Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014 discussion
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The Captive / The Fugitive
The Captive & The Fugitive
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Week ending 09/06: The Captive, to page 93 / location 39780
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Renato
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May 11, 2014 09:13AM
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First of all I think I'll mention that I don't really like the idea of grouping Vol.5 & 6 into a single volume; I know they're connected quite closely, but it doesn't really seem necessary as we're only really thinking of each volume as the next installment of a single work and together it makes quite a chunky book (ok, I'm reading it on a kindle so it's not physically chunky but still...) How do others feel about this? It's not a major concern but I would have thought that the Penguin version, as they're more concerned with staying as close to the original as possible, would have issued ISOLT as a seven volume set.
Talking of the Penguin version, I'm going to do what I did with the last volume, which is read the Vintage MKE version but use the Penguin version (a library copy) as a supplementary book as it has great notes, the synopsis is better and it has introductory notes. It's also useful to compare the translations sometimes. It also has a great cover - a detail of Whistler's 'Mrs Frederick R Leyland':
Image from Wikipedia.
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BTW day three starts on p.102 (Penguin) or p.146 in the Vintage & Modern Library versions starting with 'The morning after the evening when Albertine had told me...'
So I guess the bulk of the book must take place on day three...
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On the plus side we do get this great quote:
Her blue, almond-shaped eyes - now even more elongated - had altered in appearance; they were indeed of the same colour, but seemed to have passed into a liquid state. So much so that, when she closed them, it was as though a pair of curtains had been drawn to shut out a view of the sea.And we do get the beautiful passage near the end of this week's read where the narrator watches Albertine sleeping. Well, I found it beautiful. Do you find it beautiful or creepy? Given the narrator's obsessiveness it could be creepy.
Jonathan wrote: "Ok, so we're on to volume 5, The Captive or The Prisoner...or A Prisioneira. Patrick Alexander says that this one and the following volume 'are the most difficult and least satisfactory of all seve..."Jonathan, I agree with you that I prefer each volume seperately. Somewhere along the line I've read that sometimes (in lit classes?) these two are read sometimes as a seperate, stand alone assignment (as is SW supposedly). As the risk of sounding elitest, I strongly disagree with that. After finishing "the book" and reflecting on it I really believ in its unity. Its unified in structure and in message to me. People don't read some chapters in a Dickens novel? Well I'm just a curmugeon.
The passage you quote is beautiful. It is interesting to observe that he can seem quite loving and unthreatened toward her when she is asleep in his presence. I think that may presage later developments.
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I suppose that when she's asleep she is no longer a threat as he, being the conscious one, is in total control. Would this be his ideal woman? A sleeping beauty.
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Jonathan wrote: "Dave has mentioned that The Captive takes place over three days and I noticed that the synopsis in the Penguin version notes when each day starts - the Vintage synopsis doesn't. In the Penguin vers..."I got the three days from one of the reference books, I don't remember which one. I had identified that 60% of the volume (in the middle) occurred on one day by marking passages that indicate a shift in time. Since I have cheap ebooks they have no page numbers, but I calculated the long day starts 27% through the book with the sentence "On the morrow of that evening when Albertine had told me she would perhaps be going, then she would not be going to see the Verdurins, I awoke early, and, while I was still half asleep, my joy informed me that there was, interpolated in the winter, a day of spring." I think the springlike day in the middle of winter is metaphorical.
Reading to a natural break in the story seems sensible.
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I feel that it was a mistake of Proust's to name the narrator. We'd coped for four volumes without a named narrator so it doesn't seem necessary at this point. Albertine could just say 'My darling' or 'My love' with the same effect.
Jonathan wrote: "I found it extremely odd, given his intense jealousies, that he didn't read the letters that were, supposedly, in her kimono when she was asleep. Do we believe him?"I think this may be clarified later. An interesting psychological point Proust makes. We need to revisit this next volume.
Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "The passage you quote is beautiful. It is interesting to observe that he can seem quite loving and unthreatened toward her when she is asleep in his presence. I think that may presage ..."That would make the Narrator Prince Charming. Hmmm, I have a better French fairy tale in mind for this relationship, La Belle et la Bete.
Jonathan wrote: "And when Albertine wakes the narrator feels that he possesses her even more...and she reveals his name!I feel that it was a mistake of Proust's to name the narrator. We'd coped for four volumes w..."
I can't say I was surprised when I came to the Narrator's name. And I didn't really have an opinion. It certainly makes a fur ball of getting a handle on the structure of the book after reading. I was going round and round trying to get it straight in my mind. I eventually got it sorted out, with some outside reading. Now my opinion was that Proust was diabolical in giving the Narrator his own name.
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I like the idea of this volume being over a short period. Already the style seems quite modern - the previous volumes came across as quite old-fashioned, more nineteenth-century. I think others may disagree though.
Is The Fugitive over a short period also?
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I knew the narrator's name before I started reading ISOLT anyway, so it wasn't a surprise what it was. I wonder if Proust would have removed it if he'd lived to edit it as he did the other volumes.
Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "I got the three days from one of the reference books, I don't remember which one. I had identified that 60% of the volume (in the middle) occurred on one day by marking passages that i..."The Fugitive starts the morning after The Captive ends. I calculated it lasts two and a half years ending approximately in the Fall of 1912 in historical time. There is another historical reference in The Fugitive that happened in March 1911. Time Regained takes place over more than 10 years.
Lord, if Proust had lived we would be reading a 25 volume book! I don't think he would have ever stopped. There is always more time to be regained.
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In thinking of that, I realized that Proust has been with me in four different places already:
1) my old house here in São Paulo where I started reading Vol. 1;
2) my parent's house as I went to visit them and finished Vol. 1 and started Vol. 2;
3) on vacation in another state with my parents where I finished Vol. 2;
4) and now, starting Vol. 5 in my new place, which I just moved in last week.
He's been quite a great companion! :)
Your ahead of the story Renato! The Narrator doesn't get his own place until Vol. 6. Was the vacation in another State at Balbec, Brazil? ;)
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I always thought it was weird to group those two together (not because they're not close or anything), but I just don't see enough of a good reason. I'm glad in Portuguese they're all separate volumes - although they have such horrible covers...
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In thinking of that, I realized that Proust has been with me in four diffe..."
Proust as a travelling companion? Who would've thought it?
I hope the new place is pleasant.
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I was thinking that myself... so far, so good. It did feel, as you mentioned in another comment, somewhat modern. Reading it felt faster, different. To make it even more difficult to put my finger on, this volume was translated by a different person than the previous ones...
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I hope the new place is pleasant."
It is, I'm really happy!!
Dave wrote: "Your ahead of the story Renato! The Narrator doesn't get his own place until Vol. 6. Was the vacation in another State at Balbec, Brazil? ;)"
Ha ha! Then I'm really ahead, I've been living on my own for the past 10 years! I just moved to a nicer place now :) and the vacation was on the beach - at least that!
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“I loved her so well that I could spare a joyous smile for her bad taste in music.”
I remember Swann had similar feelings about Odette's taste! Did he love-her-don't-love-her within minutes, though?
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I see he really wants to confuse us though! I already had a hard time separating his life from Proust's as it was!
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The narrator seems to be the prisoner here not only physically, but also psychologically as almost every thought on his mind and almost every action seem to be devoted to Albertine... that's creepy.
I wonder if he'll get creepier and actually tie her down or something so the title will be literal.
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I thought the part where he was watching Albertine sleep was quite beautiful until I started to think how creepy and jealous the narrator is and then I started to think that his ideal woman might be one that's drugged and/or unconscious!
Did you notice that after the sleeping episode there is then a paragraph that starts 'Sometimes it afforded me a pleasure that was less pure.'?
We also get this quote:
For the possession of what we love is an even greater joy than love itself.
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I didn't notice that part you quoted, thanks for pointing it out. Quite creepy one more time, haha! I'll re-read the sleeping passage one more time!
Again the parallel with Swann, the deciding factor for Swan (in Vol 2) to marry Odette was to present his wife and daughter to the Duchess de Guermantes and gain her approval of them.
Jonathan wrote: "Renato wrote: "I wonder if he'll get creepier and actually tie her down or something so the title will be literal...."I thought the part where he was watching Albertine sleep was quite beautiful ..."
That "possession" quote is great Jonathan, I didn't catch that. Haven't seen that on any Proust quote poster on the Internet! But there is a poster out there that says "Love is a mutual torture." Marcel Proust. I don't remember that in the book but it certainly sounds credible.
Renato wrote: "It's interesting so far that this volume is called La Prisonnière and yet the narrator (I won't start calling him Marcel...) is the one who never leaves the house (or when he does, he visits Mme. d..."I have a comment on who is the prisoner when you get to the last week of the volume Renato. Meanwhile your comment about "fun with friends" would make a great title for an eighth volume inserted between The Captive and The Fugitive and entitled "Amusez-vous Avec Voz Amis" that gives a third person account of Albertine's activity while the Narrator dithers.
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Renato wrote: "Jonathan, I too thought it was quite beautiful. Just like how I loved the quote where he wishes bad things would happen to Mme. de Guermantes so he could help her. I guess he can write everything b..."Proust agreed with all of you.
"He wrote Gallimard immediately, saying that the excerpts on 'Albertine sleeping' that he had promised Riviere, were the 'best things I have ever done.'"
Marcel Proust: A Life, with a New Preface by the Author
By William C. Carter
http://books.google.com/books?id=SDZj...
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I remember vaguely that I read somewhere that this volume was the last one he was able to revise. Do you know if he completed its revision?
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I'm sure I read somewhere that most of The Captive was more or less in its raw state but I'm sure Marcelita can set us straight.
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I remember vaguely that I read somewhere that this volume was the last one he was able to revise. Do you know if he completed its revision?"
The Penguin introduction to The Prisoner has this info:
All editions of it are based on three typescripts held in the Bibliothèque Nationale (now Bibliothèque de France) in Paris: the first quarter of the first typescript had been corrected by Proust before his death and further clean copies made, but it had not yet been given the bon à tirer (ready to print).It goes on to say that Jacques Rivière and Marcel's brother Robert Proust corrected the text in order to get a publishable text. There have been subsequent editions with added supplementary material since then.
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“The sound of her breathing as it grew louder might give the illusion of the breathless ecstasy of pleasure and, when mine was at its climax, I could kiss her without having interrupted her sleep.”
I totally missed this out on my first read. I think I'll discover many things when I re-read everything next year...
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That's what I thought Renato, but that turned out not to be the case. From outside reading it is widely recognized that he wrote and refined the ending (last two hundred pages of Time Regained) before WWI. The ending's relationship to the beginning is stunning. The three volume book he had before the war, expanded to seven volumes during the war. He expanded in the middle. However, apparently The Fugitive and The Captive came at or near the end of his life and are the ones he was still refining.
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I wonder if I'll be able to split those last two hundred pages into weekly sections as proposed in our reading schedule or if I'll just sit down and read them...
There is a logical break in the middle of that part. When you get there I can suggest where to break when you get there. I made the mistake of doing it all in one sitting. I didn't know about the structure at the end and that it encompassed 200 pages. The first 100 pages are very intense (at least to me) and were emotionally exhausting. But I pressed on although in retrospect I was too tired to pay close attention. I just wanted to get finished. Well, there is an awful lot in those 200 pages and that is where Proust brings everything together. I missed a lot, especially in the last 100 pages.Having said that I don't think it is too early to share my finish-line experience. I was exhilarated to be finished but also irritated that I did not "get" the ending. I had to let it "soak in" and start doing outside reading. That's when I remembered that I had seen recommendations to go back read the beginning through to the Madeline episode (40 pages or so). I did that, then I had the Proustian epiphany.
Renato wrote: "It was really beautiful, Marcelita.I remember vaguely that I read somewhere that this volume was the last one he was able to revise. Do you know if he completed its revision?"
At the end of September, 1922, two months before Proust died, he was still re-writing The Captive for the forth time.
According to Carter, Proust wrote Gallimard, around the beginning of November, "The Captive is ready but needs to be read again."
Gallimard received the manuscript on November 7th; Proust died on the 18th.
In one of Bill Carter's webcams, (Proust Online Course), he mentions the exact page that Proust stopped revising. If I come across it in my notes, I will post the passage.
Because Proust was so ill, he wanted Gallimard to have what he had to date, even though he knew it wasn't in the final form.
If he lived, he probably would have waited for the first set to galleys to arrive from the printers and then begin his revising/rewriting pattern.
Among scholars, there is an ongoing debate on how The Captive/Fugitive would have changed, based on additional writings found after Proust's death. Jonathan mentions this in his earlier post. (#34)
Thank you Marcelita. If you have time can you look at the tread Rereading Within a Budding Grove? I'd be interested on your thoughts on Gilberte's birth before Swan and Odette got married, and the explanation of The Fugitive coming right when Gilberte send her first letter to the Narrator. Thanks.
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I've often read articles and interviews where authors talk about writing. They all seem to rewrite and often comment how painful it is but how driven they feel to "get it right."
Renato wrote: "And thanks for the info! So we're reading the last passages he was able to revise, wow!"I was thinking of this last year...the coincidence.
Did Proust finally decided to give the narrator a name, knowing how ill he was?
"Then she would find her tongue and say: 'My—' or 'My darling—' followed by my Christian name, which, if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book, would be 'My Marcel,' or 'My darling Marcel.'" MP
I'd like to believe Proust did this deliberately, but others discount the impact of his illness and think it may have just been a 'placeholder' for a future revision.
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Yes please, I'll ask for it!
Marcelita wrote: "I'd like to believe Proust did this deliberately, but others discount the impact of his illness and think it may have just been a 'placeholder' for a future revision."
I read somewhere that they believe this because apparently Proust had the name "Marcel" mentioned in earlier volumes but ended up removing them... right?
What is this tune that Albertine was humming?"For melancholy is but folly,
And he who heeds it is a fool."
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I tried to find which song was that when I read that section but had no luck, unfortunately.
If anyone knows it will be Marcelita. Perhaps she will post a link to a uTube video.
Well, thanks for checking. I'll wait to see if Marcelita can help. :) I would have enjoyed listening to it as I read this section.And thanks for the welcome back!
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If I've got the correct bit (near the beginning of the book?) then I think the original French is 'les douleurs sont des folles et qui les écoute est encore plus fou'
If I type that into Google it looks like it's a song called 'Le biniou' (the bagpipes) by Albert Alvarez...possibly!
