Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014 discussion
This topic is about
Time Regained
Time Regained
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Week ending 12/20: Time Regained, finish
Dave wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "Oooh, Fabula, there's a word I've come across in my Narratology reading. It would be nice to have an Audiobook of Swann's Way in French to follow in the dual language book you suggested..."
The gold-standard to find anything...in French.
Try it: search for Eiffel
http://alarecherchedutempsperdu.org/m...
Once found, you can backtrack and find it in English.
https://translate.google.com/translat...
Now, this page has the French audio:
http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre...
*https://translate.google.com/translat...
Swann's Way
http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre...
****https://translate.google.com/translat...
Listen: Swann's Way/Combray Part I
http://www.litteratureaudio.net/Marce...
001 : [---- I ---- Combray] Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure
‹ Du Côté de Chez Swann (Marcel Proust)up002 : À Combray, tous les jours dès la fin de l'après-midi ›
Du Côté de Chez Swann - Première partie
Combray I
"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure. Parfois, à peine ma bougie éteinte, mes yeux se fermaient si vite que je n'avais pas le temps de me dire : « Je m'endors. » Et, une demi-heure après, la pensée qu'il était temps de chercher le sommeil m'éveillait ; je voulais poser le volume que je croyais avoir dans les mains et souffler ma lumière ; je n'avais pas cessé en dormant de faire des réflexions sur ce que je venais de lire, mais ces réflexions avaient pris un tour un peu particulier ; il me semblait que j'étais moi-même ce dont parlait l'ouvrage : une église, un quatuor, la rivalité de François Ier et de Charles-Quint. Cette croyance survivait pendant quelques secondes à mon réveil ; elle ne choquait pas ma raison, mais pesait comme des écailles sur mes yeux et les empêchait de se rendre compte que le bougeoir n'était plus allumé. Puis elle commençait à me devenir inintelligible, comme après la métempsycose les pensées d'une existence antérieure ; le sujet du livre se détachait de moi, j'étais libre de m'y appliquer ou non ; aussitôt je recouvrais la vue et j'étais bien étonné de trouver autour de moi une obscurité, douce et reposante pour mes yeux, mais peut-être plus encore pour mon esprit, à qui elle apparaissait comme une chose sans cause, incompréhensible, comme une chose vraiment obscure. Je me demandais quelle heure il pouvait être ; j'entendais le sifflement des trains qui, plus ou moins éloigné, comme le chant d'un oiseau dans une forêt, relevant les distances, me décrivait l'étendue de la campagne déserte où le voyageur se hâte vers la station prochaine ; et le petit chemin qu'il suit va être gravé dans son souvenir par l'excitation qu'il doit à des lieux nouveaux, à des actes inaccoutumés, à la causerie récente et aux adieux sous la lampe étrangère qui le suivent encore dans le silence de la nuit, à la douceur prochaine du retour." MP
Short, fun, video (French) about the complete edition:
"Sitting on a bench in the park of the nursery in Nancy, Olivier Barrot welcomes the publication in one volume of the works of Marcel Proust "In Search of Lost Time" event that the author had always desired. He reads from a few images of the park: lawns, trees, statues." Translated
http://www.ina.fr/video/CPC99002859/m...
Oh, serious Proustians, like the 2013 GR's moderator Kalliope, buy/listen to this version, with 111 CDs. (A college-French department's library may have it).
It's very expensive, because, "...the complete work is superbly narrated by a cast of eminent actors..."
Scroll down to hear excerpts:
http://alarecherchedutempsperdu.com/p...
Buy here
http://www.amazon.com/Recherche-Temps...
or
http://www.languages-direct.com/a-la-...
PS Remember that even the French have their own editions, so be sure to match the text/audio (more of an issue with the last three volumes).
Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "Oooh, Fabula, there's a word I've come across in my Narratology reading. It would be nice to have an Audiobook of Swann's Way in French to follow in the..."
Marvelous! Thanks so much Marcelita! I like having background music too!
Mod
Marcelita and Dave, thanks for escorting us through our read, respecting our need to 'read innocently', without giving away too many clues that could end up spoiling our experience. It was great having you with us and I'm really thankful!
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Sunny, thanks for being part of this amazing accomplishment!! I'm very glad you ended up loving it as I was worried you'd give up on the read after Vol. 3, haha!
Dwayne, you made it (not yet, but I know you will) - congratulations!!
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That's a really interesting interpretation, Dave! I confess I didn't make anything out of it... but I imagined Proust wrote the scene for it to have some meaning. So I'm sticking with your theory!
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Yes, I was also struck by that. I'm glad Proust ended up adding the war to his work, as it was something meaningful, and, like you said, the way he did it, by making use of Charlus, was very interesting.
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The library moment... the fact that he was in a library, to begin with, already gave me chills. Those 30 pages were really amazing. I felt like I was having some sort of big life-changing relevation while reading it. And this was all from the first read, considering the things I could retain within myself from an innocent first read. I can only imagine what re-reading, going slowly through the volumes next year, with better comprehension of it all, will bring me. I can't wait!!
Dave, saying you were shaking like a leaf really is a great image for that moment.
Not only Proust had a great idea of how his work would be, but he had what he needed to write it. He was a brillian writer. How can someone capture moments of inspiration and epipanhy so beautifully?
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Dave, I'm very glad you changed your view about the Party scene as I absolutely loved it. It was, in my opinion, another touch of genius. Not only it serves the purpose of showing us the many ways Time affects people, it was also so well written. I really like how he thinks it's a costume party when he sees everyone so much older, and right after finding time again, right after his epiphany of isolating time, he stumbles with something he didn't see coming. It's like Time ran off and left him behind again, having to catch up to everything. Time wouldn't give it up to him so easily.
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All may not be true "involuntary" memories, but something which "triggered" a memory.
#SW-Overture: Tea and madeleine
WBG- Madame Swann at Home: Scent from WC in the park to Uncl..."
There's also the sound of the water-pipe in TR:
"And, at the very moment when I was thus reasoning, the strident sound of a water-pipe, exactly like those long screeches which one heard on board excursion steamers at Balbec, made me experience (as had happened to me once in a large restaurant in Paris at the sight of a luxurious dining-room half empty, summerlike and hot) something more than a mere sensation like one I had, one late afternoon at Balbec, when, all the tables symmetrically laid with linen and silver, the large bow-windows wide open to the sun slowly setting on the sea with its wandering ships, I had only to step across the window-frame hardly higher than my ankle, to be with Albertine and her friends who were walking on the sea-wall. It was not only the echo, the duplication of a past sensation that the water-conduit had caused me to experience, it was the sensation itself."
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..."
I. need. this.
I started taking French classes as I hope to re-read À la recherche du temps perdu in French some decades from now, when I suddenly realize I'm not a young man anymore.
I'll definitely want an audiobook to accompany me through that, as Dave already stated how much it helped him, and also because Kalliope spoke so well about that audiobook.
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I really enjoyed this, LOL. I could picture Proust smiling when he wrote it.
Dave wrote: "I didn't see the point of the outtake about the dying la Berma and her wicked daughter. I read a summary of Racine's Phaedra, if this is a "life imitates art" message it was lost on me."
I think it was just one more stance to show how time passes, people's reputations shift, and someone who was once at the highest now is down there.
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Now come to the other side, here's my hand!
Congratulations Renato and thank you for always being there for the rest of us as we have read. And congratulations on reading so many other masterpieces of World literature as you read Proust. Every time you posted a status update I was amazed.Proust is unique for me in yet another way, I'm getting as excited about other readers finishing as I was about finishing myself.
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Hi all, I have been without my computer for about two weeks so couldn't post or read here. Just wanted to report that I finished Time Regained back around November 19. Like others of you I was profoundly impressed with his finish! And that is even though I did the 2013 Year of Reading Proust, so had already read it once. I really want to go through parts of it more slowly and get behind some of his remarks. Lots more there than can be absorbed on a fast read-through but I could not seem to slow down once I got to a certain point.
Congratulations on completing your second read MMR! A rare accomplishment in the reading community. Hope you enjoy your follow-on reading.
Renato wrote: "Fin"Congratulations, Renato!
Toasting your memorable accomplishment...
http://amgartanddesign.com/Original_R...
There is a group in France, who would welcome you!
Le Cercle Littéraire Proustien de Cabourg-Balbec
https://translate.google.com/translat...
"The dinner was held as every year in the room where Marcel has often dined alone at the bottom right, a small table and met in a friendly atmosphere Circle members, players who have chosen to companionship that rare writer and opted for share with him a long journey, as it is true that Proust is unique in .... it's hard to get into his work, it is equally difficult to leave."
Armelle Barguillet-Hauteloire, November 2014
--https://translate.googleusercontent.c...
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I felt giddy at the sight of so many years below me, yet within me, as if I were miles high.
CONGRATULATIONS Jonathan!
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He he, yes, that garden gate bell is pretty insistent!
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Looking forward to your thoughts!
Renato wrote: "Dwayne, you made it (not yet, but I know you will) - congratulations!! "I did! Thank you! Yesterday morning at about 9 o'clock in the morning.
Much like Jonathan I don't have too much to say immediately, but at the same time I have so much to say, it's not possible to say it in an understandable way.
I can definitely say that yesterday after finishing I went over to San Francisco, where I lived for ten years (now I live across the Bay in Oakland since summer 2014) and was walking around my old neighborhood, which was something of a new experience since finishing. Rather, some of the insights of the book helped me make sense of an experience I have had for the past few years. SF has changed rapidly since around 2012 due to another boom in technology, and the demographics and buildings have changed at an insane pace.
For the past few years when I went to my old neighborhood (the Castro, historically the gay neighborhood) it felt completely foreign. The facades of *most* of the buildings are the same but the people in them have completely changed. And it's as if it happened overnight. It's strange to look at buildings and think, "oh, that is where I had dinner with X" and "my friend used to live there." I don't know. We walk around with all our years within us, and it can be an interesting experience when you carry an old version of a place into the space it used to inhabit.
I have a tourist map of the Castro in 1981, and I think of how foreign it looked like to me when I bought it in around 2006. And now the neighborhood of 2014 is completely different again. Am I the same? No, I am not the same either.
Don't know. It's kind of like a Proustian drawing room on a bigger scale. Just thought I would share!
THANK YOU SO MUCH everyone for being part of the experience of reading this! It has been really fantastic. Sorry I took big breaks and disappeared for much of the time. Looking around this stream of comments, there are so many fantastic resources to dive into!
I have lined up:
How Proust Can Change Your Life by de Botton
Proust in Love by Walker by Carter
And I even found a copy of A Proust Souvenir by William Howard Adams and Paul Nadar with photos of some of the real people who allegedly inspired characters in the novel.
Not done my any means! Not sure I'll continue immediately with a re-read but I am quite sure I will also come to miss the narrator and curiosity of what the second reading will bring will get the best of me and it will happen!
Mod
Congratulations Dwayne! I'm glad you made it! You must have stormed through the last volumes.
Jonathan wrote: "WOW! I've finished! What a ride. I'll most probably add notes for the last couple of weeks reading tomorrow as it's getting late here. I felt giddy at the sight of so many years below me, yet withi..."Congratulations, Jonathan!!
Celebrating with...stilts, beer, and the bell! ;)
Did Proust capture the image of stilt-walkers from the past...
http://www.illustratedpast.com/people...
or during his time?
"Historically, British hops growers employed stilt-walkers to hang twine and harvest the plant..."
Thinking of one of Proust's last requests...Cheers!
"King Gambrinus, the patron-saint and hallowed supposed-inventor of beer, offers you an overflowing and oversized goblet of the golden libation."
And, always the bell...
"I had heard the noise of the garden bell at Combray---that far-distant noise which nevertheless was within me----" MP
https://vimeo.com/73502366
Now, Proust will always be within you, Jonathan.
Congratulations Dwayne! An interesting post-Proustian exploration. Proust seems to have such a profound effect on readers.
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Celebrating with...stilts, beer, and the bell! ;) ..."
Ha! Ha! Great pics Marcelita & thanks. I'll have to start practicing on my stilts.
Dwayne wrote: "Renato wrote: "Dwayne, you made it (not yet, but I know you will) - congratulations!! "I did! Thank you! Yesterday morning at about 9 o'clock in the morning.
"We walk around with all our years within us, and it can be an interesting experience when you carry an old version of a place into the space it used to inhabit. .."
Bravo! Dwayne!
Your quote, "We walk around with all our years within us, and it can be an interesting experience when you carry an old version of a place into the space it used to inhabit,"
...is exactly like the ending to "Swann's Way."
So bittersweet; so perfect. Thank you, Dwayne, for reminding us.
Proust: Because of the solidarity that binds together the different parts of a general impression that our memory keeps in a balanced whole of which we are not permitted to subtract or to decline any fraction, ...
But now, even though they had led to nothing, those moments struck me as having been charming enough in themselves. I wanted to find them again as I remembered them. Alas! there was nothing now...
[...]
...above the gimcrack windmill the real sky was grey; the wind wrinkled the surface of the Grand Lac in little wavelets, like a real lake; large birds flew swiftly over the Bois, as over a real wood, and with shrill cries perched, one after another, on the great oaks which, beneath their Druidical crown, and with Dodonian majesty, seemed to proclaim the inhuman emptiness of this deconsecrated forest, and helped me to understand how paradoxical it is to seek in reality for the pictures that are stored in one’s memory, which must inevitably lose the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from their not being apprehended by the senses.
The reality that I had known no longer existed.
It sufficed that Mme Swann did not appear, in the same attire and at the same moment, for the whole avenue to be altered.
The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years. MP
And to think this ending was added...because Swann's Way was too long and needed to be cut.
From the best article written about The Morgan 2013 exhibit of the 100th Anniversary of Swann's Way, "The Thrill of Proust’s Handwriting" by MARY HAWTHORNE:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frenche...
"But perhaps the most arresting page, and the most moving, is the final page of the third corrected galley proof of 'Du Côté.' Even though Proust was paying for the book’s publication, Grasset insisted that it was too long and told him it had to be cut by a third; this is the reason that 'Noms de Pays: Le Nom' ('Place Names: The Name') is a fraction of the length of the other two sections in the book.
The radical cut having been made,
--look at the galley image above--
Proust has squeezed in the final four sentences, all but indecipherable, at the bottom of the page, nearly veering off it. They are the exact words one finds in every edition published since 1913:
'La réalité que j’avais connue n’existait plus...' (The reality I had known no longer existed.…)
And then, in blue pencil: 'Ici finit le volume.' Here ends the volume."
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...
A present...Antoine Compagnon talking about Proust's galleys of Swann's Way...both video and the album (click on the 'T' to see the comments).
http://expositions.bnf.fr/proust/albu...
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I think I may re-read the 'Library scene' over the next couple of weeks. it was certainly pivotal and although I found it a bit annoying in places it was a great section of the book. This part, together with the last section gave an amazing insight into how Proust came to write ISOLT.
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I agreed with this point Dave. Proust was making the same point again and again. It was as if he'd never considered that people grow old before. I'm sure he would have adapted this if he'd had the time. The initial part when the narrator thinks everyone's in fancy dress was amusing though.
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I just took this part to be another example of 'how people's social status changes' which was one of the main points of the party. I wonder if he's also making the point that those true artists (La Berma) have been eclipsed by lesser artists (Rachel). She was also ending her days in a state that she'd probably acted out many times before, so yes, 'life imitates art'.
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I thought she was very beautiful: still full of hopes, laughing, formed out of the very years that I had lost, she looked like my youth.And BAM: 'The End', at least that's what I thought. It was a natural ending wasn't it? Now the twenty or so pages that follow are a brilliant and fascinating portrayal of Proust/the narrator as he grapples with starting the novel but I wonder if it should have been placed as an appendix or something? How do others feel about this?
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I don't think I would have got very far reading ISOLT when I was in my twenties either Sunny. What I love about ISOLT is that the characters feel like real people which is rarely the case in many novels, films or plays. Because we've seen the characters at different times, in a positive and negative light, we've seen them in different social settings, in good times and bad, we get a fully-rounded character.
Jonathan wrote: "When I read the section (approx two paragraphs) where Gilberte's & St-Loup's daughter, approaches the narrator I got goose-bumps. It's the section that starts 'I saw Gilberte coming towards me.' Wi..."I had a very similar reaction Jonathan. I thought Mlle Saint Loup was the personification of the book. I read somewhere that in the Library he realizes what he will write about and Mlle Saint Loup is his inspiration to write. Nobody has the same opinion on this type of thing so we are free to decide for ourselves.
My reaction to post-Mlle Saint Loup text was, if anything, less charitable than yours. I kept muttering "alright already, go write the book." I would think that many would have a similar reaction. But now I understand that to "get" the ending you have to reread the beginning. Now I consider the ending to be brilliant.
Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "The extended section dealing with "people look different when you haven't seen them in a long time" was tedious and belabored the obvious...."I agreed with this point Dave. Proust wa..."
I read this part too fast the first time. I got a lot more out of it when I reread it a couple of weeks ago.
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I love all the biographical detail, such as Francoise having an intuitive feel for his work, and I wouldn't want it to be scrapped or anything (Proust forgive), but I just thought the part with Mlle St-Loup was a more 'natural' place to end.
I agreed with your assessment about the natural ending when I finished Jonathan. My opinion changed later about the remaining pages.
Yahooo!! I'm delighted to report that I have just joined the rest of the group at the finish line. I started the project in September this year when I retired and by 24 September, when I first became aware of this group, my progress stood at 19% (on my Kindle edition). So it took exactly 3 months to complete the last 81% at a brisk pace. So now I stand with the rest of you 'poised on [the] dizzy summit' (MP), surveying the immense landscape at our feet and digesting the profound soul food that MP has fed us over the past months. I will try and comment more fully later, although there is little new that I can add to the erudite remarks of others, especially in this week's messages. In the meantime I am resolute not to stop here, but to commence a second reading soon, with the aid of some of the wealth of external material available, starting with De Botton's 'How Proust can change your life' (which has been standing untouched on my bookshelf since 2003). BTW, I am thinking of acquiring the new Carter edition of 'Swann's Way' (2013). Has anyone had a look at it?
In the meantime, season's greetings to all and a blessed Christmas to those who celebrate it.
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I'm going to start Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time soon and the Carter biography early next year. Curiously I read the de Botton book before I started reading ISOLT.
If you're seriously contemplating a re-read then you may want to join in with our re-read of 'Combray' in January - see here. It would be great to have you join in. And we can expand the re-read section if people want to continue.
Congratulations indeed Ben, you set a very brisk pace. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the closing section and the whole experience.Like Jonathan, I read Alain de Botton's Proust book before reading Proust's book.
Looking forward to you joining future discussions. Merry Christmas.
Interesting website that Marcelita referred to in message 24 above ("Earl's:" http://insearchoftimetasted.blogspot ), with references to food in ISOLT. As an oenophile, my one regret about the book is that there is virtually no references (except in the generic sense) to any of the wonderful French wines. Just think what wonderful memories MP could have conjured up from a good 1899 Chateau Mouton Rothschild or a 1901 Ch Lafite, not to mention the exquisite wines from Burgundy. Instead, only repeated references to orangeade! MP must have been a teetotaller or not?
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I don't think I'll switch to drinking orangeade even if it is a 'Proustian drink'.
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About the wine, as far as I can remember, there wasn't much mention of Proust being a wine appreciator on Carter's bio - Marcelita can confirm it better though - but he really enjoyed beer!
Jonathan wrote:'I'm going to start Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time soon. . .'
As I announced earlier today on the new thread about re-reading Proust, my copy of Patrick Alexander's 'MP's search for lost time' has just arrived and, of course, I couldn't wait to get stuck into it. Between this work and your Shattuck, we seem to be confronted with the classical divide between Swann's Way and the Guermantes Way, or not? ;-)
It would be interesting to compare notes afterwards or as we go along; what do you think?
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It would be interesting to compare notes afterwards or as we go along; what do you think? "
Yes Ben, feel free to add comments to any existing threads if they seem relevant. I'll add some more threads to the 'Supplementary Reading' folder when and if they seem to be required.
I read the Patrick Alexander book as I went along with ISOLT but didn't find it that useful as an accompaniment. It would be useful for anyone who wanted a quick re-cap of events and characters but doesn't contain much new info or views. I'll be interested to know what you think of it though.
No, it's there, in Time Regained, in the war passage, "...searchlights of the Eif..."
Ah, ok. I have a Pinterest Board about Paris. When I first set it up I was frustrated that I couldn't find Pins of Paris that were not of the Eiffel Tower.