The Year of Reading Proust discussion
This topic is about
The Captive / The Fugitive
The Captive, vol. 5
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Through Sunday, 22 Sept.: The Captive
regarding differences between versions - my Penguin ed was originally Captive through to the end but has been sliced and rebound quite well before I'd bought it second hand because Captive's second half was the one missing part of my whole set. Because it's lost the later parts the notes attaching to the numbers through the text (which must appear after the end of the original book) are missing. Most annoying however, are asterisks that appear to indicate sections of text - at times several pages in length and with no explanation. I assume these are sections transposed from the typescript/type, so I'm never sure whether I'm reading what's included in this week's reading or from somewhere else ... however ...I found that the "Proustian" criticism of doctors, particularly the view that medication is employed to prolong rather than cure illness, very alike Dickens' criticism of lawyers which is a theme that runs through a great number of his works.
From time to time I've wondered at Proust's personal religious views and feel this paragraph is important with respect to this.
He was dead. Dead forever? Who can say? ... there is no reason inherent in the conditions of life on this earth that can make us consider ourselves obliged to do good, to be kind and thoughtful, even to be polite, nor for an athiest artist to consider himself obliged to begin over again a score of times a piece of work ...
Such speculation resonates with ideas of Dostoievski and Nietzsche that "if God is dead, everything is permitted" but beyond this, the narrator appears to accept that there is another world from whence we've come and to which we may return, rejoining Bergotte, in which the burden of our obligations in this life were contracted.
edited to add: An odd coincidence, Kall. I was replying to yr post several back on doctors, and continued to mention my thoughts about "Mort à jamais?". After posting, I discover we're over on to the next page of comments, and my quote then appears immediately after yours.
I'm not so sure the point of the passage is about an artist's posthumous celebrity; I understand it to be about the evidence for god's existance and the possibilities of a soul's immortality.
Unregistered* wrote: "regarding differences between versions - my Penguin ed was originally Captive through to the end but has been sliced and rebound quite well before I'd bought it second hand because Captive's second..."Unregistered*
Interesting your thoughts about religion in Proust, although I think he is a lot less of a moralist in a Dostoyevsky or also a Tolstoi sense...I do not know enough about Nietzsche to comment. But Proust is not moralizing to us.
The issue of posthumous celebrity has come up in the book before... often when the Narrator is musing about his wanting to become a writer. It is presented as achieving a form immortality.
I remember I understood this notion very well, years ago, in a concert in the St. Thomas church in Leipzig, where J.S. Bach is buried. We were listening to his organ music while sitting around his grave. I started shacking and thought, and felt, in great awe: he is immortal. He (his creation) is here now, with us, and will remain after us.
The Narrator though, around this passage, is envisioning the end of the world, when heat disappears, and only some beings who do not need heat have survived, and he realizes that even then Bergotte's books will have died.
My sense is that Proust was then, after all, not a believer.
We also have to remember that he was dying as he was writing this.
On another topic, the notes in my edition draw attention to Neuilly being mentioned in reference to Charlus.This is when the "maître d'hôtel" is explaining that he was told to go to Neuilly:
Ce matin Madame m'a envoyé faire une course à Neuilly. À la pistière de la rue de Bourgogne j'ai vu entrer M. le Baron de Charlus...
The note says that this is one of the "clefs" to point at Robert de Montesquiou as a model for Charlus since he lived in Neuilly.
We are gradually moving away from the obsessive jealousy to a discussion of lies, and liars... "le mensonge"..., as if we were approaching the realization that the Narrator was right, after all, to suspect of Albertine... may be the way he handled his obsession was not exemplary but after all he may have been duped.... There is a new colder tone in the narration.When I read Carter's bio, I felt sorry for Proust because I did not like Agostinelli.
I love this week's reading.. there are so many interesting aspects....We come to an extraordinary intermission of the author. I think the most blatant so far... He referring to the book as a "work" / "ouvrage"... which hints at the fictional aspect, versus a mémoire, which has seemed so far to be the shape or structure of the novel even if we had seen that the Narrator was a fragmented series of selves and with a limited bodily presence.
Or si au cours de cet ouvrage j'ai eu et j'aurai bien des occasions de montrer comment la jalousie redouble l'amour, c'est au point de vue de l'amant que je me suis placé. Mais pour peu que celui-ci ait un peu de fierté et dût-il mourir d'une séparation, il ne répondra pas à une trahison supposée par une gentillesse, il s'écartera, ou sans s'éloigner s'ordonnera de feindre la froideur.
This is Marcel Proust talking in third person about his main character and telling us that he has chosen to put himself in the position of the lover to analyze jealousy...
Soon after this extract Proust puts on the skin of the Narrator again and goes back to his usual narrating way.
I am in the car with the narrator and Albertine on their way back from their walk. And I have been often almost stifled by a feeling of claustrophobia; I am caught in the web of his analysis and jealousy and exchanged looks. At one point, I wanted to change the gender of the title because I felt that I was the real prisoner of his obsessive thinking. And, several times, I have remembered that it is from Proust that René Girard began to formulate his notion of mimetic desire, especially in that passage where the narrator describes how other girls are attractive or not dependent on the state of his jealousy for Albertine. I am eager to get to hear the Vinteuil Septet again -- I need some air!
Kalliope: "My sense is that Proust was then, after all, not a believer."The saddest, saddest line the novel. When the Narrator learns that on her deathbed, after reassuring herself that the Narrator was not in the room, the Grandmother took Mamma's hand and said, "Goodbye, my child. Goodbye forever."
Kalliope wrote: "My sense is that Proust was then, after all, not a believer."Yes, I have that sense, too -- and yet I am fascinated by the awareness of real presence that is invoked again and again. So much imagery comes from Catholic life, in astonishing places: Albertine's tongue is like daily bread, as an example. And underneath the whole novel is the search for real presence -- remember back to those buzzing flies that bring summer back again! -- which will end in a long section he called Perpetual Adoration. He is an "unbeliever" -- or perhaps a non-practitioner -- who is deeply aware of the sacramentality of the world.
Cassian wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "My sense is that Proust was then, after all, not a believer."Yes, I have that sense, too -- and yet I am fascinated by the awareness of real presence that is invoked again and ag..."
Fionnuala early on in the read had commented on the recurring Biblical scenes appearing in the book.
Elizabeth wrote: "Kalliope: "My sense is that Proust was then, after all, not a believer.".."
Yes, I had noticed that sentence but after this week's reading (so far my favourite in this volume), it acquires a deeper meaning. Thank you Elizabeth for reminding us.
Kalliope wrote: "And the extraordinary passage on immortality and an artist's celebrity in posterity...Dans une céleste balance lui apparaissait chargeant l'un des plateaux sa propre vie, tandis que l'autre conte..."
Remembered tears on my cheeks, when I read this passage for the first time. (Kalliope's post in English.)
"Bergotte pleased to hear Marcel has read every word he's written." By David Richardson
http://resemblancetheportraits.blogsp...
"They buried him, but all through that night of mourning, in the lighted shop-windows, his books, arranged three by three, kept vigil like angels with outspread wings and seemed, for him who was no more, the symbol of his resurrection." MP
And then this came to my mind on immortality,
"My surplus of knowledge of life (life as being less uniform, less simple than I had at first supposed it to be) inclined me provisionally towards agnosticism." MP (The narrator in The Guermantes Way, p 494)
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And the extraordinary passage on immortality and an artist's celebrity in posterity...Dans une céleste balance lui apparaissait chargeant l'un des plateaux sa propre vie, tandis q..."
Thank you for posting the translation, Marcelita. It is a heart wrenching passage.
The notes say that the passage with Swann's death is not in the manuscript but only in they typed document. Together with the death of Bergotte, they are passages added later.
And in the account of Swann's death he has developed another very powerful imagery. That of the deaths walking around biding their time. There is not Death, but many deaths, as many as individuals, and they become like black angels who come and look after you when you are sick.... la mort, comme une religieuse qui vous aurait soigné au lieu de vous détruire, vient assister à vos dernières instants, couronne d'une auréole suprême l'être à jamais glacé dont le coeur a cessé de battre.
And here is the key to the key for Charles Swann.From the webpage of the Musée d'Ordsay, Tissot's "Le Cercle de la Rue Royale", 1868.
The notes say that it was Paul Brach who gave Proust in June 1922, a reproduction of the painting which had been published in L'Illustration that same month.
What is so extraordinary about this passage is that it is the Author again, and not the Narrator, who is giving us the key.
He never mentions the real person, Charles Haas, explicitly. Instead, he addresses himself first to “cher Charles Swann” as if he were Haas--so Proust talks to the fictitious character as if he were the real person. And then Proust shifts and addresses himself to the figure in the painting, who is no longer Swann but someone (again, not named) who is next to three other real figures who are named (Galliffet --11-, Edmond de Polignac --10--, and Saint-Maurice --9-). From outside sources we know that Charles Haas is number 12; he is not really with the other three but somewhat behind them, by the door at the extreme right of the painting.
According to Carter, Proust had met Haas at the Straus Salon. Haas did not pay much attention to Proust who was then very young. And this is what the author says..
.. que j'ai si peu connu quand j'étais encore si jeune et vous près du tombeau, c'est déjà parce que celui que vous deviez considérer comme un petit imbécile a fait de vous l'héros d'un de ses romans, qu'on recommence à parler de vous et que peût-être vous vivrez.
Given that the painting is from 1868 and that Proust was born in 1871, we should not be surprised that Charles Haas would pay little attention in the Salon circles to the young man who however was registering in his mind all about him....
Kalliope wrote: "And in the account of Swann's death he has developed another very powerful imagery. That of the deaths walking around biding their time. There is not Death, but many deaths, as many as individual."...and they become like black angels who come and look after you when you are sick."
"..powerful imagery..."
This brought me back to Carter's biography and the description of Proust dying. He told Celeste not to turn off the light, because, "There's a big fat woman in the room...a horrible big fat woman in black. I want to be able to see..." Carter's "Marcel Proust: A Life" p 806
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And in the account of Swann's death he has developed another very powerful imagery. That of the deaths walking around biding their time. There is not Death, but many deaths, as m..."I had forgotten about this, Marcelita... yes, the figure he could see when the lights were not on.. his black angel.
As Eugene said, Our Narrator is an odd creature. I find myself inwardly screaming at him a lot of the time:"Tout être aimé, même dans une certaine mesure tout être, est pour nous comme Janus, nous présentant le front qui nous plaît, si cet être nous quitte, le front morne si nous le savons à notre perpétuelle disposition." (p. 170 fc)
So wrong, in so many ways. Having someone at your disposition being only one of them.
If Our Narrator is right in his suspicions about Albertine's proclivities, why is he so obtuse as not to recognize the parallels between the Morel-Charlus-Jupien's niece triangle, and the Albertine-whoever it is maybe Lea-Narrator triangle? That he and Jupien's niece are in comparable positions?
Good point, Karen. He seems incredibly insightful and unbelievably clueless, all at the same time.
The discussion about whether Proust was a "believer" or not confuse me a little...do you mean a Catholic?? I think so. But even if he were not a believer in this sense, he (or rather the Narrator) has a much broader conception of life than just a one off three-score-and-ten event and appears to be a spiritualist, or at least a supporter. Eg: "All that we can say is that everything is arranged in this life as though we entered it carrying a burden of obligations contracted in a former life;" (ML 245)
Marcus wrote: "The discussion about whether Proust was a "believer" or not confuse me a little...do you mean a Catholic?? I think so. But even if he were not a believer in this sense, he (or rather the Narrator) ..."Posted earlier...the narrator (Proust?):
"My surplus of knowledge of life (life as being less uniform, less simple than I had at first supposed it to be) inclined me provisionally towards
agnosticism."
MP (The Guermantes Way, p 494)
One can never know...
Marcus wrote; "All that we can say is that everything is arranged in this life as though we entered it carrying a burden of obligations contracted in a former life;" (ML 245)A common view of Karma from Hinduism and other Eastern religions.
Kalliope writes in message 67: And then Proust shifts and addresses himself to the figure in the painting, who is no longer Swann but someone (again, not named) who is next to three other real figures who are named (Galliffet --11-, Edmond de Polignac --10--, and Saint-Maurice --9-).Proust writes: Si dans le tableau de Tissot représentant le balcon du Cercle de la rue Royale, où vous êtes entre Galliffet, Edmond Polignac et Saint-Maurice, on parle tant de vous, c'est parce qu'on sait qu'il y a quelques traits de vous dans le personnage de Swann.
Moncrieff translates, and Kilmartin/Enright in the ML edition leave it unchanged:...où vous êtes entre Galliffet, Edmond Polignac et Saint-Maurice... as ... where you figure with Galliffet, Edmond Polignac and Saint-Maurice...
The translators use among, in the sense of "with", as the English for "entre", not the alternate translation of between that you seem to imply, making sense of the sentence which finishes the address by stating that traces of unnamed Haas ("vous", "you") are found in Swann.
Perhaps I'm nitpicking here--don't mind me--but I do read you carefully. You write many interesting things and post images that help the reader visualize what he reads and I thank you for that.
Et pourtant, cher Charles Swann, que j'ai connu quand j'étais encore si jeune et vous près du tombeau, c'est parce que celui que vous deviez considérer comme un petit imbécile a fait de vous le héros d'un de ses romans, qu'on recommence à parler de vous et que peut-être vous vivrez. Si dans le tableau de Tissot représentant le balcon du Cercle de la rue Royale, où vous êtes entre Galliffet, Edmond Polignac et Saint-Maurice, on parle tant de vous, c'est parce qu'on sait qu'il y a quelques traits de vous dans le personnage de Swann.
·Karen· wrote: "If Our Narrator is right in his suspicions about Albertine's proclivities, why is he so obtuse as not to recognize the parallels between the Morel-Charlus-Jupien's niece triangle, and the Albertine-whoever it is maybe Lea-Narrator triangle? That he and Jupien's niece are in comparable positions? ."But even more striking is the perfect way the triangle you describe is repeated throughout the Recherche, first framing Swann and Odette and Forcheville (remember him?), then our Narrator and Gilberte and another, then with Albertine and of course, the Charlus, Morel ménage à trois. All of these triangles have secrets and lies in common, reckless fabrications on the part of the objects of desire to hide their traces and a certain deviousness on the part of the cuckolds to trap the loved one and uncover the 'truth'. It's worthy of Molière.
Kalliope, that Brueghel painting you posted of the chained pet monkeys is so apt - they seem to reproach each other as if each were responsible for the other's misery.
A phrase I came across in this section which makes the reading worthwhile: it's when Brichot walks arm in arm with the Narrator and Charlus begins to tease him c'est a dire, sans ombré de tartufferie, mais avec une pointe de cabotinage. Wonderful.
I've also enjoyed the increasing number of aphorisms scattered throughout the text. This one, in particular: Mais l'erreur est plus entêtée que la foi et n'examine pas ses croyances.
Proust's desire to announce to the world that he has immortalised Charles Haas in the character of Swann is interesting but strange given that they had little contact. He must have admired him a great deal.
I'm also curious about how Morel's swear words, 'Grand pied de grue', which so disturb the Narrator, and which Charlus repeats later about the Comtesse de Molé (perhaps he'd heard them addressed to himself by Morel), are translated.Regarding the choice of the name Morel, perhaps Proust simply played around with the name Moreau - he compares Morel to a character called Frédéric Moreau from Flaubert's L'éducation Sentimentale, a young man from the country who makes some mistakes as he learns about life in the big city.
Fionnuala: every translation I've ever read left the phrase in French. Evidently it makes no sense at all; I always think of him screaming at her "Big-footed whore!" But that's not really a translation, just a feel.
I have to say that even though there have been so many wonderful and interesting paintings shared week after week in the threads, the only one that has continued to hold my fascination has always been Vermeer's View of Delft. I went back to reread this section where Bergotte dies after going to look at the painting. Well apparently, Proust also fell ill after going to see the same painting and never went out again after this experience. Proust turns his experience into the one that Bergotte has. Well, I'll just leave this link which explains everything better than I ever could. I think it requires a reread.http://www.essentialvermeer.com/prous...
My sense is that Proust's little patch of yellow wall in Vermeer's View of Delft,this "petit pan de mur jaune", this "beauty that was sufficient in itself' was what La Recherche was meant to have/be.
"My last books are too dry, I ought to have gone over them with a few layers of colour, made my language precious in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall." (MKE 244)
"On page 150 of the Edmund White biography (Penguin 1999) it states that: "Indeed, on the night before he died Proust dictated a last sentence, "There is a Chinese patience in Vermeer's craft."
A patience required of time. I'm telling you there is more to this painting than we know.
I'll always be haunted by that little patch of yellow wall!!!
I found more:
Eric Karpeles, from Paintings in Proust
The death of the novelist Bergotte in the room where Vermeer’s View at Delft hung presents the single most palpable collaboration of word and image in the novel — arguably in any novel. Proust fiddled with the crafting of this scene until the last day of his life. His prose is rhapsodic, but keyed down, in awe of the painting’s elusive, haunting quietude. The luminous townscape, with its ineffable ‘little patch of yellow wall’, surprises Bergotte into thinking that maybe he should have done as Vermeer had done and layered more colours into his writing. Overwhelmed by the consummate perfection of the Dutch painter’s art shimmering before him, he diffidently holds his own life’s work in abeyance. At that moment, the picture occasions an epiphany. Merciless but emphatic, Proust extracted from his character a final self-critical judgment. ‘In a celestial pair of scales there appeared to him, weighing down one of the pans, his own life, while the other combined the little patch of wall so beautifully painted in yellow. He felt that he had rashly sacrificed the former for the latter.’ Bergotte staggers back onto a settee and dies. It maybe asserted that the painting is what killed him. In the presence of View From Delft, so profound an expression of humanity, Proust’s unequivocal, brutal credo — life is nothing, art is all — is given full force.”
Wow!!
http://thecorklinedroom.wordpress.com...
Elizabeth wrote: "Fionnuala: every translation I've ever read left the phrase in French. Evidently it makes no sense at all; I always think of him screaming at her "Big-footed whore!" But that's not really a trans..."Interesting that the translator left it in French, Elizabeth, he might easily have put, "you whore".
I found a definition for 'faire le pied de grue': attendre debout à la même place, pendant un certain temps (to stand waiting in a particular spot for a certain length of time), in slang, that means prostitute. Grue literally means the bird 'crane' which stands for long periods in one place, perhaps on one leg? it also means crane as in any apparatus for lifting.
So Morel is 'simply' calling Jupien's niece a prostitute, full stop.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I have to say that even though there have been so many wonderful and interesting paintings shared week after week in the threads, the only one that has continued to hold my fascination has always b..."Proust's friend, Louis Gautier-Vignal's mentions this episode in Proust's own life in his book Proust Connu et Inconnu but I haven't got it to hand at the moment - away from home - it is clear that he had some sort of epiphany experience.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I found more:..."Yes, this is a wonderful episode and painting... And it is so famous that even ArtHistorians who have not read Proust know the Vermeer painting as the Proust painting...
@Fionnuala - I think I will reread G-V.. also for the way he discusses Misia Sert, which Marcelita discusses in this week's thread.
Kalliope wrote: "Yes, this is a wonderful episode and painting... And it is so famous that even ArtHistorians who have not read Proust know the Vermeer painting a..."It was in an art history lecture about Thoré-Bürger, a nineteenth century art critic that I first heard reference to Vermeer's 'pan de mur jaune' as Thoré-Bürger was credited with rescuing Vermeer from obscurity, a bit like Swann....but I can't remember if the lecturer was quoting T-B himself or Proust.
Fionnuala wrote: Proust's friend, Louis Gautier-Vignal's mentions this episode in Proust's own life in his book Proust Connu et Inconnu but I haven't got it to hand at the moment - away from home - it is clear that he had some sort of epiphany experience.
Yes Fionnuala, do share with us what you learn. I'm still thinking about this little patch of yellow wall and what Anne Carson calls the transposition theory in the video that Marcelita shared with us. Are we trying too hard to find something in Proust's life to explain things? When I first read what Carter wrote (in the link I shared above), I thought this just can't be, there has to be some other explanation.
" William Carter
Marcel Proust: A Life, 2000
Carter believes that from what can be understood of original text, neither areas of the two most often cited are more strongly probable than the other and that Proust is creating an impression rather than sending us to admire a precise detail in the painting.3"
I think, throwing a theory out there, that perhaps the little wall of yellow is cowardice on the part of Vermeer that Proust encountered, and Proust played it up by writing about it indirectly in ISOLT, having a little fun at Vermeer's expense. Perhaps??
"At the exhibition, Vaudoyer steadied the writer's shaky progress towards the View of Delft. Proust was apparently revived by Vermeer for he managed to go on to the Ingres exhibition and then to lunch at the Ritz before returning home, though according to Painter he was still 'shaken and alarmed' by the attack."
There is a missing piece to this puzzle!!!
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I have to say that even though there have been so many wonderful and interesting paintings shared week after week in the threads, the only one that has continued to hold my fascination"On page 150 of the Edmund White biography (Penguin 1999) it states that: "Indeed, on the night before he died Proust dictated a last sentence, "There is a Chinese patience in Vermeer's craft.""
Thank you, ReemK10...straight to my library to re-read that page.
Marcelita wrote: Thank you, ReemK10...straight to my library to re-read that page.
You know Marcelita, it's been a real treat to read Proust alongside you. There is something very special about your love, your adoration for Marcel Proust that rubs off on us and makes us want to read more! I thank you for that.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Marcelita wrote: Thank you, ReemK10...straight to my library to re-read that page.
You know Marcelita, it's been a real treat to read Proust alongside you...."
How kind of you to say, but I may try your patience next week. ;)
As a "poor obsessive," GR is the only place I can truly delve into "all things Proust."
Thinking that Proust was writing about himself, rather than the Baron de Charlus:
"If he had written books, even bad ones (although I do not believe they would have been bad), what a delightful dictionary, what an inexhaustible inventory they would have been!" MP p 293.
So much death...now Charles Swann. "They had sufficed to make of a of a living man someone who could never again respond to what one said to him, to reduce him to a mere name, a written name, that had suddenly passed from the real world to the realm of silence." MP p. 263
"Charles Swann" by David Richardson
http://resemblancetheportraits.blogsp...
Marcelita wrote: "So much death...now Charles Swann. "They had sufficed to make of a of a living man someone who could never again respond to what one said to him, to reduce him to a mere name, a written name, that had suddenly passed from the real world to the realm of silence.."
There is no silence around Swann's name; it is what makes the Recherche eternal. Thanks to Swann, Proust's name is now unforgettable because if it weren't for the glory of the first volume, the rest would have passed into the world of silence. Swann is the key to it all.
But my Swann looks less like a goat than David Richadson's....
I have to say (sorry, Marcelita, I know you like them) that David Richardson's drawings do not correspond to my idea of La recherche characters.. They all look like caricatures and lack the "look" of their times, something that Proust himself said was crucial..
Sorry too, Marcelita, my comment above was a bit too much in the Duchesse de Guermantes mode!We all have our own images of Swann so David Richardson's are just as valid as anyone else's but Kall has a point, they are verging on caricature. You could argue that the characters in the Recherche do verge on caricature at times but we take them seriously none the less, and most especially Swann.
I understand how we all have different responses to art. These portraits are how David sees the characters...though his eyes.
Marcelita wrote: "I understand how we all have different responses to art. These portraits are how David sees the characters...though his eyes."You are right, Marcelita.. Each person, each artist, has a different vision and I am sure David Richardson's images appeal to very many.
I think they would be more attractive to me were it not that the very rich art from Proust's time is amongst my favorites.... The kind of "look" that we find in Sargent or in Whistler, or in the Degas and Toulouse-Lautrecs just seem to me more in tune with Proust's writing.
But thank you for posting, because it just provides different views.
I finished this section yesterday morning. I read all of your comments and could find no words.I felt simple relief that the Narrator is out of the house for a ride...a walk with Albertine...or on his way to the Verdurins. I could physically feel the fresh breeze as he navigated the world. I sat straight up when he played the piano. The Narrator plays the piano? A physical act of grace and art...I felt the power of freed mind. A loosening of the bondage in leaving the house and playing the piano and acknowledging the symphony heard in the cell of the Narrator's room at the beginning of this volume.
I felt sadness, and relief too, that the deep pain of Swann's death was acknowledged by the Narrator. There was Bergotte's death...his regrets at not having written as beautifully and deeply as Vermeer painted...and the poignancy of his death upon viewing Vermeer's painting. The bewildering tangle of lies Albertine tells the Narrator that becomes confused with Bergotte's passing. And there seems a foreboding, a foreshadowing of ill health for M. de Charlus.
It felt an exploration too...something more personally questioning of the impossibility of summing up of a life. The finality and also the emptiness of obituaries; arbitrariness of immortality through one's own work...or another's. There is an anticipation of death unfolding in this section...a reconciling...a search for what is this life and what comes before and after.
There was also a quiet beauty...a parting of the clouds of obsession. Clarity of truth peeked through in the exploration of lies. Lies told to us, the reader…to the Narrator…to Albertine…and lies told by ourselves…not only to others, but to ourselves about others and ourselves.
I could not always tell if the sadness and questioning was that of the words I was reading...or my own life. I had a friend who passed away two years ago. He held the same beliefs about medicine as did Proust. He refused surgery and medicine…other than palliative. He was a pagan…however toward the end he was open to conversations about all forms of faith, life before and life after. He spent his final months barely able to navigate the stairs to the street…listening to the cacophony of urban sounds and teeming life outside his window as he removed himself more and more from this world. He was a brilliant writer…he devoted his final months to getting his writing in order and ensuring his work was in the hands of those who would preserve it. It was his legacy. His life’s purpose was in those words, as was his immortality, and ours…those of us who were written into his words.
In August I navigated the near death…and miraculous survival…of someone I have a complex, difficult and painful relationship with. Two weeks ago today we said goodbye to our cat of 21 years…a cat we rescued at 7 days and bottle fed and devoted to keeping healthy in the face of so very many issues. I am experiencing the daily quiet and world of emptiness of a death in my home…and also the barrenness inside when a being that took so much care, thought and attention is no longer there. The clouds are also drifting and parting between my own life and ISOLT.
I started to wonder if Proust’s work speaks to us so profoundly because it is not complete. Or is it complete in the sense that the entire novel represents a life lived and work perfected… words layered with the brilliant color, depth and atmosphere of a Vermeer painting as Proust’s earlier volumes were…and then in the final volumes we hold in our hands the words and unfinished work of a man dying. Death…the universal truth. The layers of veils between narrator and author…and author and reader…seem to lift page by page as we travel Proust’s final months…and I anticipate, eventually, his final days…in his written word.
I find a different part of my brain is engaged when viewing a complete and perfect work of art. I appreciate it deeply but I find I am removed in my admiration and analysis. However there is a primal vibration, a physical sensation when I recognize the bones, the skeleton, the formation of a work of art…the hand, the mind, the heart, the breath of the person creating it apparent and present with me recognized as a fellow vulnerable questioning human being.
Perhaps Proust’s novel is perfectly profoundly complete…because we resonate with an immortal work created by a mortal man living his final hours…and in our very center we recognize the truth. We move from an intellectual analysis…as we travel with Proust toward a sacred life experience that is difficult to find words to address…not in the sense of religion but rather a mystery laden passage from our known world.
Ce Ce wrote: "I finished this section yesterday morning. I read all of your comments and could find no words.I felt simple relief that the Narrator is out of the house for a ride...a walk with Albertine...or ..."
What an amazing post CeCe... YOU leave me with no words.
I agree with you that from this volume we are reading what a "mortal man living his final hours", and who was aware of it, was writing.
Kalliope wrote: "What an amazing post CeCe... YOU leave me with no words."Thank you Kalliope.
LOL, clearly I did finally find at least a few words...
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "I understand how we all have different responses to art. These portraits are how David sees the characters...though his eyes.""I think they would be more attractive to me were it not that the very rich art from Proust's time is amongst my favorites.... The kind of "look" that we find in Sargent or in Whistler, or in the Degas and Toulouse-Lautrecs just seem to me more in tune with Proust's writing."
I understand completely. I grew up with the Degas ballet paintings in my bedroom and wept when I saw them inches away at the Musée de l'Orangerie, in 1974.
And when I saw a Rothko for the first time, I giggled.
Now, if a museum has a Rothko, I stop there first. The play "Red" was electrifying, as they actually painted a huge canvas during the show.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/...
And Proust understood:
"The reason why a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It is his work itself that, by fertilising the rare minds capable of understanding it, will make them increase and multiply." MP
"Cézanne said, 'I dare, sir, I dare,' responding to an inquiring journalist as he hauled his paintings to be spurned yet again by the Salon jury. 'I have the courage of my opinions — and he who laughs last laughs best.'"
And, our favorite Whistler, was also rejected from exhibiting in the Salon of 1863.
As were many others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/boo...
That critical year, 1863, changed the direction of art.
Salon des Refusés 1863
http://arthistoryblogger.blogspot.com...
Ce Ce wrote: "I finished this section yesterday morning. I read all of your comments and could find no words.I felt simple relief that the Narrator is out of the house for a ride...a walk with Albertine...or ..."
Ce Ce, you have read deeply and in doing so entered a state of spiritual reading where your memories, reflections, thoughts, and opinions all mix with Proust's words making you relate so well to him. "I could not always tell if the sadness and questioning was that of the words I was reading...or my own life." I find that you are always so well attuned to the narrator's moods. And because you are also an artist you can draw from the richness of details.
Don't forget that Proust scroll you started!! Perhaps, it's time to take it out and work on it again. Especially after writing an amazing post like this one.
Ce Ce wrote: "I finished this section yesterday morning. I read all of your comments and could find no words."..and lies told by ourselves…not only to others, but to ourselves about others and ourselves."
Ce Ce, you have cut through so many layers and are finding the depth in Proust.
When you hear the platitude, "Proust can change you life," it doesn't mean anything...until you begin to see your behavior on the pages.
Ce Ce, for writing...
"We move from an intellectual analysis…as we travel with Proust toward a sacred life experience that is difficult to find words to address…not in the sense of religion but rather a mystery laden passage from our known world."
...you deserve The Coix de Combray for understanding the internal changes Proust makes in our hearts. For many of us, we are not the same person who first read, "Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure."
Dear Reem & Marcelita,I am honored...and very humbled. And now, once again, I am without words.
I believe I will be contemplating this journey of ISOLT for a long time to come...perhaps the rest of my life.
The earlier volumes, I felt I could dip my toes in...even take a long luxurious bath in Proust's world...but dry off and return to my life. Volume 5 has the sense of a baptism to me...a sacred ritual, a rite of passage, a promise...a commitment.
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
The Magic Mountain (other topics)Proust connu et inconnu (other topics)
The Case of Wagner (other topics)
Dans une céleste balance lui apparaissait chargeant l'un des plateaux sa propre vie, tandis que l'autre contenait le petit pan du mur si bien peint en jaune. Il sentait qu'il avait imprudemment donné la première pour le second....
.... Mort à jamais? Qui peut le dire?
And then the "vitrines" of bookshelves.. another leitmotiv..., but this time those books behind glass acquire a different and weightier significance.. They are the soul of the artist, resurrected, and immortal.
On l'enterra mais toute la nuit funèbre, aux vitrines éclairées,ses livres disposés trois par trois veillaient comme des anges aux ailes éplorées et semblaient pour celui qui n'était plus, le symbole de la résurrection.