Through Sunday, 15 Dec.: Time Regained

[Manny]

Manny wrote: "Thank you Marcelita! Just accessed this and will check it out over lunch..."

Have so far only read half of it and now need to go to a meeting. On the basis of what I've seen so far, it looks like he's comparing Kant and Proust, and sees Proust as offering an interesting illustration of Kant's aesthetic theories. But he doesn't even appear to consider the possibility that Kant might actually have influenced Proust.

Will say more when I've finished it...

[Marcus]

Fionnuala wrote: "Marcus wrote: "...It allows for possibilities."

Oh, yes, Marcus, possibilities for the author - shouldn't an author have the right to make things as layered as he wants and some of those layers in..."

absolutely, the optic instrument being a very sophisticated mirror, perhaps

[Kate]

Fionnula, John Banville, now, I do admire his work e.g.

The Newton Letter
Kepler
The Divinities

(also that one based on the spy Anthony Blunt... Have forgotten its title)

[Fionnuala]

Kate wrote: "Fionnula, John Banville, now, I do admire his work e.g.

The Newton Letter
Kepler The Divinities (also that one based on the spy Anthony Blunt... Have forgotten its title)"

Yes, it was the divinities he uses in The Infinities, and again in Ancient Light that reminded me of this idea of the transformation of suffering and jealousy, when the pain has been worked through.

[Elizabeth]

Re Steam Watteau: it's Saniette who uses it to M. Verdurin, who says contemptuously, "Old, old as the hills." (He had previously heard it from Ski, who had it from--yes--Saniette."

[Fionnuala]

Elizabeth wrote: "Re Steam Watteau: it's Saniette who uses it to M. Verdurin, who says contemptuously, "Old, old as the hills." (He had previously heard it from Ski, who had it from--yes--Saniette.""

Poor Saniette - here's me forgetting that he said it - first - too.

[Eugene]

Marcus wrote: Eugene -...and what I (mis)understand from following you on this particular issue is that the Narrator is becoming/has now become the author??

Marcus, you are too kind to me but what I posted was that Proust and the Narrator "...in what is said...are identical" and here I furnish the quote that illustrated what I meant:

Proust and the Narrator are unequivocally equal here in what is said: they are identical; what the Narrator finds, Proust had found already and he talks of making art in the voice of the Narrator. Message 2

...the task was to interpret the given sensations as signs of so many laws and ideas, by trying to think—that is to say, to draw forth from the shadow—what I had merely felt, by trying to convert it into its spiritual equivalent. And this method, which seemed to me the sole method, what was it but the creation of a work of art? ML p. 273

Why do I say that they are identical in what is said? The main reason, and there are several, is that at this point in narrative time, being that the Narrator has found his 'creative feet', Proust puts into the Narrator's mouth Proust's own thoughts: this is no longer fiction, this is not a Madeline Moment, this is what Proust understood as truth about the making of art as this is the close of the novel and 'it's time to come clean', to no longer make fiction, to blow the author's horn about the main theme of the book: how will the Narrator write and make a work of art.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Marcus wrote:"I think Proust mostly speaks to people who have looked very hard into their own mirrors." YES. And, nearing the end, I have a feeling of having scratched the surface of the mirror that is ISOLT.

Well said Marcus!

[Eugene]

Marcus wrote: At the risk of causing embarrassment - it's been a privilege to share much of this experience with you...

The beet-red Eugene responds: Thank you, I find Bloom's explication of "the jealous sublime" better than mine but inadequate too. As you know Proust was a sick man, and I suspect, he was sick in more ways than one. Attempting to understand Proust on the Narrator's jealousy using our 'normal' comparisons might be a disservice to this 'malady' and to its sufferer. So let's get sick and bloom like Iago in sexual jealousy...as you've intimated that may be doing too much to understand a work of literature, I'll pass too.

[Marcelita]

"A philosopher who was not modern enough for her, Leibniz, has said that the way is long from the intellect to the heart. It was a journey that Mme de Cambremer had been no more capable of making than her brother. Abandoning the study of John Stuart Mill only for that of Lachelier, the less she believed in the reality of the external world, the more desperately she sought to establish herself in a good position in it before she died." MP (Sodom and Gomorrah, p 438)

Not a philospher...is there a link between Lachelier and Kant?

[Eugene]

Marcus, your view on the magic of the story--the upholding of it--is something that should be honored as it's an "impression"--and I think it's a valid and worthwhile impression as it permits (you permit) democratic tangents on your thoughts--and that is what Proust's aesthetics is all about: democracy, as long as one has the 'competence' or the education to permit alternative and even antagonistic views of his concepts of beauty. Beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder, chez lui, and those who hold shallow (not permitting of tangents, not willing to forgo restrictions) impressions of beauty are, by Proust, called vulgar and I must agree with him; although I doubt that he, in the 1920's, would agree with me on democracy.

The Narrator is a selfish man and I doubt that will change in the few pages still to read of the novel; yet now he changes while being still selfish, but selfish for a popular cause, for something bigger, more universal and more applicable to all his readers, for ART; no longer for his loves or rather for his need to be loved. And so forth.

I like reading you as it permits me go on and on...

[Marcus]

Eugene wrote: "Marcus, your view on the magic of the story--the upholding of it--is something that should be honored as it's an "impression"--and I think it's a valid and worthwhile impression as it permits (you ..."

Eugene, thank you. Yes, ISOLT as an illusionist's illusion is just that - an impression. As such, it has deeply 'impressed' me.

I, like you it seems, can't get away from the view that the Narrator is essentially selfish. What used to mitigate that for me is his willingness to be open about it; though I am beginning to wonder, less naively, whether that candid-ness is a ruse to get the reader to forgive him his selfishness.

See you in next week's thread!

[Kalliope]

Marcelita wrote: "

Harvard's Interdisciplinary Conference: Proust and t..."

Marcelita,

I have just printed this article. Thank you for this.. it will have to do until we hear from Manny's verdict.

[Manny]

Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "

Harvard's Interdisciplinary Conference: Proust and t..."

Marcelita,

I have just printed this article. Thank you for this.. it will have to do until we hear from Manny's verdict."

Sorry... still haven't got back to it :( I will finish and report this evening, I hope...

[Kalliope]

Manny wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "

I have just printed this article. Thank you for this.. it will have to do until we hear f..."

Manny, looking up Lachelier, posted by Marcelita above, I encountered that Bergson dedicated to him his Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

Bergson was important for Proust. He went to some of his lectures and also had a couple of dinners with him.

Bergson was a critic of Kant, from what I understand.

[Manny]

Unfortunately, I have never read any Bergson, though he has been recommended to me several times...

[Elizabeth]

Wasn't Proust Bergson's best man when he married? Am I remembering that right? (I lost my invitation and was unable to attend).

[Kalliope]

Elizabeth wrote: "Wasn't Proust Bergson's best man when he married? Am I remembering that right? (I lost my invitation and was unable to attend)."

Very true, Elizabeth. Now I remember reading it in Carter... He married a cousin of Proust.

Your memory is amazing, Elizabeth.

But I also think Proust did not agree with everything Bergson said.

I have only read his Le Rire. Good when studying Molière. Bergson must have been thinking of his comedies when he wrote this treatise.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

I saw Martin, Kate and Phillida signed up for the new group. Marcus, Fionnuala, Elizabeth, Eugene, Book Portrait, Manny? Ce Ce,Karen, Elaine, Patricia? It's only fun when we read together! Silent room dwellers, do join us! And Jocelyne too!

[Marcelita]

Kalliope wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Wasn't Proust Bergson's best man when he married? Am I remembering that right? (I lost my invitation and was unable to attend)."

Very true, Elizabeth. Now I remember reading it..."

My continual mantra to those who ask, "Why do you (still) read Proust?"

"Because he takes you to places you may not have travelled on your own." This week was Kant, Lachelier, and Bergson. Not that I am schooled, just not as ignorant. ;)

[Marcus]

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I saw Martin, Kate and Phillida signed up for the new group. Marcus, Fionnuala, Elizabeth, Eugene, Book Portrait, Manny? Ce Ce,Karen, Elaine, Patricia? It's only fun when we read together! Silent r..."

the new group?

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Marcus wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I saw Martin, Kate and Phillida signed up for the new group. Marcus, Fionnuala, Elizabeth, Eugene, Book Portrait, Manny? Ce Ce,Karen, Elaine, Patricia? It's only fun w..."

Marcus, I just figured out that I can send you an invite, and have done so. Check your messages.

[Elizabeth]

I cant remember who/where it was that commented on what Proust "leaves out." This is the essence of literature. I used to have my English students (many of whom were taking journalism) tell me the Five Sacred Questions of the journalist: who, where, when, why, and how. Literature, I told them, NEVER answers all these questions; in fact, sometimes it only answers one or two. The rest is left up to the reader. If it answered all five, it would not be literature, but a newspaper article...and for you music lovers: listen to the first cut on Kirk Franklin's the rebirth of Kirk Franklin. It is not a piece of gospel music, but a playlet, as it were, that leaves out almost everything...I would have my students listen to it, and then tell me the full story; they would know it, and I made them tell me how they knew it, since they had not been "told."

[Marcelita]

Marcelita wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I had to google this: The Embarkation for Cythera ("L'Embarquement pour Cythère") is a painting by the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. It is also known as "Voyage..."


Debussy and Watteau:
Postcards from Debussy: Day 4 by John Birge

"Inspired by Debussy's 150th birthday anniversary this week, every morning at 8:30 we'll play a composition by Debussy inspired by some specific place. Today we find him in at the museum. After hearing Souvenir du Louvre, there's also L'Isle Joyeuse ('The Joyous Isle'), Debussy's musical interpretation of a famous painting there: L'Embarquement pour Cythere ('Voyage to Cythera')."

LISTEN:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/coll...

[Ce Ce]

Phillida wrote: "I'm thinking about the notion of "love" as it's been explicitly expressed in this section, and demonstrated throughout the novel. The narrator ( is it now Proust himself?) seems to me to have rei..."

I too have struggled mightily with the Narrator's obsessions and jealousies...something he calls "love". At times I've had an urge to throw whichever volume we were reading at the wall, out the window...into the fireplace. Months ago I commented if we were meant to feel the physical sensation of such misery, I promise I got it! Stop...please STOP!

Then as I continued on the path of ISOLT and found myself as reader ever more present I looked inward and acknowledged my own frailties. Areas of suffering that have been repetitive. Not the same story as the Narrator...but suddenly my own life was written in between the lines.

And in this section we understand: "For if unhappiness develops the forces of the mind, happiness alone is salutary to the body." The words fairly leap off the page in their succinct brevity.

The thought is continued: "But unhappiness, even if it did not on every occasion reveal to us some new law, would nevertheless be indispensable, since through its means alone we are brought back time after time to a perception of the truth and forced to take things seriously, tearing up each new crop of the weeds of habit and scepticism and levity and indifference." ML p314

Had "Time Regained", particularly this week's section, been the foreword we would not have wrestled and found ourselves. The journey would have been diminished.

[Ce Ce]

I cannot find words to properly respond to this week's reading. It was not an intellectual experience for me. I appreciate the analytical posts for another perspective.

It touched a place in me that questions and explores all aspects of life experience...recognizing suffering and joy as essential...learning to accept the beauty and balance of both...not turning away from that which is painful...trusting in ourselves...and considering what instinct or intuition drives creativity.

Time Regained represents a lifetime of search.

[Marcelita]

Phillida wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "Phillida wrote: …..

CeCe, It makes me happy that my comment should have prompted your profound thoughts. You captured succinctly what Proust does for us when you wrote "...suddenly..."

This is why I am devoted to Proust and the reading groups...I read and hear such insights, expressed with such emotional beauty.

[Ce Ce]

Fionnuala wrote: "I've been thinking about why I've never felt the need, during this year of reading the Recherche, to read any of the secondary literature, the critical studies which set out to ex...

Kalliope wrote: I agree. Proust is not difficult in that sense. He does not need outside explanations because he says it himself. My guess now is that a fair amount of secondary material do not add a great deal to what is there already in Proust's words. Although some authors (Kristeva, Barthes?) probably help in making us realize further the implications. "

I just returned to this section this morning and read most of it again. I, too, have not felt the lack of auxilliary reads. I agree, Proust tells us so eloquently. But also, in this morning's re-read I relished his understanding and comfort in allowing his words to be interpreted by us, the reader, through our own lens. He frees us to not be his reader but respectfully invites us to the feast as we are.

"For it is only out of habit, a habit contracted from the insincere language of prefaces and dedications that the writer speaks of 'my reader.' In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have perceived in himself."

"In order to read with understanding many readers require to read in their own particular fashion, and the author must not be indignant at this: on the contrary, he must leave the reader all possible liberty, saying to him: 'Look for yourself, and try whether you see best with this lens or that one or this other one.'" ML pp 321 & 322

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.

[Wayne]

Eugene wrote: "One of my adventures found me with a polyamorist lover and one day she said disparagingly to me, "Your nothing but a serial monogamist." How I wish I had this quote to keep me company.

For to the..."

I just love this story of yours, Eugene.
Am enjoying so many of your contributions to this site.
I pulled out of this Big Reading Endeavour in mid May of 2013 when my Mum finally died...was too involved 'living' a book.Now, almost a year later, returning for a browse !!