The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Time Regained
Time Regained, vol. 7
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Through Sunday, 22 Dec.: Time Regained
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ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Way to go Ce Ce! I too, just finished this week's section which has put me in a melan..."
We are very close to finishing, Reem. Soon, not immediately, I will beging to deal with secondary literature. Apart from the links in the Links Folder I have close to ten books which I did not want to touch.
I think now we will find that some of these books/articles do not add much, while others will be fascinating...
Please make sure those articles are in the Links Folder... They will be easier to find there.
Wouldn't you all love to read the posthumous Memoirs of Mme de Villeparisis?Son nom ne figure même pas dans l'index des Mémoires Posthumes de Mme de Villeparisis de laquelle Mme Leroi occupa tant l'esprit.p. 375.
Ce Ce wrote: "I laughed out loud at the turn of the magic lantern...when out spilled our beloved Mme Verdurin now the Princess Guermantes. Truly a house of mirrors, a fun house...it would be as disorienting as a..."The magic lantern is not mentioned, but evoked in the passage in which he seems to take a quick and passing survey of images...
Mme de Guermantes, au mariage du Dr Percepied, Mme Swann en rose chez mon oncle, Mme de Cambremer soeur de Legrandin, .... tant d'autres...autant d'images que je m'amusais parfois quand je les retrouvais à placer comme frontispiece au seuil de mes relations avec ces différents personnes, mais qui ne me semblaient en effet qu'un image... p. 383.
The film Le Temps Retrouvé does also create this feeling of passing gallery of floating images...
We have been picking up the horizontal threads, which are limited, in this tapestry of a novel.... And he says so now... les fils / the threads.
.. et la diversité des points de ma vie par où avait passé le fil de celle de chacun de ces personnages avait fini par mêler ceux qui semblaient le plus éloignés, comme si la vie ne possédait qu'un nombre limité de fils pour exécuter les dessins les plus différents. p. 384
and continues in the next page...
Et aujourd'hui tous ces fils s'étaient réunis pour faire la trame, ici du ménage Saint-Loup, là du jeune ménage... p.385.
The word "trame" has this double sense - weft and plot.. (also in Spanish - la trama)
And the passage in which the Guermantes are placed at the center of his life, is also very beautiful, and is built around the all important concept of "le nom"..De sorte que ce n'était jamais qu'après coup, en les rapportant à un nom, que leur connaissance était devenue pour moi la connaissance des Guermantes. Mais peut-être cela même me rendait-il la vie plus poétique de penser que la race mystérieuse aux yeux perçants, au bec d'oiseau, la race rose, dorée inapprochable s'était trouvée si souvent, si naturellement par l'effet des circonstances aveugles et différentes s'offrir à ma contemplation, à mon commerce, même à mon intimité, au point que quand j'avais voulu connaître Mlle Stermaria ou faire faire des robes à Albertine, c'était comme aux plus serviables de mes amis, á des Guermantes, que m'étais adressé. p. 388.
Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Way to go Ce Ce! I too, just finished this week's section which has put me in a melan..."
We are very close to finishing, Reem. Soon, not immediately, I will begi..."
I recently started to listen to Antoine Compagnon's and Benjamin Taylor's lectures and they certainly make more sense now than if I had listened to them earlier. I look forward to going back to the wonderful reference material which has been posted.
@Cece,kudos for catching up!
Kalliope wrote: "Wouldn't you all love to read the posthumous Memoirs of Mme de Villeparisis?Son nom ne figure même pas dans l'index des Mémoires Posthumes de Mme de Villeparisis de laquelle Mme Leroi occupa tant..."
Posting in December 29th thread!
Marcelita wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "I laughed out loud at the turn of the magic lantern...when out spilled our beloved Mme Verdurin now the Princess Guermantes. Truly a house of mirrors, a fun house...it would be as dis..."When I read this for the first time...I was stunned and angry, because I loathed Mme Verdurin's cruelty, lies and manipulation. Grrrrrr....
Unless she got exactly what she deserved. Imagine being simply a placeholder of name and status surrounded by other women's stuff and swimming in these aristocratic waters...with their ideas of marriage and friendship...proscribed with mind numbing social mores. In my humble opinion, she has not improved her lot in life...she has entombed it!
Kalliope wrote: "We have been picking up the horizontal threads, which are limited, in this tapestry of a novel.... And he says so now... les fils / the threads.
.. et la diversité des points de ma vie par où av..."
Thank you for mentioning this Kalliope. It is one of my favorite passages. It resonated. I have often described my life as a tapestry with each thread...no matter how joyful or shattering...weaving itself into the fabric no less or more important, equal in the whole of my life.
I will look for it in English and post it.
UPDATE: I have not found this, will look for it and post when I return to this section later
Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "We have been picking up the horizontal threads, which are limited, in this tapestry of a novel.... And he says so now... les fils / the threads.
.. et la diversité des points de..."
I wish I could help you finding it.. If Marcelita sees this, she will.
Anybody knows which horse fed on only roses?
Another good passage is when deciding that his writing time has come, he foresees that he will be accused of egotism... But for this task, he has to break the famous and dreaded habits (l'habitude)
...l'abnégation qui vous fait faire le sacrifice des devoirs plus faciles, même des plaisirs, paraît aux autres de l'égoïsme. p. 400.
Malheureusement j'aurai à lutter contre cette habitude à se mettre dans la place des autres qui, si elle favorise la conception d'une oeuvre en retarde l'execution. p.
One of my favorite themes in the novel is that of the multiplicity of identities.He is talking of the double images of Gilberte -- imagined in the shadows of the church or remembered on the Méséglise side, as well as the double images of Mme de Guermantes both in Combray and in Paris.... imagined and remembered.
..Et cette seconde personne, celle née non du désir, mais du souvenir, n'était pas pour chacune de ces femmes, unique. Car chacune je l'avais connue à diverses reprises, en des temps différents, où elle était autre pour moi, ou moi-même j'étais autre, baignant dans des rêves d'une autre couleur. p. 404.
and a bit later, insists on this idea of multiple selves.
.. il y avait plusieurs duchesses de Guermantes, comme il y avait eu depuis la Dame en rose, plusieurs Madame Swann, séparées par l'éther incolore des années, et de l'une à l'autre desquelles je ne pouvais pas plus sauter que si j'avais eu à quitter une planète pour aller dans une autre planète que l'éther en sépare. p. 404.
That is why the idea that there are two narrators seems to me oversimplified... we are presented with a myriad of personalities as they have been transformed as they zoom themselves through time, backwards and forwards.
In the film Le Temps Retrouvé, Ruiz has used four different actors for the Narrator.
Kalliope wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "We have been picking up the horizontal threads, which are limited, in this tapestry of a novel.... And he says so now... les fils / the threads.
.. et la diversité..."
Making cookies with Valrhonra, but nothing is as bittersweet as Marcel looking backward in time.
(Personally, I am remembering "threads" and all the handmade gifts...an upside-down doll, with clothing that matched the miniature pieced quilt for her bed; a small stuffed hand in red velvet, traced from a five-year old who still believed, and hung with a double-faced red satin ribbon on the tree; a Noak's Ark needlepoint sampler, where all the animals ringed the border, with a Christening prayer in the middle...)
Here are the English translations:
"How often had all these people reappeared before me in the course of their lives, the diverse circumstances of which seemed to present the same individuals always, but in forms and for purposes that were shifting and varied; and the diversity of the points in my life through which had passed the thread of the life of each of these characters had finished by mixing together those that seemed the furthest apart, as if life possessed only a limited number of threads for the the execution of the most different patterns."MP p 415
"And yet today all these different threads had been woven together to form the fabric, there of the married lives of Robert and Gilberte Saint-Loup, here of the young Cambremer couple, not to mention Morel and all the others whose conjunction had played a part in forming a set of circumstances of such a nature that the circumstances seemed to me to be the complete unity and each individual actor in them merely a constituent part of the whole." MP p415
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "We have been picking up the horizontal threads, which are limited, in this tapestry of a novel.... And he says so now... les fils / the threads.
....."
Dearest Marcelita, I am forever grateful to you. Thank you.
Kalliope wrote: "Anybody knows which horse fed on only roses?"At first I thought...maybe someone in the Jockey Club fed his horse roses, but then Reems's find placed it in the far-past.
"...Proust did not want to be like this horse in the ancient times that was only fed on roses."
Thought then about the ancient tales...maybe a mention in the Arabian Nights or in classical mythology.
Did find this however...only connection is by a thread...horses and flowers. ;)
http://www.paris-pittoresque.com/pers... (in French)
http://translate.google.com/translate...
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Anybody knows which horse fed on only roses?"At first I thought...maybe someone in the Jockey Club fed his horse roses, but then Reems's find placed it in the far-past.
"...Prou..."
Oh I deleted that last post, much too long.
My best bet is that it was Incitatus, the favored horse of Roman emperor Caligula who was fed oats mixed with gold flake. Couldn't find anything about roses, but he was a pampered horse.Incitatus had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets, and a collar of precious stones.
Where is Reem's post? I saw it but was going to read it later.I thought it could be a horse from mythology but have not found it.
The Baron Charlus is the example for the vanity of love, he who in younger years participated in all sorts of masochistical practices, chained to matter like Prometheus to his rock, Czapski writes, he ends up old and senile, can't walked anymore yet is gently being cared for by Jupien who is the only one who stays with Charlus. Albertine of course has to be mentioned, and the story related to her Czapski calls one scream of despair and a ruthless exploration of jealousy. However, Czapski notes how Proust as someone who has loved so much in the end speaks so desinterested, noninvolved about love. He says in the end love is useful, a useful thing against the glamorous and numbing distractions of society which can be so harmful for the writer. Better have a bit of sensual love as antidote, so Proust. And this is an important contrast to the complete damnation of everything sensual of someone like Pascal. A bit of sensual love also, for Proust did not want to be like this horse in the ancient times that was only fed on roses. According to him, the artist has to be lonely, does not have to have disciples or followers for they weaken the artist. Czapski says that Proust only allows (accepts a tiny little bit, writes Czapski) some sensual love for his views on love are so pessimistic that they only lead to some heightened awareness of loneliness and cut precious wounds.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Anybody knows which horse fed on only roses?"At first I thought...maybe someone in the Jockey Club fed his horse roses, but then Reems's find placed it in the f..."
Oh, you deleted it.
Yes, that seems like a good candidate, Incitatus.
Good enough for me. Thank you Reem.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "The Baron Charlus is the example for the vanity of love, he who in younger years participated in all sorts of masochistical practices, chained to matter like Prometheus to his rock, Czapski writes,..."I got Czaspki book on Proust. Thank you for this too, Reem.
I will post the section on the horse from Proust tomorrow.
No more time to be obsessive, but here are some horses that could have eaten roses: Arion
Kantaka
Celer
Bucephalus
Pegasus
Marcelita wrote: "No more time to be obsessive, but here are some horses that could have eaten roses: Arion
Kantaka
Celer
Bucephalus
Pegasus"
Thank you Marcelita, I did not know the first three horses. But Bucephalus it cannot be. He was the wild wild horse that only the child Alexander could mount, and from then onwards, became his loyal friend and with whom he conquered Persia... No, Bucephalus was not kept with roses... LOL...
Caligula's toy remains my choice, but I still have to explore the first three.
:)
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Le Misanthrope (other topics)No Exit (other topics)
Praeterita: The Autobiography Of John Ruskin (other topics)
No Exit (other topics)
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (other topics)
"I can just imagine how sometimes you must be itching to just correct us or lead us back on track. "
Au contraire, I am a purist, thinking one should read "innocently," and I take great joy in your personal "discoveries."
And as Ce Ce pointed out in the 15 Dec thread:
"We have each read through our own lens which has made this year so fascinating and enriching. In such a remarkable journey of discovery no one can be wrong."
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote "To me, Proust is the Shakespeare of the inner world."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...