The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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May be one could read the scenes on his obsessive jealousy as yet another variation of a musical theme.
Saturday's Fashion Pages"...just a little later Albertine took to wearing slippers...the sight of which gave me great pleasure because they were all of them signs ( which other shoes would not have been) that she was living under my roof." (p 75)
"...before lying down, she would take off her slippers which I had given her..." (p 142)
http://metmuseum.org/Collections/sear...
http://metmuseum.org/Collections/sear...
http://metmuseum.org/collections/sear...
Saturday's Fashion PagesRings
Albertine's...outspread eagle wings.
"She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wings of an eagle. 'It was my aunt who gave me it," she explained. 'She can be quite nice sometimes after all. It makes me feel terribly old, because she gave it to me on my twentieth birthday.'" MP (p 75)
"...before lying down, she would take off...her ring which she placed by the bedside, as she did in her own room when she when to bed..." MP (p 142)
Imagining...
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O11...
The Baron's...symbolic rings.
"M. de Charlus was obliged to content himself with having symbolical rings made for Morel, bearing the antique device: PLVS VLTRA CAR'LVS." MP (S&G p 629)
Imagining altering this old motto:
The Comte de Crecy's...sprig of verjuice grapes.
"On my inquiring what was engraved on his ring, he told me with a modest smile: 'It is a sprig of verjuice grapes.'" MP (S&G p 657)
Imagining...
http://www.berganza.com/jewellery_ref...
I also uncovered this little sip:
Louis de VERJUS, comte de CRÉCY
http://www.academie-francaise.fr/les-...
"According to Saint-Simon,[4] ' [Crécy Verjus] was a wise and measured man,..."
[...]
"On Verjus's death, the duke-writer added: "He ...had much insinuation, the art of re-saying the same thing a hundred times, always in different ways, [and] very often thus succeeded.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_de...
(Sounds like ___? A good question for our future Marcel Non-Trivia game.)
Unregistered* wrote: "I've been giving quite a lot of thought to Proust's characterization and still feel Albertine is almost a ghost in comparison to other more solidly created personalities. To me, the author seems to portray her as an object rather than a subject, and the living breath not yet instilled. Pygmalion still under construction."Albertine is still a mystery to us. She has to be a mystery because so much is unknown about her from the Narrator's point of view.
However, we do know that she readily agreed to accompany the Narrator to Paris...forfeiting her own plans seemingly without a thought. Her aunt, rather surprisingly, agrees to Albertine residing in Paris with the Narrator. Implied is that the Narrator is a good "catch" for Albertine. His mother is worried about this match. Salt of the earth Francoise angry and warning the Narrator that there is trouble in the form of Albertine under their roof. We also learn, almost as an aside, through a young woman who is no longer Gilberte's maid, that the Narrator's jealousies of Gilberte had foundation.
The words leaped off the page in last week's section when the Narrator mentioned Albertine slipping her tongue between his lips (like bread) nightly...a glimmer of Albertine the object becoming an actor in her own life.
Does she have assignations during those hours out? Is she educating herself? Has she made Andree and the chauffeur complicit? We don't know...but we don't know because she has successfully scuttled the Narrator's attempts at controlling her and he doesn't know...while complying with him docilely enough to keep him in a muddle. Is he in love? Is he not? He's in misery. And there are those tender moments of delight in her. Albertine, in the meantime, is coming and going...seemingly weaving her web.
With the passage on the ices..."dripping" with the sexuality & sensuality of a woman very much living and breathing...owning (and understanding) her own sexual power and prowess.
I do not see Albertine as pygmalion under construction. She may be working to rise to the opportunity the Narrator presents to her...but I now believe she is fully an actor in her own life.
Since this is my first reading I will have to wait and see if I am proven wrong.
I will look at Bloom at the end of the year. I want to draw my own conclusions in this once in a lifetime opportunity and challenge of a first read.
Kalliope wrote: "May be one could read the scenes on his obsessive jealousy as yet another variation of a musical theme."LOL...perhaps, Kalliope.
I don't see exasperation or frustration as a detraction...or negative. I feel I am being expertly led through a full glorious range of human emotion. At times I feel I am the instrument vibrating with the orchestration...alternately I am a slightly distanced observer...and then in a flash the narrator and I are one.
In life I have learned that wondrous joyous emotion is not possible to fully relish without more trying and painful (and sometimes wrenching) contrast. The balance of life...the pleasure of being fully human. That has been my experience of ISOLT.
Marcelita wrote: "Albertine's: outspread eagle wings."She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wings of an eagle. 'It was my aunt who gave me it," she explained. 'She can be quite nice sometimes after all. It makes me feel terribly old, because she gave it to me on my twentieth birthday.'" MP (p 75) "
Beautiful examples, Marcelita.
I had forgotten about Albertine's ring and that it was her aunt who had given it to her as a gift on her 20th birthday.
Eagle, beautiful awe-inspiring bird of prey, wings spread...imprinted on a delicate gold feminine ring? Nothing seems an accident or happenstance in ISOLT.
Hmmmm...will Albertine succeed or does tragedy ensue...and for whom? Reading on...
@Un...The description of Albertine is 1st person from the Narrator's POV, never is it 3rd person omniscient as were the descriptions of the 'little clan', Morel, Charlus et al. She is distanced from the reader as she is distanced from the Narrator, he speculates upon her fidelity as do we. If she were found to be unfaithful to the Narrator, but both he and we have no proof of that, jealousy would become something else. Proust is writing about the turnings of jealousy and how that inflicts, in its variable form, a person's mind.
For me to tolerate these two characters--some might find them at times abysmal--it is important not to normalize them, to compare them, as real as Proust makes them, to the everyday persons they are not.
Proust is a moralist.
I've learned much about jealousy, I have been catapulted back into considerations of previous relationships by reading this volume and I have been warned about the future too--if I may be that intelligent--in amorous adventures to come.
Eugene wrote: "For me to tolerate these two characters--some might find them at times abysmal--it is important not to normalize them, to compare them, as real as Proust makes them, to the everyday persons they are not.Proust is a moralist.
I've learned much about jealousy, I have been catapulted back into considerations of previous relationships by reading this volume and I have been warned about the future too--if I may be that intelligent--in amorous adventures to come. "
Eugene...are you not contradicting yourself with these two statements? I don't ask this as a challenge...but in honest curiosity.
If we are not to read these two people (the Narrator and Albertine) as "everyday" normalized persons, how do you relate them to your own relationships, past and perhaps future?
How does Proust being a moralist deny his characters reflection of human beings alive and well in this world? It seems that the lesson of morality is most profoundly realized by recognizing the multiple facets of Proust's characters in people we know (or have known), or even more intimately, ourselves.
Kalliope wrote: "Françoise as the matchmaker and paintings..."Thank you for the paintings. The look on the older woman/servant's face is priceless.
sorry, I seem to have put that analogy around the wrong way; viz Pygmalion was the sculptor who carved the woman Galateahowever, I was referring to the author as sculptor of his character, and that Albertine still seems not well defined to me. From the point of view of the narrator, his passion, his doubt and her lies all make her infuriatingly real to him.
Marcelita wrote: ""She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wi..."
Marcelita, where in the text is this part with the Plus Ultra from Charles V?..
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: ""She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wi..."
Marcelita, where in the text is this part wit..."
Kalliope, thank you for pointing this out! (Edited; it should be clearer now.)
I was linking Albertine's ring back to the rings in "Sodom and Gomorrah."
Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: ""She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wi..."
Marcelita, where in the text..."
Thank you Marcelita.
It feels weird for me to see a Spanish coin here...!!!.. It jumped at me.
Thank you for the Saturday fashion pages.
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: ""She had also certain things which had not come to her from me, including a fine gold ring. I admired upon it the outspread wi..."
It feels weird for me to see a Spanish coin here...!!!.. It jumped at me.,..."
Like Proust (not really)...a little surprise embedded just for you!
As you are aware, "Plus Ultra" is the motto of Spain...adopted from (neon lights) the personal motto of Charles V. Rivalry?
Marcelita wrote: " As you are aware, "Plus Ultra" is the motto of Spain...adopted from (neon lights) the personal motto of Charles V. Rivalry? ..."
Yes, Marcelita... Are you aware the the symbol for the Dollar comes from the two Pillars of Hercules in the shield above and the banner with the "Plus Ultra" around them? -- at least that is one of the theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S...
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "To quote or not to quote? ..."
Reem, on the quotes and need to quote. I liked the passage in which Albertine, proving what the Narrator has observed and has become much more sophisticated and cultured, retorts to him using Racine's verses from Esther.
They both engage in a dialogue of quotes. (I'll quote the selected verses)
A: Je craignais que vous me disiez
"Quel mortel insolent vient chercher le trépas"
a bit later on...
N: "Este-ce pour vous qu'est fait cet ordre si sévère"
...
"Quoique je serais furieux que vous me réveilliez"
....
A: "Je sais, je sais, n'ayez pas peur"
...
N: "Je ne trouve qu'en vous je ne sais quelle grâce,
Qui me charme toujours et jamais ne me lasse."
Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: " As you are aware, "Plus Ultra" is the motto of Spain...adopted from (neon lights) the personal motto of Charles V. Rivalry? ..."
Yes, Marcelita... Are you aware the the symbol ..."
No...fascinating reading.
For those of us who prefer a "centralized government" (Alexander Hamilton) vs "states rights" (Thomas Jefferson), Alexander Hamilton is our hero. And once again, his decisions seep through our daily life.
This is why I love Proust...as I spend a few moments re-reading Greek mythology.
From Wiki on "Pillars of Hercules."
"3. ^ Walter Burkert (1985). Greek Religion. Harvard University Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-674-36281-9. Retrieved 2 November 2012."
http://books.google.com/books?id=sxur...
@CeCeIf I were to contradict myself I would be like Proust writing the Narrator's views on love, jealousy & Albertine. I accept his various & sometime differing views & I do not 'normalize' the characters as they are exaggerations; from these extremes of character, much like those of the moralist that Proust liked, Jean de La Bruyère according to Brian Rogers in Proust' s Narrative Technique, I have applied the author's 'words' (albeit exaggerated) & hopefully his wisdom (not exaggerated) to my own life, as Proust would have hoped I suspect. I think of myself as a flawed but perfect reader. ISOLT is not only a work of art to be worshipped, it is a self help book to be used. I see no self contradiction. There are many ways clouds can be viewed.
More importantly, look at the choice of narration, the persons, the omniscience, etc Proust decided on it as he wrote.
Marcelita wrote: "Bill Carter, in his Online Course (www.proust-ink.com) compares the street cries to "The Strawberry Song" in Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess."From the 1959 film, sing by Helen Thigpen
"Street Cries; Strawberry Woman...Crab Man"
Interesting comparison and wonderful scene, Marcelita.
I've not seen this film...it looks like it can be viewed in its entirety online. I've bookmarked it.
I love the wide world that is introduced through the reading of Proust.
Thanks
NOTE: I posted this, turned on the radio...incredibly Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" was being played...song after song.
Eugene wrote: "I think of myself as a flawed but perfect reader...There are many ways clouds can be viewed."Thank you for your response, Eugene. I agree with what you are saying...except I would say I am a flawed and imperfectly perfect human being. I think that is one of the many aspects of Proust I have found so stimulating, challenging, wondrous and frustrating. Rather than creating a caricature of his characters I think he examines our species with deftness and wit...every single prism of us. Circling around us...capturing even what we would prefer to hide from ourselves. He strips us of delusions by staying in the moment...often, I find, long past a level of comfort. Which is, I think, the point. There's no avoiding the all seeing all knowing, omniscient, gaze of the Narrator. Both in self reflection (or self help) and unblinking recognition of the perfectly flawed world we live in.
I swear the Verdurins are alive and well on the West Coast of the US...I've met them and survived them! ;-)
Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Pages"...just a little later Albertine took to wearing slippers...the sight of which gave me great pleasure because they were all of them signs ( which other shoes would not ha..."
I keep looking at these slippers. What is it about shoes that hold so much of the story of the person?
My husband and I made a series of photographs of vintage shoes because they were so evocative. The color images are in chrome...but if I run across our black & white polaroid proofs I'll post one. Everything is packed in boxes. A year ago I knew what was where. No longer.
@UnregisteredWhat bothers the Narrator is the mendaciousness used to maintain a possible amorous duplicity and in his case jealousy and the actions it causes are the result.
All people are delusional from time to time; it seems that lying to oneself OK's the telling of that same lie to another if believed to be true by the teller--that's an aspect of different personhood & usually is understood or forgiven--but without the the former--the belief--the teller becomes a liar. We know the Narrator is a liar, and we suspect, along with the questioning Narrator, that Albertine is too but like him we have no proof.
Conscious lying, to know one thing and to say another, is a theft. It distances the teller from the person to whom the lie is told to. It says that my being, what I want, is more important than what you want; it furthers people from one another, it is an opposite of love's proximity.
Is the distance created by lying different from the distance sensed by the Narrator's realizations about his dead grandmother & by his being interrupted & distanced from not getting the childhood kiss from Mamma? Probably.
Jealousy is endless, as Proust says.
There are no easy, normal answers here...nor should there be.
Ce Ce wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Pages"...just a little later Albertine took to wearing slippers...the sight of which gave me great pleasure because they were all of them signs...
What is it about shoes that hold so much of the story of the person? .."
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking) could not give up her husband's shoes...
And the radio, playing "Porgy and Bess!"
Isn't this three "serendipity'" happenings in a row?
Cece: "I swear the Verdurins are alive and well on the West Coast of the US...I've met them and survived them!" It's called Universality...the Great Ones have it...the others fall by the wayside after a generation.
I am trying to think why I do not find the Narrator annoying with with obsession and jealousy. I understand he can get on people's nerves, and some other readers have expressed this as an obstacle to liking the book.And I think it is the distance and the acute self-analyis and knowledge with which the Narrator is reviewing this period of his life. There is such lucidity and clarity of mind that one gets the impression that, although he can revive all the little details and all the silly traps in which his reasoning and suspicion fall, he is free from it all by the time he is telling us, by the way he is telling us.
Kalliope wrote: "I am trying to think why I do not find the Narrator annoying with with obsession and jealousy. I understand he can get on people's nerves, and some other readers have expressed this as an obstacle..."Maybe those readers are so anxious to see how the story unfolds, they just want to "get on with it."
Eugene wrote: "Conscious lying, to know one thing and to say another, is a theft. It distances the teller from the person to whom the lie is told to. It says that my being, what I want, is more important than what you want; it furthers people from one another, it is an opposite of love's proximity."There is that exchange in this week's reading. Starting on ML p 152...
"Albertine, you distrust me although I love you and you place your trust in people who don't love you" (as though it were not natural to distrust the people who love you and who alone have an interest in lying to you in order to find out things, to thwart you), and added these lying words: "It's funny, you don't really believe that I love you. As a matter of fact, I don't adore you." She lied in her turn when she told me that she trusted nobody but myself..."
continuing until mid page ML 153
"Thus did we exchange lying speeches. But a truth more profound than that which we would utter were we sincere may sometimes be expressed and announced by another channel other than that of sincerity."
It seems the Narrator is suggesting at times a more profound truth may be found in one's lies. If that is the case is lying still a theft?
Elizabeth wrote: "Cece: "I swear the Verdurins are alive and well on the West Coast of the US...I've met them and survived them!" It's called Universality...the Great Ones have it...the others fall by the wayside ..."LOL...
And I realized I was being a bit rash by proclaiming my survival. I am, after all, still alive and breathing and perhaps still fair game for "The Verdurins". ;-)
Marcelita wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Saturday's Fashion Pages"...just a little later Albertine took to wearing slippers...the sight of which gave me great pleasure because they were all of them signs....."
I recall that people who have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC also say that the exhibit of shoes is the most visceral.
Yes, serendipity at every turn this last week or more...my stars seem to be aligned...or something is right in the universe.
Kalliope wrote: "I am trying to think why I do not find the Narrator annoying with with obsession and jealousy. I understand he can get on people's nerves, and some other readers have expressed this as an obstacle..."I think for me my reaction to the Narrator's obsession and jealousy is twofold.
First, It's personal to me. His depth of indulgence speaks of a person who has way too much free time on his hands and is examining his navel...while his life passes away. Sometimes I feel like his mother or grandmother...exasperated, careful, pleading, wishing for him to find his voice, his passion, make his mark. There have been times that he has explored every nuance and angle...circled back RE-explored it all from a slightly shifted perspective...recircled...I have felt physically, psychically, emotionally and spiritually the pain of it.
Second, I think all of the above is the exact point. As I stated earlier, the focus on detail...the mindfulness...the staying with it all past the point of comfort...does not allow us, the reader, to neatly package anything and put it in a container. Something I think we are quite adept at doing. He pushes us past normal boundaries to see, to feel, to recognize.
It's simply brilliant.
@Ce CeThey game sincerity, tits for tats.
Eugene wrote: "@Ce CeThey game sincerity, tits for tats."
:-D
Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "I am trying to think why I do not find the Narrator annoying with with obsession and jealousy. I understand he can get on people's nerves, and some other readers have expressed th..."In his lucidity and self-anaylis he is also very good at identifying his tendency to procrastinate. Even his not facing Albertine correctly is identified by him as a result of his procrastination and laziness.
It is admirable the honesty and clear mind with which he reviews his past behaviour. No self-pity, no bitter regret, just a clear realization.
Ce Ce wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "I am trying to think why I do not find the Narrator annoying with with obsession and jealousy. I understand he can get on people's nerves, and some other readers have expressed th..."I agree Ce Ce - you've summed it up for me in "...the staying with it all past the point of comfort...". It's his meditation (meditation teachers stress the need to ride out the storms, no?). Jealousy is such a core and unattractive emotion and I think what he does with it is (maybe a little morbidly) absorbing. It's like witnessing a self-autopsy.
When the Narrator describes standing outside Albertine's door after she;s gone to bed, anxiously deciding whether to knock or not...it tok my breath away as I used to do just that outside my parent's room as a child. I felt the torture. I think this shows the foundation of jealousy (for me at least): it's the simple truth that though I was my mother's first born son, she was married to my dad and slept with him. All subsequent jealousies of mine - and the Narrator's it seems - can be traced back to that mother son connection and the feeling of abandoned fury and self loathing (aka jealousy) when it is denied.
Kalliope wrote: "It is admirable the honesty and clear mind with which he reviews his past behaviour. No self-pity, no bitter regret, just a clear realization. "It's true. As a first time reader I am so intrigued to find that element of evolution and transformation in his life when he moves from past behavior to such astounding understanding and reflection.
Will we see the threads woven into one being with a past and present...and I suspect, a slim future...in the coming pages?
It is something we all must come to in life. So often ISOLT has read to me as a cautionary tale...as well as a morality play.
Marcus wrote: "It's his meditation (meditation teachers stress the need to ride out the storms, no?). Jealousy is such a core and unattractive emotion and I think what he does with it is (maybe a little morbidly) absorbing. It's like witnessing a self-autopsy."So well stated, Marcus.
Just posted the video link to Ann Carson reading (at The Center for Fiction) about our elusive Albertine...on Events in 2013. Lying...bluffing...Ann's thoughts could not come at a better time.
I would post here, but it is filled with SPOILERS!
Kalliope wrote: "...It is admirable the honesty and clear mind with which he reviews his past behaviour. No self-pity, no bitter regret, just a clear realization"I've been greatly struck since the beginning of this book by his capacity for self-analysis. It's as if he's both lying on the couch and sitting at the desk, as if he is his own analyst. Every shade of thought and feeling is examined, and from every angle, and repeatedly. As we approach the last books in La Recherche, I find this circling around his own motivations becoming ever more focused and intense so that I wonder where we will finally end up.....
Marcelita wrote: "Just posted the video link to Ann Carson reading (at The Center for Fiction) about our elusive Albertine...on Events in 2013. Lying...bluffing...Ann's thoughts could not come at a better time...."
I noted Ann Carson's reading...and am saving it for the grand finale!
Ce Ce wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Just posted the video link to Ann Carson reading (at The Center for Fiction) about our elusive Albertine...on Events in 2013. "...saving it for the grand finale!"
I would save Ann's video...until you are re-reading "The Captive."
As Anne Carson reflects, after she finished her seven years of reading Proust, in French, at breakfast....it was "the desert of 'after Proust.'"
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...It is admirable the honesty and clear mind with which he reviews his past behaviour. No self-pity, no bitter regret, just a clear realization"I've been greatly struck since th..."
This is brilliantly expressed, Fionnuala.
And it is thanks to the superb viewpoint from the desk that the whole jealousy examination acquires interest. Otherwise it could be either a horrid and claustrophobic, and silly, setting or may be as boring as listening to someone's shopping list.
This discussion has led me to wonder if the characters are exaggerated caricatures...or do they seem a caricature due to intense multifaceted meditational scrutiny that leads us past points of comfort to a fresh awareness of the human condition that seems larger than life...or at least anything we have known?
Marcelita wrote: "I would save Ann's video...until you are re-reading "The Captive."As Anne Carson reflects, after she finished her seven years of reading Proust, in French, at breakfast....it was "the desert of 'after Proust.'"
RE-reading the Captive? Seven years? It's beneficial to have the ability to endure delayed gratification! ;-)
Kalliope wrote: "And it is thanks to the superb viewpoint from the desk that the whole jealousy examination acquires interest. Otherwise it could be either a horrid and claustrophobic, and silly, setting or may be as boring as listening to someone's shopping list. .."Yes, that's it. The Narrator's obsessions are all those things, unpleasant, claustrophobic, even silly at times but I think we continue to read because we sense the author behind the Narrator, and even though we sometimes confuse the author and the Narrator, we believe the author has a plan that justifies the repetitive recounting of his obsessive jealousies by the Narrator. What we have read up to this point is all we have to go on to convince us to have faith, but it is enough: the eloquence of the writing and the delicate but intricate weaving of the fabric that is the characters and their world.
Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And it is thanks to the superb viewpoint from the desk that the whole jealousy examination acquires interest. Otherwise it could be either a horrid and claustrophobic, and silly, s..."It is a very subtle and complex mix of voices. Not something that can be highlighted, simply, in two colours. And I fully agree with you that the Author is gradually coming in.
Elizabeth wrote: "Reem: re quoting Mme de Sevigne; she says it better than anyone else possibly could. Have you read her Letters? A total delight. Some critics call her style "cinematic." And I love when the Na..."Thanks Elizabeth, I started to read her letters when I first discovered that she really did exist( in my ignorance I had thought Proust's reference to her was only fiction), and I posted a link where one could download her letters. I only read a few pages, but will surely go back to read the book in its entirety post Proust. I found her very readable and can see how so many people delight in her letters.
I finally think I (sort of) remembered something I wrote in an old journal, years ago, while reading Proust.Proust:
Mind, Body, Soul...
All sundered.
Phillida wrote: "The narrator's obsessive jealousy arouses an actual physical response in me. What a combination of hatred and awe clutches me. I despise the narrator here, and I abominate the possessiveness and ..."I don't feel that women in general are the real target of his possessiveness and jealousy. I feel it is only the 'loved one' he desires to control, the one on whom his fancy lights and by whom he needs to be seen and loved, and that is his real obsession, to be loved. It could be a man or a woman, his mother even. In the Recherche, the 'loved one', Gilberte first and then, Albertine, is described as a woman but I feel that is only incidental. It is a person, any person who will love him, that he most desires . Does that make any sense?
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Proust as Musician (other topics)Femmes peintres et salons au temps de Marcel Proust: de Madeleine Lemaire à Berthe Morisot (other topics)
He can't get away from conceiving in visual terms, even when his knowledge of the world comes to him through sounds...
I read the street music vendor scene once again to understand how the Narrator establishes a visual scene when he seems to simply lie in bed listening.
"Our hearing, that delightful sense, brings us the company of the street, of which it traces every line for us, sketches all the figures that pass along it, showing us their colours." ML p 146
With those words setting the scene I was once again in the fantastic ISOLT theater...relishing the vivid characters on the stage...absorbing the sights and sounds in the Narrator's mind.
For those moments we are one...a delightful redemption, really, just as I am about to throw my hands up in exasperation as an observer of the maddening workings of the Narrator's obsessive. mind.