Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. The piano company wrote him back with amaze..."
Found...one.

"'Unfortunately they happen not to have the pieces I want to play. 'Beethoven's sublime XIVth quartet doesn't appear among the rolls.'"
Marcel Proust: A Life, with a New Preface by the Author
By William C. Carter (p 547)

[Kalliope]

Elizabeth wrote: "From a Proust bio (don't remember which one): he was very disappointed at first with his player piano; he thought to order Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. The piano company wrote him back with amaze..."

The music for pianolas tended to be the very popular ones and that could be sang along or danced... That is also why pianolas were usually found in Upright pianos. A grand piano is a serious piano, and pianolas are popular.. But of course it would be typical of Marcel Proust to have a grand, and then, as he could not play the pieces he liked to listen to, he would then request the pianola mechanism to be installed in his instrument...

[Ce Ce]

With a breath of fresh air and relief...as the third captive (I think Fionnuala and Kalliope mention in this thread)...another word painting is encountered.

Spring has arrived. Tramcars rumble through a "cloud of perfume". The "unctuous air" has "succeeded in glazing and isolating the smell of the wash-stand, the smell of the wardrobe, the smell of the sofa"..."in a pearly chiaroscuro which added a softer glaze to the shimmer of curtains and blue satin armchairs..." In memory to a country dining room and to "the smell of the bowl of cherries and apricots, the smell of cider, the smell of gruyere cheese...while the knife rests of prismatic glass scatter rainbows athwart the room or paint the oilcloth here and there with peacock eyes."

The scent of petrol recalls "those summer afternoons when I left Albertine painting, called into blossom now on either side of me, for all that I was lying in my darkened bedroom, corn flowers, poppies and red clover....like a scent before which the roads sped away, the landscape changed..." ML pp 553-54

Spring had come and while the Narrator (and I) are still waxing eloquent & poetic in his remembered smells, thoughts, desires, jealousies and obsessions...the landscape has changed. It was then I knew, I felt the void, Albertine was gone.

[Ce Ce]

With the last paragraphs and words of "The Captive",
Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" came to mind...

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

[Fionnuala]

Nice parallel, Ce Ce.

[Ce Ce]

Fionnuala wrote: "Nice parallel, Ce Ce."

Thank you Fiounnuala...searching for a "like" link. My suggestion to goodreads, add a like link to discussion thread comments!

[Marcelita]

Ce Ce wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Nice parallel, Ce Ce."

Thank you Fiounnuala...searching for a "like" link. My suggestion to goodreads, add a like link to discussion thread comments!"

They have a "like" feature for the photos, so it should be easy to add.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

I've just completed the section that I had inadvertently missed, and I do have to say that Proust had the most amazing ability to keep going on and on and on... It really is to his credit that he could keep finding new words to say the same things! The poor man must have been tortured by his incessant thoughts!

[Matthew]

Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Proust has become my habitude, and a lot harder to shake of than any lover!"

My favorite quote from goodreads. This year had been the hardest of my life, but Proust has been a constant, dare I say he makes it bearable?

[Fionnuala]

Matthew wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Proust has become my habitude, and a lot harder to shake of than any lover!"

My favorite quote from goodreads. This year had been the hardest of my life, but Proust has been a constant, dare I say he makes it bearable? "

Matthew, in one of those serendipitous happenings, you posted your comment here on The Captive thread just as I finally posted my review of the same volume.
I am glad that you found solace in Proust during a difficult year, and if the discussions here on the Year of Reading Proust Group, which I'm glad to see are still accessible, have been of any use to you, it helps to justify all the time and energy that a small number of readers around the world expended in order to keep the group alive and vibrant.

[Ce Ce]

Fionnuala said it so beautifully. I just wanted to chime in to say how heartwarming it is to know this message board is available and has touched your life, Matthew. All my best to you.