Through Sunday, 10 Nov.: The Fugitive

[Eugene]

Today the Shattuck Conference at the Center for Fiction will discuss Women in Proust, namely Odette, the Duchess, Francoise, Mme Verdurin but leave out Albertine.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Kalliope wrote: Here is the Futurist version of Tiepolo's Pink to which I had referred in the earlier post.. By Giacommo Balla. The Spell is Broken, 1922-23...

Nice. Funny that he named his daughters:

By 1914 Balla was advocating a Futurist lifestyle - he even named his two daughters Propeller and Light.

A little Tiepolo blue for you and for Ce Ce Tiepolo orange:
Giacomo Balla: Mercury passing before the sun

[Fionnuala]

Kalliope wrote: "...And the book,
Proust contre Cocteau"

I had a look at the blurb of that book, Kall. Proust as assassin? Interesting idea.

[Fionnuala]

Marcelita wrote: "Last evening's kick-off was amazing, at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, overlooking the Manhattan skyline! Antonin Baudry reading "Swann's Way.."

Why does that photo make me imagine you sitting on the end of Antonin Baudry's bed having a 'private' reading while gazing out at the Manhattan skyline?

[Fionnuala]

Eugene wrote: "His convenience, even though I didn't state it, is that Octave was, according to the Narrator, in love with Albertine in Balbec, recently proposed marriage to Albertine, that proposal was the reason that Mme Bontemps insisted she leave him, plus Octave becomes a nephew of the Verdurins and for Octave's love of Albertine Mme Verdurin invites Albertine to the rehearsal, to meet him and not Mlle Vinteuil..."

Please excuse my paraphrasing you incorrectly, Eugene. This is what I meant: while Octave is no doubt a convenient character to link the action of the present volume with that of volume number II, I feel that Proust had no idea when he created him originally, inspired by the young Cocteau, that he would choose to endow him with such talent later. That aspect of Octave is clearly a personal tribute to the newly famous Cocteau but not really essential for the Albertine story - or the Andrée story.
And isn't it curious that Albertine, Andrée and Gilberte are not included in the list of female characters being discussed at the Shattuck Conference...

[Kalliope]

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "...And the book,
Proust contre Cocteau"

I had a look at the blurb of that book, Kall. Proust as assassin? Interesting idea."

L'assassin de ses modèles?..

[Kalliope]

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: Here is the Futurist version of Tiepolo's Pink to which I had referred in the earlier post.. By Giacommo Balla. The Spell is Broken, 1922-23...

Nice. Funny that he named his daught..."

Thank you, Reem... bright picture.

[Kalliope]

Several extraordinary images in this section...

Man can change his age thanks to his mental abilities to remember the past..., or to imagine different ages or points in time.

Car l'homme est cet être sans âge fixe, cet être qui a la faculté de redevenir, en quelques secondes de beaucoup d'années plus jeune, et qui entouré des parois du temps où il a vécu y flotte mais comme dans un bassin dont le niveau changerait constamment, et le mettrait à la portée tantôt d'une époque, tantôt d'une autre.. p. 276.

[Kalliope]

Some musings or descriptions which seem self-portraits.

....Sans compter que, les natures complètes étant rares, un être très intellectuel et sensible aura généralement peu de volonté, sera le jouet de l'habitude et de cette peur de souffrir dans la minute qui vient qui voue aux souffrances perpétuelles, et que dans ces conditions il ne voudra jamais répudier la femme qui ne l'aime pas. p. 279.

[Kalliope]

In earlier volumes we mentioned that the Narrator does not seem to be a believer in an after life (irrespectively of religion).. Here he again presents his doubts..

... ces indiscrétions qui ne se produisent qu'après que la vie terrestre d'une personne est finie, ne prouvent-elles pas que personne ne croit, au fond, à une vie future? Si ces indiscrétions sont vraies, on devrait redouter le ressentiment de celle dont on dévoile les actions autant pour le jour où on la rencontrera au ciel. Mais personne n'y croit. p. 280.

[Kalliope]

As we arrive in Venice, I think it is suitable to begin our comments with a quote from John Ruskin, who inspired so much and whetted Proust's appetite and interest in the golden city.

A city of marble, did I say? nay, rather a golden city, paved with emerald. For truly, every pinnacle and turret glanced or glowed, overlaid with gold, or bossed with jasper. Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea,—the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds. Fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable,—every word a fate—sate her senate. In hope and honour, lulled by flowing of wave around their isles of sacred sand, each with his name written and the cross graved at his side, lay her dead. A wonderful piece of world. Rather, itself a world. It lay along the face of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw it from their masts at evening, than a bar of sunset that could not pass away; but for its power, it must have seemed to them as if they were sailing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great planet, whose orient edge widened through ether. A world from which all ignoble care and petty thoughts were banished, with all the common and poor elements of life. No foulness, nor tumult, in those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell, beneath the moon; but rippled music of majestic change, or thrilling silence. No weak walls could rise above them; no low-roofed cottage, nor straw-built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and the finished setting of stones most precious. And around them, far as the eye could reach, still the soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as not the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the glancing fields. Ethereal strength of Alps, dreamlike, vanishing in high procession beyond the Torcellan shore; blue islands of Paduan hills, poised in the golden west. Above, free winds and fiery clouds ranging at their will;—brightness out of the north, and balm from the south, and the stars of the evening and morning clear in the limitless light of arched heaven and circling sea.

John Ruskin, The Two Boyhoods, from Modern Painters (Volume V, Part 9, Chapter 9).

[Kalliope]

And here are the watercolours by Paul Signac (1863-1935) from around 1906, a similar time to Proust's trip to Venice, which were at the temporary exhibit in the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice.

[Fionnuala]

Good choice of text and images, Kall, just as we've been reading about the Narrator's descriptions of the way Venice seems to be created by nature with human inspiration, Telles, les demeures disposées des deux côtés du chenal faisaient penser à des sites de la nature, mais d'une nature qui aurait crée ses œuvres avec une imagination humaine
Signac's watercolours also remind me of this passage: comme nous l'eussions fait à Paris sur les boulevards...dans toute large avenue à la mode, parmi la lumière poudroyante du soir, nous croisions les femmes les plus élégantes...(qui) s'arrêtaient devant un palais ou elles avaient une amie à aller voir...elles préparaient leur carte à laisser, comme elles eussent fait à la porte de l'hôtel de Guermantes, elles cherchaient dans leur guide de quelle époque, de quel style était le palais, non sans être secouée comme au sommet d'une vague bleue, par le remous de l'eau étincelante et cabrée, qui s'effarait d'être resserrée entre la gondole dansante et le marbre retentissant

There are more than a few resemblances between Ruskin's style and Proust's, don't you think? Didn't someone, was it you, point out that this section may have been written much earlier than the other volumes, soon after the time Proust translated Ruskin with his mother's help, and while they were on holiday, perhaps in Venice? That might explain the presence of Norpois and the diplomatic themes that predominated in the beginning part of À l'ombre and are suddenly taken up again here, linking the two volumes as the Octave theme has done.
Also, the mother figure was almost absent throughout Sodome et Gomorrhe, La Prisonnière and Albertine Disparue but now she's back. Such an interesting construction Proust has put in place because, while certain themes seem to have been picked up where they left off - the mother, Norpois - there are also reminders of the time that has passed since those themes first appeared.

[Book Portrait]

On Andrée's shocking!revelations and the Derrida-esque quote.

Andrée's revelations, which I tend to believe as true given the level of details regarding the seringa scene from La Prisonnière, only create a muted emotional reaction in our Narrator:

(view spoiler)[Comme certains bonheurs, il y a certains malheurs qui viennent trop tard, ils ne prennent pas en nous toute la grandeur qu'ils auraient eue quelque temps plus tôt. Tel le malheur qu'était pour moi la terrible révélation d'Andrée. p264 (hide spoiler)]

Instead the Narrator is interested in understanding why he isn't as affected as he would have expected, continuing to rely on medical (l'amour maladif) and geometrical imagery (la psychologie dans le temps):

(view spoiler)[Pourtant, si ces affections, ces souffrances sont trop prédominantes, nous n'entrons que distraits dans la zone d'un monde nouveau et momentané, où, trop fidèles à la souffrance, nous ne pouvons devenir, autres, et alors les paroles se mettent immédiatement en rapport avec notre coeur qui n'est pas resté hors de jeu. Mais depuis quelque temps les paroles concernant Albertine, comme un poison évaporé, n'avaient plus leur pouvoir toxique. Elle m'était déjà trop lointaine.

...

Comme un promeneur voyant, l'après-midi, un croissant nuageux dans le ciel se dit: «C'est cela, l'immense lune», je me disais: «Comment! cette vérité que j'ai tant cherchée, tant redoutée, c'est seulement ces quelques mots dits dans une conversation, auxquels on ne peut même pas penser complètement parce qu'on n'est pas seul!» Puis elle me prenait vraiment au dépourvu, je m'étais beaucoup fatigué avec Andrée. Vraiment, une pareille vérité, j'aurais voulu avoir plus de force à lui consacrer; elle me restait extérieure, mais c'est que je ne lui avais pas encore trouvé une place dans mon coeur. On voudrait que la vérité nous fût révélée par des signes nouveaux, non par une phrase pareille à celles qu'on s'était dites tant de fois. p264-265 (hide spoiler)]

A beautiful line follows logically:

(view spoiler)[L'habitude de penser empêche parfois d'éprouver le réel, immunise contre lui, le fait paraître de la pensée encore. p 265 (hide spoiler)]

But the next beautiful, brilliant, Derrida-esque quotable-Proust line puzzles me in how it relates to what precedes. It is so striking that it could mean many things (so we can rightly find Derrida in it decades before he developed his theory) but in the context of the passage in which it is incorporated it feels too powerful and somewhat mysterious.

(view spoiler)[Il n'y a pas une idée qui ne porte en elle sa réfutation possible, un mot, le mot contraire. (hide spoiler)]

In my GF edition it follows directly the previous sentence as if closing the paragraph, concluding an idea. But in the Gutenberg version it starts a new paragraph, which seems to make more sense as the Narrator now explores the "truth" of Andrée's revelations (and the fact that, not unlike Albertine if I recall correctly, Andrée is an habitual liar out of a strong sense of pride that needs to trump the pride of others by first humiliating them).


(view spoiler)[ En tout cas, si tout cela était vrai, quelle inutile vérité sur la vie d'une maîtresse qui n'est plus, remontant des profondeurs et apparaissant une fois que nous ne pouvions plus rien en faire!

...

Je faisais ces réflexions, me plaçant dans l'hypothèse où Andrée était véridique--ce qui était possible--et amenée à la sincérité envers moi précisément parce qu'elle avait maintenant des relations avec moi (...). Elle y était aidée dans ce cas par le fait qu'elle ne craignait plus Albertine, car la réalité des êtres ne survit pour nous que peu de temps après leur mort, et au bout de quelques années ils sont comme ces dieux des religions abolies qu'on offense sans crainte parce qu'on a cessé de croire à leur existence.

...

Mais qu'Andrée ne crût plus à la réalité d'Albertine pouvait avoir pour effet qu'elle ne redoutât plus (aussi bien que de trahir une vérité qu'elle avait promis de ne pas révéler) d'inventer un mensonge qui calomniait rétrospectivement sa prétendue complice. Cette absence de crainte lui permettait-elle de révéler enfin, en me disant cela, la vérité, ou bien d'inventer un mensonge, si, pour quelque raison, elle me croyait plein de bonheur et d'orgueil et voulait me peiner.

...

Andrée était prête à aimer toutes les créatures, mais à condition d'avoir réussi d'abord à ne pas se les représenter comme triomphantes, et pour cela de les avoir humiliées préalablement. Elle ne comprenait pas qu'il fallait aimer même les orgueilleux et vaincre leur orgueil par l'amour et non par un plus puissant orgueil. Mais c'est qu'elle était comme les malades qui veulent la guérison par les moyens mêmes qui entretiennent la maladie, qu'ils aiment et qu'ils cesseraient aussitôt d'aimer s'ils les renonçaient. Mais on veut apprendre à nager et pourtant garder un pied à terre. (hide spoiler)]

Not surprisingly Andrée has, like many characters in the novel, a perverted way to behave with layers of intentions hidden by deceptive actions and words.

Or what the Narrator tells us about how he interprets the behaviour of Andrée, among others, is a reflection of the Narrator's own way of thinking (something well known in psychoanalysis...).

In any case the Narrator doesn't (yet?) conclude whether he believes Andrée's revelations or not.

How do you understand that central quotable-Proust sentence?

ETA: sorry about the humongously lengthy post! :/

ETA2: edited to add spoiler tags to hide the quotes

[Book Portrait]

Our poor Narrator is turning rather cynical from these ruminations on jealousy, love and truth.

(view spoiler)[C'est le désir qui engendre la croyance, et si nous ne nous en rendons pas compte d'habitude, c'est que la plupart des désirs créateurs de croyances ne finissent--contrairement à celui qui m'avait persuadé qu'Albertine était innocente--qu'avec nous-même.

...

Le mensonge est essentiel à l'humanité. Il y joue peut-être un aussi grand rôle que la recherche du plaisir et, d'ailleurs, est commandé par cette recherche. On ment pour protéger son plaisir ou son honneur si la divulgation du plaisir est contraire à l'honneur. On ment toute sa vie, même surtout, peut-être seulement, à ceux qui nous aiment. Ceux-là seuls, en effet, nous font craindre pour notre plaisir et désirer leur estime.

...

N'était-ce pas, en effet, malgré toutes les dénégations de ma raison, connaître dans toute sa hideur Albertine, que la choisir, l'aimer? et même dans les moments où la méfiance s'assoupit, l'amour n'en est-il pas la persistance et une transformation?

...

... on a tort de parler en amour de mauvais choix puisque, dès qu'il y a choix, il ne peut être que mauvais.

...

... il y a l'un devant l'autre deux mondes, l'un constitué par les choses que les êtres les meilleurs, les plus sincères, disent, et derrière lui le monde composé par la succession de ce que ces mêmes êtres font...

p 272-275 (hide spoiler)]

ETA: added spoiler tags to hide the quotes

[Kalliope]

Fionnuala wrote: "Good choice of text and images, Kall, just as we've been reading about the Narrator's descriptions of the way Venice seems to be created by nature with human inspiration, Telles, les demeures dispo..."

Yes, this extract of Ruskin is beautiful and one can see how it fascinated Proust. Some of us did some Ruskin reading before we began with Proust, but a considerable part were Lectures, and the language was not as precious as this one. The Stones of Venice I think would have been a better read.

[Kalliope]

Book Portrait wrote: "On Andrée's shocking!revelations and the Derrida-esque quote.

Andrée's revelations, which I tend to believe as true given the level of details regarding the seringa scene from La Prisonnière, only..."

BP, Please take note of message #78 above. Some of these quotes have already been posted.

[Kalliope]

I found this book on Proust and Venice.




I am thinking of getting it, but I am currently reading , which deals with some of the issues already.

[Book Portrait]

Kalliope wrote: "BP, Please take note of message #78 above. Some of these quotes have already been posted."

Sorry Kalliope I'll try to write concisely. However the point of my message wasn't the quotes (which I only copied to try to make the message clear) but the comment/question that accompanied them.

[Eugene]

To have been meeting the most attractive woman in the room and sitting next to her in the relaxed ambiance of the Center for Fiction, listening to scholars discourse on selected Women in Proust was a privilege that made me feel as special as the Narrator.

If we had read the novel we understood most of what the featured scholars said but: Anka Muhlstein did specify the difference between being a courtesan and a coquette in the unchanging Odette, she being the latter; Caroline Weber spoke of the Duchess being of wanting wit; Hollie Harder drew a sharp comparison but likened the original language of Françoise and the Duchess that was fresh; and Benjamin Taylor said that if you read ISOLT again you will find increased love for Charlus and find yourself loathing Mme Verdurin more.

An afternoon well spent! I had to leave before the Speakers Roundtable and I will let Marcelita report on that if she chooses.

[Eugene]

Book Portrait wrote: On Andrée's shocking! revelations and the Derrida-esque quote.

Both can be easily understood, if Proust's syntax/state-of-mind were less complex. He's talking about "social personalities" and the impossibility to know them because people vacillate from one pole of their thought/being to it's oft-time opposite by misinformation caused by their mendacity either intentional: lying or unintentional: which means that they believe what they say, i.e. they are delusional. Proust's point is that *one never knows the truth of a social personality* because of the lack of 'truthful' information that one can possess. Simply witness Swann in relation to Odette, and the Narrator in relation to Albertine and here to Andrée, no matter what anyone believes, another can believe the opposite and neither can be proven right.

What you call a "Derrida-esque quote" is simply a summation of this problem of social personality: one can never know which is the truth of a person and which is not; is it one or the other but neither can be proven, so it is both.

Il n'y a pas une idée qui ne porte en elle sa réfutation possible, un mot, le mot contraire.

Proust says that it has both meanings and this is not a contradiction (as if there were one truth) this is a vacillation between the unprovable poles of either of many 'truths'.

Notice something similar in his thoughts about "after life" that Kalliope points to in msg 110 that I quoted earlier in English translation in this discussion (no need for apologies or a credit K as I offered it for a different reason)

... ces indiscrétions qui ne se produisent qu'après que la vie terrestre d'une personne est finie, ne prouvent-elles pas que personne ne croit, au fond, à une vie future? Si ces indiscrétions sont vraies, on devrait redouter le ressentiment de celle dont on dévoile les actions autant pour le jour où on la rencontrera au ciel. Mais personne n'y croit.

He vacillated to the opposite pole of the after-life argument earlier and probably will again. He does not contradict himself as there is no proof of an after-life or not, he vacillates from the possible poles. Proust knows where there is proof and where there is only belief.

The best argument for God is Why is there anything at all? Can science offer a position, yes but can it be proved, no...and no forever and ever.

[Book Portrait]

Eugene wrote: "What you call a "Derrida-esque quote" is simply a summation of this problem of social personality: one can never know which is the truth of a person and which is not; is it one or the other but neither can be proven, so it is both.

Proust says that it has both meanings and this is not a contradiction (as if there were one truth) this is a vacillation between the unprovable poles of either of many 'truths'."

Thanks Eugene! I think you're right. Proust is fascinated by the differences between how we are perceived (or perceive people) and who we truly are inside. He's trying to unravel the social costume but finds his efforts to reach the "truth" limited.

And of course Proust himself was misunderstood. As Kalliope noted upstream some lines in this week's section closely resembled a self-portrait:

Qui sait si, vu du dehors, tel homme de talent, ou même un homme sans talent mais aimant les choses de l'esprit, moi par exemple, n'eût pas fait, à qui l'eût rencontré à Rivebelle, à l'Hôtel de Balbec, ou sur la digue de Balbec, l'effet du plus parfait et prétentieux imbécile?

What intrigued me in this "Derrida-esque quote" is the word "idea" which is very general (but of course increases the richness of the quote, the interpretations one can draw from it). It makes me think of more lofty ideas than just people's social personas. And indeed it applies, as you say, to his (lack of) belief in the afterlife, to the unassuming aspect of geniuses...

Long or short, Proust knew how to turn a sentence! :D

ETA: I'm glad you and Marcelita had a great time as fervent Proustians in NYC. :)

[Book Portrait]

Kalliope wrote: "At the beginning of the Guermantes volume we all thought that he was referring to the Garnier Opéra... Now he mentions it was at the Opéra-Comique where the scene of the Narrator observing the Guer..."

L'Opéra Comique:







http://www.opera-comique.com/fr/galerie
http://www.opera-comique.com/fr/un-li...

[Kalliope]

I am still sorting out my photographs, but encountering

.. de bien loin et quand j'avais à peine dépassé Saint-Georges le Majeur... p.288

I remembered this photo of San Giorgio Maggiore, and conversation we had on a controversial part of the Biennale.



and wonderful sight at night...



and this article explains the debate (the inflatable statue had already created a lot of controversy in London where it was first exhibited).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...

But anyway, here it is without the "inflated" statue (it is resting on the pedestal in front of the church, closer to the way Proust would have seen it.

[Kalliope]

Proust again being more modern than the modernists, and introduces the concept that most people ascribe to Lacan, that of being watched by an object.

Here it is the "ogive" which becomes like an eye that watches the Narrator.

.. j'apercevais cette ogive qui m'avait vu, et l'élan de ses arcs brisés ajoutait à son sourire de bienvenue le sourire de bienvenue la distinction d'un regard plus élevé et presque incompris. p. 288.

[Kalliope]

I am finishing reading The Companion Guide to Venice, and on a chapter on gondolas, the author quotes Proust, a quote which we have just read, and which I think would be one of Reem's favorites, since it refers, again, to the Arabian Nights.


Ma gondole suivait les petits canaux; comme la main mystérieuse d'un génie qui m'aurait conduit dans les détours de cette ville d'Orient, ils semblaient, au fur et à mesure que j'avançais, me pratiquer un chemin, creusé en plein coeur d'un quartier qu'ils divisaient en écartant à peine, d'un mince sillon arbitrairement tracé, les hautes maisons aux petites fenêtres mauresques; et comme si le guide magique eût trouvé une bougie entre ses doigts, et m'eût éclairé au passage, ils faisaient briller devant eux un rayon de soleil à qui ils frayaient sa route. p.290.

And this is another instance of what Fionnuala has pointed out, how Proust is picking up themes treated earlier. The Arabian Nights takes us all the way to the Combray days of his childhood.

What I found most extraordinary about the way he introduces Venice is by the parallel he establishes between this city of the imagination, Venice, with the village inhabiting also his imagination, as memories of a Temps Perdu.

Beautiful passage and I am not surprised that the very well read Hugh Honour has selected it for his gondolas section.

[Kalliope]

This is my recent view of "le palais ducal en forme cubique, les colonnes que tu dis être du palais d'Hérode, en pleine piazzetta"..



And since the horses from Constantinople were covered up (ces chevaux au balcon de Saint-Marc), here they are in the mosaic on the left portal.

[Book Portrait]

All your Venice pictures are gorgeous Kalliope! I'm just about to start on the Venice section and I can't get enough of them! So beautiful... Please keep them coming! :)

[Book Portrait]

France 5 (French television) aired a documentary on the history of Le Théâtre du Châtelet, from its origins (built by Hausmann on the ruins of a notorious jail where François Villon spent some time...), over the golden years with avant-guarde artists in 1900-1918 (Bizet concerts, followed by the Ballet Russes and Cocteau's Parade) up to now.

For those interested, watch around the 5 to 15 minute marks for the 1900-1918 period. The documentary will only stay up for a week I think.

http://www.france5.fr/emissions/la-ga...

[Kalliope]

Book Portrait wrote: "France 5 (French television) aired a documentary on the history of Le Théâtre du Châtelet, from its origins (built by Hausmann on the ruins of a notorious jail where François Villon spent some time..."

BP, thank you for this, but it cannot be watched outside France... Fionnuala will be able to look at it when she returns.

[Fionnuala]

Kalliope wrote: "BP, thank you for this, but it cannot be watched outside France... Fionnuala will be able to look at it when she returns ..."

I won't get to hear it as I don't get home till the middle of next week :(
Still reading on the Kindle and missing out on the GF notes plus can't put page numbers on quotes, double :(
However, I'm grateful for wifi and my trusty iPad so at least I can still follow the discussion and view the wonderful images. I had highlighted many of the sections which have been quoted already and am glorying in this volume - in a sense, I feel like I'm re-finding a 'Proust' I had thought 'perdu' :)

[Book Portrait]

Les Buttes-Chaumont in Paris

Where, according to Andrée, Albertine liked to go with girls:

Autrefois, quand elle n'avait pas le temps d'aller très loin, nous allions aux Buttes-Chaumont. Elle connaissait là une maison. Ou bien sous les arbres, il n'y a personne; dans la grotte du petit Trianon aussi.






http://www.cpa-bastille91.com/paris-b...

From the official web site:

Le parc des Buttes-Chaumont est le plus escarpé et le plus grand des 470 jardins de Paris, à l'exception du jardin des Tuileries et du parc de La Villette. C'est un parc paysager, une forme évoluée du jardin anglo-chinois, dont la conception irrégulière s'oppose au genre régulier des jardins dits " à la française ". Il offre aux regard des plus avertis une juxtaposition de tableaux s'inspirant des paysages de Fragonard, et surtout d'Hubert Robert, peintre des jardins de Rome.

Par les effets de surprise, de couleurs, et la disposition des végétaux certains pourraient même y remarquer l'influence de Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Une île rocheuse se dresse au centre de son célèbre lac (1,5 hectare) , et dévoile un romantique petit temple de la Sybille, qui occupe l'emplacement exacte de l'ancienne carrière à ciel ouvert, tandis que la grotte se situe à l'entrée d'une carrière souterraine.

Une grande cascade culminant à 32 mètres conduit jusqu'à la grotte (20 mètres) qui est décorée de fausses stalactites dont les plus grandes atteignent 8 mètres.

http://equipement.paris.fr/parc-des-b...




Buttes-Chaumont vers 1900
http://paris1900.lartnouveau.com/pari...


http://www.af.ca/halifax/arts/ArtDesJ...

[Marcus]

Loved this observation by Narrator: "Our slightest desire, though unique as a chord, nevertheless includes the fundamental notes on which the whole of our life is built." Human life as music plus...Desire to visit Venice 'same' as desire for the departed Albertine? Desire is desire is desire - its object only turning up or down the volume but not changing the track ?

[Book Portrait]

Et puisque à Venise ce sont des oeuvres d'art, des choses magnifiques, qui sont chargées de nous donner les impressions familières de la vie, c'est esquiver le caractère de cette ville, sous prétexte que la Venise de certains peintres est froidement esthétique dans sa partie la plus célèbre, qu'en représenter seulement (exceptons les superbes études de Maxime Dethomas) les aspects misérables, là où ce qui fait sa splendeur s'efface, et pour rendre Venise plus intime et plus vraie lui donner de la ressemblance avec Aubervilliers.

Maxime Dethomas illustrated Proust's article "A Venise" published in Feuillets d'Arts in December 1919. One of the two drawings:


http://www.musee-jardin-bourdelle.fr/...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxime_D...

[Book Portrait]

Proust in Venice



http://ireneetlalitterature.files.wor...

[Fionnuala]

Marcus wrote: "Loved this observation by Narrator: "Our slightest desire, though unique as a chord, nevertheless includes the fundamental notes on which the whole of our life is built." Human life as music plus...Desire to visit Venice 'same' as desire for the departed Albertine? Desire is desire is desire - its object only turning up or down the volume but not changing the track ? "

Marcus, 'desire is desire is desire' could well sum up our narrator at times, the desire to be desired. (I only gave him a small 'n' because sometimes, he only merits a small 'n'.)

[Jocelyne]

Great illustrations of Venice and Buttes de Chaumont.

Kalliope, I was following in your footsteps through the 'calli' as I was reading this week's portion.

[Fionnuala]

Book Portrait wrote: "Proust in Venice"

Wow! This is a photo I've not seen elsewhere. And I'm imagining what he might have been thinking...

[Eugene]

Book Portrait wrote: Thanks Eugene! I think you're right. Proust is fascinated by the differences between how we are perceived (or perceive people) and who we truly are inside. He's trying to unravel the social costume but finds his efforts to reach the "truth" limited.

Thank you for the question, I had the answer but I didn't know it until you asked the question, kudos to you. This explains not only the whole 'jealous' Albertine cycle but the Swann/Odette 'love affair' too. Jealousy is a belief and both the Narrator and Swann attempt to find out the truths--to end their vacillating jealous beliefs--about the women they love.

Like afterlife, there are many ramifications of belief/truth in the novel too: for example, look at the evolution of the 'social personality' of the Duchess in the Narrator's eyes, from Golo & Genevieve in his bedroom, Mlle Percipied's wedding in church, the historical name of Guermantes in his imagination, walking along the Guermantes way, his love for her in Paris, she in her salon & in society, etc...she goes from what he believes of her to what he knows (the truth) of her which is quite different.

Again, thank you.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Book Portrait wrote: "Proust in Venice

http://ireneetlalitterature.files.wor..."

A lovely photo BP that shows a window and goes well with this passage.I can see the mother looking out of this window at her son.

" from a long way away and when I had barely passed San Giorgio Maggiore, I caught sight of this arched window which had already seen me, and the spring of its broken curves added to its smile of welcome the distinction of a loftier, scarcely comprehensible gaze. And since, behind those pillars of differently coloured marble, Mamma was sitting reading while she waited for me to return, her face shrouded in a tulle veil as agonising in its whiteness as her hair to myself who felt that my mother, wiping away her tears, had pinned it to her straw hat, partly with the idea of appearing ‘dressed’ in the eyes of the hotel staff, but principally so as to appear to me less ‘in mourning,’ less sad, almost consoled for the death of my grandmother; since, not having recognised me at first, as soon as I called to her from the gondola, she sent out to me, from the bottom of her heart, a love which stopped only where there was no longer any material substance to support it on the surface of her impassioned gaze which she brought as close to me as possible, which she tried to thrust forward to the advanced post of her lips, in a smile which seemed to be kissing me, in the framework and beneath the canopy of the more discreet smile of the arched window illuminated by the midday sun; for these reasons, that window has assumed in my memory the precious quality of things that have had, simultaneously, side by side with ourselves, their part in a certain hour that struck, the same for us and for them; and however full of admirable tracery its mullions may be, that illustrious window retains in my sight the intimate aspect of a man of genius with whom we have spent a month in some holiday resort, where he has acquired a friendly regard for us; and if, ever since then, whenever I see a cast of that window in a museum, I feel the tears starting to my eyes, it is simply because the window says to me the thing that touches me more than anything else in the world: “I remember your mother so well.” (847)

[Marcelita]

Kalliope wrote: "Book Portrait wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "2008? Shame on you Book Portrait! You had me worried that Kalliope's trip was ruined because of these floods!"
..."

Peggy's color selection reminds me of...


Alfred Stieglitz’s 1907 autochrome of his sister, Selma Schubart, in a Fortuny–and a cardigan! (Some think Edward Steichen shot the picture.) Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1955, Metropolitan Museum, NYC

[Book Portrait]

Fionnuala wrote: "Wow! This is a photo I've not seen elsewhere. And I'm imagining what he might have been thinking..."

Isn't it an amazing photo? One of the few where Proust doesn't pose for the photographer but seems to be captured "au naturel" (lol... means something different in English than in French). And we see him with his chin on his hand, observing the scene, seemingly lost in his thoughts. I'd love to know who took this picture...

[Book Portrait]

Eugene wrote: "... there are many ramifications of belief/truth in the novel too: for example, look at the evolution of the 'social personality' of the Duchess in the Narrator's eyes ... she goes from what he believes of her to what he knows (the truth) of her which is quite different."

Yes! Isn't it fascinating how our Narrator so often seems disappointed by "reality" that names or art lead him to imagine much more beautiful...

And that reality is even worse as he gains maturity and uncovers the ugly reality behind the lies:

... il y a l'un devant l'autre deux mondes, l'un constitué par les choses que les êtres les meilleurs, les plus sincères, disent, et derrière lui le monde composé par la succession de ce que ces mêmes êtres font...

Reality or truth almost seem inaccessible. In the end, "true" life is in the mind. And whatever truths or lies he manages to untangle, what matters is his memories and emotions (which he seems to luxuriate in!)...

I need to pick your brain more often! :D

[Book Portrait]

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "A lovely photo BP that shows a window and goes well with this passage.I can see the mo..."

You've quoted my favorite passage in this week's section! :) I have to put in French too (it's been already quoted in pieces but here is the whole passage):

Et parce que; derrière ces balustres de marbre de diverses couleurs, maman lisait en m'attendant, le visage contenu dans une voilette de tulle d'un blanc aussi déchirant que celui de ses cheveux, pour moi qui sentais que ma mère l'avait, en cachant ses larmes, ajoutée à son chapeau de paille, un peu pour avoir l'air «habillée» devant les gens de l'hôtel, mais surtout pour me paraître moins en deuil, moins triste, presque consolée de la mort de ma grand'mère, parce que, ne m'ayant pas reconnu tout de suite, dès que de la gondole je l'appelais elle envoyait vers moi, du fond de son coeur, son amour qui ne s'arrêtait que là où il n'y avait plus de matière pour le soutenir à la surface de son regard passionné qu'elle faisait aussi proche de moi que possible, qu'elle cherchait à exhausser, à l'avancée de ses lèvres, en un sourire qui semblait m'embrasser, dans le cadre et sous le dais du sourire plus discret de l'ogive illuminée par le soleil de midi; à cause de cela, cette fenêtre a pris dans ma mémoire la douceur des choses qui eurent en même temps que nous, à côté de nous, leur part dans une certaine heure qui sonnait, la même pour nous et pour elles; et si pleins de formes admirables que soient ses meneaux, cette fenêtre illustre garde pour moi l'aspect intime d'un homme de génie avec qui nous aurions passé un mois dans une même villégiature, qui y aurait contracté pour nous quelque amitié, et si depuis, chaque fois que je vois le moulage de cette fenêtre dans un musée, je suis obligé de retenir mes larmes, c'est tout simplement parce qu'elle me dit la chose qui peut le plus me toucher: «Je me rappelle très bien votre mère.» p 288-289

This breaks my heart. And I cannot help thinking of the Combray kiss with his mother. Another symetrical wall in the cathedral that is starting to take shape...

[Book Portrait]

Marcelita wrote: "Peggy's color selection reminds me of..."

Marcelita, I'm luxuriating in your Proust & Venice pinterest page! :)

http://www.pinterest.com/marcelitaswa...

[Kalliope]

Book Portrait wrote: "Proust in Venice

http://ireneetlalitterature.files.wor..."

This is an extraordinary photo.

On the one hand, it is difficult to find things about Proust and Venice, given that Venice has been a favored destiny of so many writers, artists, musicians, across time... For example, it is no big deal that he stayed at the hotel Danieli. Many others also did.

So we cannot expect the kind of attention paid to him that we encountered in Cabourg, and of course, Illiers...

And also, he comes across as someone who holds himself "à l'écart". As BP says, he is observing the scene. I recognize in him his favorite role, that of a spectator, a voyeur, from a comfortable and secluded position...., protecting himself... away from the scene.

[Kalliope]

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Book Portrait wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "2008? Shame on you Book Portrait! You had me worried that Kalliope's trip was ruined because of these floods!"
..."

Peggy's co..."

I think this was posted before, or at least I have seen it, but I am very grateful, Marcelita, that you posted it again. The date of 1907 is important because according to Guillermo De Osma, it was in 1908 that Fortuny's charge Knossos was shown in Mme Lemaire's Salon.

On another subject.. One of my professors in the US was a relation of Stieglitz...

[Kalliope]

Book Portrait wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "At the beginning of the Guermantes volume we all thought that he was referring to the Garnier Opéra... Now he mentions it was at the Opéra-Comique where the scene of the Narrator o..."

Yes, it is funny.. I will have to go back to the Guermantes section. He had mentioned that the Duchesse did not hold her own box, while the Princesse had one at the Opéra-Comique... I think he mentioned that even earlier than the Guermantes volume.... But then in the section with the aquatic imagery it seemed he was referring to the Garnier Opéra. In general, in Paris if one says l'Opéra one refers to the Garnier. Even the new one is the Bastille Opéra.

[Marcelita]

Fionnuala wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Last evening's kick-off was amazing, at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, overlooking the Manhattan skyline! Antonin Baudry reading "Swann's Way.."

Why does that photo make me imagine you sitting on the end of Antonin Baudry's bed having a 'private' reading while gazing out at the Manhattan skyline? ..."

Actually, it was almost "private," due to the RSVP nature to the evening...maybe twenty-five people in the bedroom. I was on the waiting list, but Sarah McNally, who read second, was able to get me in at the beginning!

(Sarah and I are in a Proust reading group, 50 pages a month, in the Village. It is a continuation of the original group that Harold Augenbraum began in 1997.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/nyr...)

[Fionnuala]

Marcelita wrote: "Actually, it was almost "private," due to the RSVP nature to the evening...maybe twenty-five people in the bedroom. I was on the waiting list, but Sarah McNally, who read second, was able to get me in at the beginning! .."

So the reading did actually happen in a bedroom! What a good stunt. Glad you got to be there, Marcelia, for all of us!
Your 50 page group must be so interesting. Four years of discussions - and I'm beginning to see how it might be necessary - I can see this gr discussion spilling over already like Proust's hot milk and spreading all over 2014....