The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Marcel Proust
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Mike wrote: "Life knocked me off the course of the reading schedule in mid-March, and so I'm a full two volumes behind the group. In any case, here's a link to my review of [bookcover:A l'ombre des jeunes fille..."Don't worry, Mike. I read all seven volumes but am now working on the review you just finished. I have not been in a reviewing mood this year but am starting to feel enthusiasm about analyzing what I've read again. I'm reviewing the second volume for the second review.
Richard wrote: "My impressions on completing The Guermantes Way. I'm looking forward to reading all of yours."I share your view of this vol.
Madeleine wrote: "Here's my review of The Guermantes Way: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..."I liked your analysis it is to the point as to what a futile life these people led.Sometimes it felt like a "Hello" magazine article.
The Guermantes/guerre comaprison induced me to go further into a French/English mix, *guerreman*. I wonder if M.P. new English. World war was round the bend when he wrote ISOLT and these people´s lives were going to be totally altered.
Aubrey wrote: "My review for The Guermantes Way is here."Thank you Aubrey.I really enjoyed your review on TGW.At times it felt like you were describing some groups one can meeet if not careful nowadays.
Reem K,as i was writing my reply to your review i had this terrible compulsion to clean my keyboard and it all went away.So now i will try and repeat my masterpiece:
I really enjoyed your review because i have just finished reading The Hare With The Amber Eyes (excellent) and you review depicts the characters in that book to the T (?).They didn´t end very well with WWI,poor guys.
BTW I love your new avatar Cleopatra! Gorgeous! but best of all i like the picture with the quotation saying how when you finish a book you suddenly go ,"What is all this going around?life?what?how?"I read The Hare... and The Son by Philipp Meyer also excellent -a Texan 100 Years of Solitude- I don´t expect much more this year.There aren´t so many good books.
In my profile i put the books that really changed something in me not the one i´ve read.I see tht some have put something like 37896 & 1/4 books!
Patricia wrote: "Reem K,as i was writing my reply to your review i had this terrible compulsion to clean my keyboard and it all went away.So now i will try and repeat my masterpiece:
I really enjoyed your review..."
Patricia,
I think you are right in only putting the books worth listing.
Patricia wrote: "Reem K,as i was writing my reply to your review i had this terrible compulsion to clean my keyboard and it all went away.So now i will try and repeat my masterpiece:
I really enjoyed your review..."
Thank you Patricia! My avatar is not that of Cleopatra. I call her Palestinian Barbie. I wanted to show off my Palestinian heritage and my love for our beautiful embroidery. Iam going to have to read The Hare With The Amber Eyes after learning that you thought it was excellent!
Don´t miss it! I love all sorts of trinkets and bangles and bijouterie. My friend Alicia went to Turkey and returned with the most wonderful collection of embroideries and belts with things dropping like oriental dancers and huge necklaces.
My reflections on Cities on the Plain/Sodom and Gomorrah are here. I know I don't really do the book justice, because of its monumentality, so these are really more a matter of my immediate impressions after reading it through for the first time.
Ce Ce wrote: "Patricia wrote: "My review of the Girls in BloomI am glad this poor guy is out of his bedroom,his asthma,all those accarus/accarii (?)in between all those covers and heavy curtains and tapestries..."
A friend of mine says that all of you are Neruda and I am Il Postino!!!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110877/?...
Patricia wrote: "A friend of mine says that all of you are Neruda and I am Il Postino!!!"
Ha Ha Ha, Patricia!
Your comment mentioning Neruda brought back memories of visiting his home, la Chascona, in Santiago, Chile.
Here is my review of S&G written while suffering a migraine. :( I wanted to get it done.http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Ce Ce wrote: "Patricia wrote: "A friend of mine says that all of you are Neruda and I am Il Postino!!!"
Ha Ha Ha, Patricia!
Your comment mentioning Neruda brought back memories of visiting his home, la Chasc..."
Beautiful isn´t it?
RICHARD, i can´t but agree with your review much as i would love to say he´s running wild adventures and *kissing* (French:baiser) everyone close at hand,duchesses,maidens,gentlemen ,porters whatever.He really makes me want to shake him alive, full of chances to live an interesting life and he`s just lying there .A slob.Here in Arg. we`d call it something else but i don`t like the sound neither the letters i`ll have to use in English.
Patricia wrote: "RICHARD, i can´t but agree with your review much as i would love to say he´s running wild adventures and *kissing* (French:baiser) everyone close at hand,duchesses,maidens,gentlemen ,porters whatev..."Thank you, Patricia. You are obviously aware of the ambiguities of the word "baiser" for one thing; as a noun, it is a kiss, but as a verb.... And you have noticed that the narrator has some serious character flaws. No wonder sloth was considered one of the seven deadly sins!
Patricia wrote: "RICHARD, i can´t but agree with your review much as i would love to say he´s running wild adventures and *kissing* (French:baiser) everyone close at hand,duchesses,maidens,gentlemen ,porters whatev..."Thank you, Patricia. You are obviously aware of the ambiguities of the word "baiser" for one thing; as a noun, it is a kiss, but as a verb.... And you have noticed that the narrator has some serious character flaws. No wonder sloth was considered one of the seven deadly sins!
Here are my Proust reviews:1. Swann's Way: Davis Translation
2. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower: Grieve Translation
3. The Guermantes Way: Treharne Translation
4. Sodom and Gommorah: Sturrock Translation
5. the Captive: Moncrieff Translation
6. the Fugative: Moncrieff Translation
7. Time Regained
And my review of the entire novel:
In Search of Lost Time
Critical thinking #4: Daniel MendelsohnThis is part of an ongoing series of interviews about the art of criticism.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/mag...
In lieu of a review I was going to encapsulate the essence of ISOLT into a haiku, but instead of the brainstorm of neural crackles and flashes of insight I was hoping for, all I am getting is an indifferent draft, and the pristine page stares back at me with stony defiance. My lyrical muse is obviously AWOL. I therefore decided to post this goofy video in which I indulged my zany self. It is titled "How Proust can improve your life."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxDy9X...
Jocelyne wrote: "In lieu of a review I was going to encapsulate the essence of ISOLT into a haiku, but instead of the brainstorm of neural crackles and flashes of insight I was hoping for, all I am getting is an i..."Horrors! Blocked on my iPad.
Jocelyne wrote: "In lieu of a review I was going to encapsulate the essence of ISOLT into a haiku, but instead of the brainstorm of neural crackles and flashes of insight I was hoping for, all I am getting is an i..."Jocelyne, this is brilliant....
Catching up after a busy semester, here are my reviews for Sodom and Gomorrah and The Captive and The Fugitive: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Also Jocelyne: that's absolutely hilarious and perfect. I have to ask, does the Proust yoga come with an inhaler in case our author wants to try?
Margaret wrote: "Catching up after a busy semester, here are my reviews for Sodom and Gomorrah and The Captive and The Fugitive: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/sh..."
LOL! Maybe if our author had taken some long, slow, nourishing breaths and held asanas while writing ISOLT, he would not have suffered from asthma.
Jocelyne wrote: "In lieu of a review I was going to encapsulate the essence of ISOLT into a haiku, but instead of the brainstorm of neural crackles and flashes of insight I was hoping for, all I am getting is an i..."Jocelyne, this is fabulous...and so wonderfully funny! Your muse was firing and crackling with pure genius.
Jocelyne wrote: "I therefore decided to post this goofy video in which I indulged my zany self. It is titled "How Proust can improve your life."..."Jocelyne - you are Absolutely Fabulous!
If you read Swann's Way but not the whole seven books, I think you don't get a good idea of what this book is really about. (Spoiler alert, I am going to talk about the whole book and major themes that emerge so if you don't want to hear about these things before you read it, turn away.) The narrator (Marcel) in the first volume is a child and so this part of the story is innocent, sentimental and romantic. However, as Marcel gets older and experiences life, he sees a lot that is repugnant to him. I think a large part of this book is Marcel trying to figure out what it means to be a gay man in France at this time. I feel like Charlus is sort of an alter ego and Marcel is sadly showing his own self-loathing through him. Charlus's pedophilia, promiscuity and masochism are described as an illness and the narrator is disgusted with him. This is so sad to me because it seems like it shows how Proust felt about himself. I also find it strange that almost everyone in the book engages in homosexual liaisons except the narrator. He has created a reverse world than the one he actually lived in. Does anyone else see the book this way???
Deborah wrote: "This is so sad to me because it seems like it shows how Proust felt about himself. I also find it strange that almost everyone in the book engages in homosexual liaisons except the narrator. He has created a reverse world than the one he actually lived in. Does anyone else see the book this way??? "Frankly no. I read it as an extremely rich depiction of a life well lived! He saw things from so many angles, it was fantastical to his imagination. I don't see him as a victim at all. How could he be when he had so much to fall back on?
I'm afraid reducing the book to Narrator's reaction to Charlus also ignores the story arcs about Odette and Albertine and Gilberte which concern themselves with quite different themes
But why is he so hard on Charlus? Yes, there is a lot going on in the book other than his reaction to Charlus. Of course. But for for a gay writer to depict Charlus so harshly strikes me as a very sad show of self-loathing. I am not saying he should have come out as a gay man. I understand that that was not possible. But why present Charlus as a masochistic, sick, depraved man?
And, by the way, I was not reducing the book to the narrator's reaction to Charlus. I was pulling that aspect out of the book as one of the very interesting things to wonder about and discuss. I did this because I am surprised that one one else seems to be discussing this.
Deborah wrote: "But why is he so hard on Charlus? Yes, there is a lot going on in the book other than his reaction to Charlus. Of course. But for for a gay writer to depict Charlus so harshly strikes me as a ve..."In all fairness, the narrator is pretty harsh on everyone else around him, too. Albertine gets the brunt of his obsessive tendencies and Swann is always portrayed as this sort of great man brought down by his love for a woman outside of his religion, social class, and level of respectability.
I think you're having trouble differentiating the author from the narrator, even if they do share a first name. I'm sure there's a lot of influence on Proust's personal life on Marcel the narrator's interpretation of the world, but authors can portray characters like themselves in critical or unflattering light (i.e. Phillip Roth and Irene Nemirovsky).
Deborah wrote: "If you read Swann's Way but not the whole seven books, I think you don't get a good idea of what this book is really about. (Spoiler alert, I am going to talk about the whole book and major theme..."Despite what your critics say, Deborah, I think you are really on to something here. It may be very obvious too. Which is why many would disregard it.
But How many writers can be totally disengaged from their work ,especially this one..his Magnus Opus , the compilation of his Life and experiences.
I think it is very likely Proust could have taken this attiude to himself...especially in those days. Even today I know gay men who live such lives.A life of lies and mostly the Lies are largely to themselves even when they are lying ,on the surface , to others.
Well done...from Gay Wayne !!!
My feeling, reading slowly, now five months into the novel, and just into The Captive, is that Proust's way of looking at (and commenting on) Charlus, and all other characters, is quite dispassionate; Marcel serves as his narrator, but there are many points at which the reader's attention is drawn directly to a wider, and often balanced, view of the characters' lives and behaviours that I sense an authorial voice alerting us to a distance Proust wishes to draw between himself and his putative narrator.
In fact, the experience of living with these characters through such extended periods of time in my "real" life, only brings me to a sympathetic view of them all, for I see how well Proust draws attention to the kind of sometimes honourable, sometimes dubious motivations that I am brought to recognise in myself.
In fact, the experience of living with these characters through such extended periods of time in my "real" life, only brings me to a sympathetic view of them all, for I see how well Proust draws attention to the kind of sometimes honourable, sometimes dubious motivations that I am brought to recognise in myself.
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Time Regained (other topics)Time Regained (other topics)
The Captive / The Fugitive (other topics)
A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (other topics)
The Guermantes Way (other topics)
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I am glad this poor guy is out of his bedroom,his asthma,all those accarus/accarii (?)in between all those covers and heavy curtains and tapestries and rugs -withou..."
Patricia...I just now started perusing these postings. You have me laughing heartily. As Reem said so eloquently, you wrote the Monty Python review...straight from your heart and with truth. Thank you...you are delightful!