Psycho Proustians discussion
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Swann’s Way
SWANN'S WAY 2021
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Combray Section I - 'Overture' (Discussion Thread 1)
Ok, people, time to start thinking of setting some kind of schedule. Those of you who have done groups with me before, know the drill.We divide our reading matter into sections, and we make a thread per section, so that latecomers or people who need more time, can still participate without getting to see spoilers.
Our reading/discussion officially starts on Thursday, and Stephen wants to go quite fast, but I already have so many notes regarding just the first few pages!
So in order to get to know one another, and to find our feet, I feel we should make the first thread only for part one of Combray, up to the paragraph that reads:
"...so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea."
As usual, I will make a few threads ahead of time, so that those who want to go faster, can jump ahead. But if you want to go slower than that, even a lot slower - do not worry! Because we are separating the sections, it doesn't really matter when you post your comments, someone will see and respond. In fact, there's still activity on a group read we had in 2013! (Not much, but you get my point...)
What about the Overture? Isn't that part? As I feared, am already behind! 😟
Jan wrote: "What about the Overture? Isn't that part? As I feared, am already behind! 😟"No, no no, fear not, Jan, I didn't have enough space in the heading, but in some versions it is called "Overture". No, no, relax. Okay, I'm going to try and start being more inclusive of all the translations, sorry, I'll try and squeeze it into the heading as well.
Okay, so we start with the words:
"For a long time I would go to bed early. Sometimes, the candle barely out, my eyes closed so quickly that I did not have time to tell myself: “I’m falling asleep.” And half an hour later the thought that it was time to look for sleep would awaken me; I would make as if to put away the book which I imagined was still in my hands, and to blow out the light;"
(Note: The exact words may differ from translation to translation.)
Quick challenge questions: Challenge question no. 1 : What can you glean from the character of the narrator from the first two or three pages by reading the text and the text alone? No external references please.
2. Have you noticed how many allegories/metaphors Proust managed to work in almost seamlessly?
Please don't feel boxed-in by the challenge questions, you can post anything you like as long as it relates to the text of Combray or "Overture".
I never tire of reading that opening sentence of the Overture. It's worked its way in my mind like a neurological worm: a few bars of a melody I can't get rid of.
Hi Nick, I am so glad to see you contribute, especially since you're fresh off reading Jen Craig's Panthers & The Museum of Fire - I eagerly await your post on it. Did you happen to notice she paid homage to Proust in her opening sentence? Jen: "For a long time I have dreamed of such a breakthrough..."
Proust: "For a long time I used to go to bed early." (Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.)
Interesting choice, isn't it?
Stephen wrote: "Hi Nick, I am so glad to see you contribute, especially since you're fresh off reading Jen Craig's Panthers & The Museum of Fire - I eagerly await your post on it. Did you happen to notice she paid..."Hey Stephen, yes, I noticed it. It's the rhythm of that sentence, the choice of words, the order of the words that gives a seductive unforgettable quality.
I am overworked at the moment and finding I can't sit down and simply think about what to write about a book. I had so many ideas as I was reading Panthers now I've lost them. Perhaps they will get reclaimed.
But reading Proust again with a group should be OK for a time. I started a small group down here reading it. We had a great time, some fabulous conversations. But we went quickly from 6 to 4 members, then held firm for a year with 4 until one dropped out and we couldn't manage it.
It's impossible to recruit new people on page 741, I discovered. Though I went In search of lost readers.
There are two types of Proust readers in a group - the go slows who want to savour every sentence and those willing to plough through. I am in the first.
Nick wrote: "There are two types of Proust readers in a group - the go slows who want to savour every sentence and those willing to plough through. I am in the first.."Hi Nick, nice to meet you. I am glad you mentioned that, I'm with you on that. I just feel nervous that I'm going to have too much to say which will make the go-fasters feel bogged down. So I'll wait a bit with my commentary and give others a chance to go first before I start with my torrents of text. :P
Traveller wrote: "Nick wrote: "There are two types of Proust readers in a group - the go slows who want to savour every sentence and those willing to plough through. I am in the first.."Hi Nick, nice to meet you. ..."
Nah, go all in, Traveller, savour every moment: life is short, Proust is long.
Nice to meet you too.
On another thread, Fionnuala wrote: " the Pléiade edition ... is much smaller than a regular paperback and has very delicate pages and tiny print. It feels like a breviary complete with ribbons, and as I was reading the first two pages this morning, I could almost imagine myself in the church the narrator speaks of in the first paragraph. And it struck me that there is something incantatory about those first sentences."Interesting observations, Fionnulana. Please let us know, if you notice it as we go along, in which respects you find that your copy differs from the various translated versions as well as the original French version.
I think I'm going to use your impressions there, as a springboard for mentioning a few of my own:
My growing impressions (for I've had several false starts with SW) were manyfold, but one of them is that this is a very "book-ish" introduction, while at the same time also quite the opposite, by having a dreamy quality divorced from place and time.
Immediately the narrator tells us that even as a younger person, he was an avid reader, and rather well-educated with regard to history, since he mentions having just previously read about the church and the rivalry between François I and Charles V. His mention of a "quartet" seems to foreshadow a love of music.
And in the very first paragraph already, we have a metafictional reference. (For those unfamiliar with the term, metafiction is fiction that is either self-referential, or aware of itself as a literary form.)
In this instance, it's self-referential in a rather peculiar way, where the narrator says:
I had not ceased while sleeping to form reflections on what I had just read, but these reflections had taken a rather peculiar turn; it seemed to me that I myself was what the book was talking about:
Also where he says: the subject of the book detached itself from me, I was free to apply myself to it or not
Now, this is a thing that is very fashionable in contemporary post-modern literature, so I find it interesting that Proust, a century earlier, also makes use of it.
Furthermore, he seems to foreshadow yet another genre, the Modernist “stream of consciousness” style. It feels as if he is giving us his thoughts as they occur. (Though I am sure this is just a clever literary illusion).
It also feels to me as if there is a a bit of rather mysterious foreshadowing here and there, for example: “as after metempsychosis (reincarnation) do the thoughts of an earlier existence”
...and a lot of metaphor; Surely the darkness he mentions is open for interpretation, but I find it interesting that he finds it a “soft” (or even sweet) and restful, yet incomprehensible thing. I’m sure one of you could perhaps “shed more light” on the matter, heh-heh, sorry, couldn’t resist.
“…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. » ...which could read : "a darkness, soft and restful to my eyes, but perhaps even more so to my mind, to which it appeared to be something without a cause, incomprehensible, like something truly obscure. "
I suppose that sentence can be construed in many different ways, I welcome other reader’s thoughts on that.
Then comes my very favorite part: (and this part is also pretty difficult to translate) about the traveler journeying through the countryside, but I’ll comment on that in a next post to try and keep my posts more brief.
Oh, before I get to the traveller, notice how Proust in these opening passages plays with the concepts of space and time, I guess quite apropos with regard to the title of the series. He seems to be finding himself floating in limbo between sleep, “the soft darkness” and wakefulness or reason, in that inbetween land where we dwell upon our thoughts and let them wander – but he seems to resist himself slipping into the embrace of the soft darkness by trying to orient himself with regard to time; “I wondered what time it was” , and immediately after that, he tries to orient himself with regard to space as well, where he tries to orient himself with regard to the landscape around him with the whistling of the trains, which he whimsically compares to songs of birds in the forest.
And then comes the bit that made me feel a bit excited: the entire bit about the passenger hurrying to return after the excitement of the unknown. Besides that this is obviously a foreshadowing of the narrator’s own journey, it touches on the classical idea of the monomyth.
You might have heard of Joseph Campbell, who was influenced by Carl Jung's analytical psychology. Campbell used the monomyth to deconstruct and compare religions in his famous book The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949).
Since I’m lazy, I’ll quote from Wikipedia: “In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero's journey, or the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.”
Ok, so this is a trope in literary theory, but, if you think about it, most stories are monomyths at their core, just not necessarily having a distinct 'hero' and not necessarily about a victory, but at the very least, about some change that took place. Most stories, if you break them down to the bare bones, are about some kind of journey (physical or psychological) that changes something or someone in the story – hence, a story, and not just a random glob of text. I really like that Proust just casually and quite poetically just throws that out there. A rather more obscure example of metatextuality.
In the next passages the narrator describes some sort of suffering: an ailing person who suffers - which could be slightly metaphorical for the ailments of the soul - here Proust could be describing our existential pain as human beings - we come into the world alone, and leave the world yet again alone. I’m not sure about this part, it just sounds pretty despairing – perhaps some of our other members can help me out in understanding those passages?I loved the bit about the erotic dreams. Apologies if this is TMI, but that kind of thing sounds rather familiar to me, especially the part where you feel you are starting to wake up, but you don’t want to, you wanna cling to that sexy dream… :P I’m not sure if I find the bit about Adam’s rib a bit forced, though… but as for his idea of 'creating' a focus for his eroticism, I suppose we all create a dream in our heads when we look at a person through the beautifying haze of eroticism.
Then he fiddles around again with a bunch of ideas regarding space and time, almost experimenting with it, and now I realize that he also played around with identity earlier, now that he brings in the question of identity more clearly – in fact, the bit earlier on where he speaks of a previous existence also kind of plays with the concept of identity.
He also plays around with the concept of levels of consciousness – first it was the insensateness of the furniture, now he is bringing in the consciousness belonging to animals and cave-dwellers.
He also speaks of traveling through time - I wonder if that is meant to be via his reading?
And can anybody please help to give me a bit more insight as to why he looks for “help” so often? I apologize for breaking our rules a bit here, but we did say we’re allowed outside the text as well - but in any case, from what I have heard of Proust, he was an extremely sensitive person, and it seems as if our narrator is too. Proust had two very accomplished parents, perhaps at times he felt a bit emotionally abandoned?
PS. He seems to love bird imagery, doesn't he?
PPS. When it just suddenly jumped to Golo, I really had a "what the *** " moment.
Traveller wrote: "...He also speaks of traveling through time..."Aren't these early pages remarkable for the way the narrator roams back and forth through his own life, from the early years when he had long curls to the various bedrooms he's slept in at various times in his life, and even into the future time of the book he is beginning to write here on the page we are reading, in which the tantalizing mentions of Tansonville and Madame de Saint-Loup, and of passengers on trains, and people arriving in hotels, desperately needing someone to bring them some remedy or other, will be developed. It's a kaleidoscopic description—like the one Golo features in, and which you've just discovered, Traveller.
Fionnuala wrote: "Aren't these early pages remarkable for the way the narrator roams back and forth through his own life, from the early years when ..."
It must be interesting for a re-reader to see a virgin discover him anew. I have a feeling this is one of those circular novels which are understood better upon a re-reading. So, as I suspected, the overture is a prelude, a microcosm of the novel proper. Nice!
Speaking of Golo and Genevieve of Brabant, Genovefa of Brabant was said to be the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, and was falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death, she was spared by the executioner and lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. Siegfried, who had meanwhile found out Golo's treachery, was chasing the roe when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her former honour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevie...
Nick wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Hi Nick, I am so glad to see you contribute, especially since you're fresh off reading Jen Craig's Panthers & The Museum of Fire - I eagerly await your post on it. Did you happen to..."Hey Nick, no worries about posting on Panthers. It sounds like you admired the style, it provoked much thought. That's great. If you ever revisit it and would like to discuss it with someone, by all means, feel free to contact me.
Likewise, don't feel pressured to comment here. But when you have something to contribute, please do. I'm especially interested in your opinion considering you ran a Proust group on your own.
I hear things are getting pretty dicey in Sydney regarding Covid? I hope you are in a safe place and got a stack of books at your side to get through it.
Traveler I thought of this prelude idea and what it's about. The time metaphors are interesting - the broken chain of hours, the broken sleep where time is suspended, or altered by perception, so that how much passes can never be known.
So we enter an alternate consciousness to our own. When I first read this, I was so taken by it that the passages fled past me - even though slowly because you cannot keep the ideas in your mind reading quickly, the multiple clauses also require re-reading - so nothing flows in a linear way. A technique I hadn't considered until I allowed myself to read it as it is - I am not failing to understand a Proust sentence, I am now reading it his way - back and forth.
Once we accept this other world setting, we can go anywhere - the opening is the mechanism to break down our expectations of linear time and conscious rational thought.
The overture is a kind of preparation for the moment when we leap into the madeleine moment.
Stephen wrote: "Nick wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Hi Nick, I am so glad to see you contribute, especially since you're fresh off reading Jen Craig's Panthers & The Museum of Fire - I eagerly await your post on it. Did ..."I so want to write something about that book. We are very lucky here in Oz. We still have the capacity to manage the virus through population health measures. Here in Melbourne we are more or less free to move about having dealt with an outbreak already. But our experiences are nothing like others. If an Australian is moaning right now, they are unaware of their good fortune.
Traveller, I see that you're striking out for various philosophical themes and that is wonderful. Proust's writing begs for philosophical treatment. You touched upon themes of suffering, or mental illness; self-referential writing; alienation. I am pleased to see you mention Joseph Campbell because it tells me that you are already picking up on the religious nature of Proust's writing, something that tends to be avoided whenever he's discussed. For myself, I am greatly interested in his religious background: that the two sides of his family were Catholic and Jewish. I myself didn't pay much attention to this when reading him in the past, and that was a mistake. The Overture contains references to Marcel attending mass, Easter celebrations. Whether he was a believer or not, Christian culture was very much a part of his environment. As for his Jewish side, I think we'll be able to see more of that through his relationship with his mother. You mentioned postmodernism. That's very interesting, because one of the most salient aspects of the Overture is Proust's, or the narrator's, great concern that his reading books, his imaginary wanderings, the impressions that strike him and have no cause and effect, will leave him unmoored, lost. In a postmodern context we could say that Proust/the narrator recognized that he might be existentially rootless. More importantly, he could overhear his grandparents, his great aunts, his father, especially, saying, in so many words, "The boy is not right." They knew he was dreamy, moody, highly strung, not the grounds at all for a young man to pursue a successful, bourgeois life.
Bear in mind when reading these opening chapters that the narrator is an older man looking back at his boyhood. He's reconstructing a very important night when Swann came to visit his family and his mother refused him a kiss. His whole psycho-trauma of not fitting in, of being outside the bourgeois mainstream, informs all these reflections, impressions, portraits.
Then comes the madeleine. (I assume you're not there yet, Traveller?) I'll hold off on commenting on that until everyone catches up. But since you opened up philosophical reflections, I'll say keep an eye open for the "shudder" he feels after he tastes the cake. (I assume the French for it is "frisson.") And that he doesn't mention the shudder with all the other fantastic impressions he'd been describing up until then. Why is the shudder important? I say it's because he's describing what amounts to a religious conversion. I was struck reading these passages this time around that the only way for him to make sense of the madeleine experience was through metaphysical language. Not on Christian terms. Not on Jewish terms. But metaphysical ones. Maybe this was the only way for the young man to fuse the two sides to his family's faith? More on that later.
P.S. I am a complete stranger to Gormenghast! Sorry! Maybe you could sell it to me later ;)
P.P.S. Your distinction between flowery and raw was interesting. For me, when I say a lyrical writer is a "poet", I mean they are the kind of writer capable of dipping into the vast well of cosmic experience we are all at a loss to describe. That's what Moncrieff's version did for me. "Flowery" suggests to me the kind of writer that can turn a phrase. That's not what I mean by "poet". It is entirely possible (from my reading) for a writer to be lyrical and NOT be a poet. Their mellifluousness, supple rhythms, musical qualities make them lyrical. But because they don't have any sight for the great cosmic soup, the magic that Proust is after in these opening chapters, I wouldn't describe them as a poet. Hemingway, for instance, was a raw writer and also a poet. Many have imitated him, few have captured the poetry, precisely because they lacked his religious sense for the world. By "religious" I really mean, once again, the kind of metaphysics Proust writes about in Overture.
Nick, your comment at #16 provides a nice little bridge between where Traveller is currently at in the book and myself. I'll cede to her and let her respond. Hey, that's great to hear that you are in Melbourne. I have cousins there, so I have a good sense for what you're going through. Good news about your freedom to move, I hope it stays that way.
Proust's, or the narrator's, great concern that his reading books, his imaginary wanderings, the impressions that strike him and have no cause and effect, will leave him unmoored, lost. In a postmodern context we could say that Proust/the narrator recognized that he might be existentially rootless.A nice summary, Stephen, it explains so well the temporal, phenomenological disorientation that Proust creates in the overture. The world of phenomena are suddenly not as they were before.
The idea of the narrator giving the game away I first thought was like Shakespeare constantly reminding us that his play is set in a theatre, not in the real world, ie. a suspended place in time and space, so that other forces can play with the imagination to explain the action.
Nick wrote: "Traveler I thought of this prelude idea and what it's about. The time metaphors are interesting - the broken chain of hours, the broken sleep where time is suspended, or altered by perception, so..."
Thanks for mentioning that, Nick. I think I was a bit fatigued in my note-taking when that particular passage containing the broken chains came past. Yes, thanks, that nicely fit in with what I experienced as a sort of stream-of-consciousness narrative, which gradually becomes less so when he moves on to his comments about social standing, though even there he interrupts the ‘action’ with huge asides.
I think I should comment on your and Stephen’s comments more fully when I am completely finished with section I – I’m almost there! In the meantime, I’m just going to post some of the thoughts that I had already jotted down while reading through the text.
I think I like the narrator’s grandmother. His own reaction to his great-aunt teasing Bathilde, shows a very sensitive but cynical soul where he deprecates himself as being a coward.
His narration is very sense-oriented; he is forever touching, feeling, seeing, hearing and smelling.
Something else (than a sensitive nature) that the narrator has in common with the author, is his perceived ill-health. Proust was perceived as sickly because he had asthma. If only people of that era were aware of the fact that the more fit you are, the less likely you are to have an asthma attack. So they were doing the wrong thing by constricting his activities so much. Alas, poor Proust.
Also interesting how he connotes a mixture of pleasure and pain to the bitter-sweetness of his mother’s fleeting embrace. The oedipal overtones here are interesting as well.
LOL, interesting that he would find the European class-system “Hindu”. I mean, certainly, the Hindu caste-system was in fact pretty iron-clad, but I just find it slightly strange that a European would make such an observation. The Hindu system is, or was then at any rate, more rigid, actually, I’d say, and quite different, since it (was) not entirely ruled by how much money you had, but based on some religious considerations as well and purely on birth.
Proust is obviously taking the opportunity to comment on the class system, and I must say I applaud the opinion of Mlle Céline in that regard.
…but in any case, the narrator deftly sketches his own family’s position on the social ladder vs that of Swann, and how the great-aunt treats Swann, is pretty amusing.
Also interesting and insightful comments on how a social persona is constructed in the human psyche. Isn’t it true that all of us see ‘false” images of those around us, even, in most cases, of those we love.
Note: Marquise de Sévigné (5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696), was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing. Most of her letters, celebrated for their wit and vividness, were addressed to her daughter, Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné. She is revered in France as one of the great icons of French 17th-century literature.
I’m finding that the whole thing about Swann’s social standing drags a bit for me. It feels very repetitive and drags on and on… though I suppose it is rather amusing how tortuously the minds of the narrator’s family work, and how ‘diplomatic’ they try to be, and in feeling they should disguise the actual meaning of their comments, poor Swann keeps missing the mark and constantly feels puzzled by their obscure hints and references.
Apropos to Stephen’s mention of religion, Swann does point to a religious text as the pinnacle of being a “serious” subject, when he refers to Pascal’s Pensées ("Thoughts")which is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. It represented Pascal's defense of the Christian religion.
OK, since I had the means to do so, I read the first 4 or so pages in each of the unvarnished Moncrieff, the Davis, the Enright, and the Carter translations (with what I had on had and for Carter with Amazon's Look Inside feature). As far as translation goes (just from the experience of the read, as I am regrettably without French), none of the versions were my 'ideal'; all of them had more or less nearly brilliant moments, or clearly better decisions at some point than the others, so I found myself wanting to mash together a whole new revision built out of all of them. So there's the translation question unanswered.As to a reaction: I love the way Proust's description of his in between state of waking and dreaming draws the reader into the same kind of state. The opening passages are absolutely incantatory as Fionnuala said in the other thread, and completely spell binding. I love the flicker of the candle flame in the comforting dark (and the way it is called back a few passages later, when the light goes out on the imagined invalid traveler and the darkness turns to horror and pain!). I love the way he invokes distance with the train whistle, and the way that train whistle becomes a bird becomes a man on a road becomes an invalid trapped in a bed. I love the kaleidoscopic darkness (and that that word itself describes what he is doing with his wandering narrative, as noted above), and the sleep of the room around him (and his insignificance in the scene!). Then he tumbles through his childhood torment at his uncles hands and into the arms of the imagined lover. I think about references to the holy dark, described as radiant by the mystics.
It's all just such a fantastic and truthful portrayal of that most mundane of experiences, falling asleep and waking again in the midst of the night. I enjoyed it a surprisingly huge amount.
I have stopped at the next section, but for reference, Carter has the best rendering of the next line:
When a man is asleep, he holds in a circle around him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, and the order of the universe.
(Davis avoids the reference to the heavenly host present in Moncrieff and Enright, but gives up "chain of hours," which is just an absolutely tragic change.)
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "OK, since I had the means to do so, I read the first 4 or so pages in each of the unvarnished Moncrieff, the Davis, the Enright, and the Carter translations (with what I had on had and for Carter w..."Wow, thanks for all the work you're putting in, Amy! I like how you do consciousness-hopping in your impressions of the earlier parts of the section. It reminds me a lot of how Virginia Woolf did it in Mrs Dalloway, though of course Woolf's isn't nearly in as rapid succession.
Now you are making me want the Carter edition as well, though I think I have generally settled on the Enright version as being the best choice of the English translations that I do have.
Stephen wrote: "you are already picking up on the religious nature of Proust's writing, ..."Apologies for taking so long to reply, Stephen, but a lot of what you mention are included in my next set of notes, but since I'm taking so long with those, I thought I'd post a quick reply in the meantime.
Since I read your post, I immediately started homing in in the text re your mention of the religious overtones, and I could definitely see it once I started looking for it - I also commented on that in my upcoming notes.
I was aware of course that Proust's parents were both well-educated, his father a medical researcher/pathologist/epidemiologist, and his mother the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish family; but I had (before your post) overlooked the role that religion might have played in Proust's perception of the world.
Nick wrote: "The idea of the narrator giving the game away I first thought was like Shakespeare constantly reminding us that his play is set in a theatre, not in the real world, ie. a suspended place in time and space, so that other forces can play with the imagination to explain the action...."...which are, of course, yet more examples of metatextuality or self-referentiality... (or metatheatricality? I think the term would be for in terms of a play ?) (I made that last bit up)
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "...It's all just such a fantastic and truthful portrayal of that most mundane of experiences, falling asleep and waking again in the midst of the night. I enjoyed it a surprisingly huge amount"Great to hear you're enjoying the writing so much, Amy.
And the Carter line you've quoted sounds very close to the same line in my edition: Un homme qui dort tient en cercle autour de lui le fil des heures, l'ordre des années et des mondes.
Stephen wrote: " More importantly, he could overhear his grandparents, his great aunts, his father, especially, saying, in so many words, "The boy is not right.".."That's interesting. Those words are not used in my version. I wonder if you could orient me to where more or less that is said?
Stephen wrote: "I'll say keep an eye open for the "shudder" he feels after he tastes the cake. (I assume the French for it is "frisson.") l ..."
Hm, yes, in the Enright version, it's No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.." I actually find your shudder more descriptive in context.
The French version has it: Mais à l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi. Un plaisir délicieux m’avait envahi, isolé, sans la notion de sa cause. So "je tressaillis" can be: I winced, flinched, shuddered, shivered, trembled, or gasped. Or, the definition of «tressaillir» would be: "The experience of a brief, intense reaction to an emotional stimulus" .
You see, it's in instances like this, where he is using non-specific, descriptive language, or where there is no direct English equivalent, that the translation becomes so hard. These poor translators must have gone to bed with headaches each night.
Anyway, I'm getting lost in minor semantics here. The end result in this case, is pretty similar. :)
Ok, let me get it off my chest and post my last notes for this section:
Hmm, so Proust seems to have had a high regard for the writer George Sand.
I can’t help but finding the whole drama around him not being allowed to say good-night to his mother, rather preposterous. What kind of parent punishes a child’s need for affection? Sadly this is how British upper-class and German households generally worked, and I must now assume French ones as well. Children were inconveniences to be kept out of sight. As Stephen mentioned, Proust’s mother was Jewish, and from close contact with Jewish families, I have personally found that Jewish people seem very fond of, and even indulgent with their children. But then again, who is to say which parts of the novel are autobiographical and which were not?
Might it be a question of class, time-period and, perhaps, a bit of a Catholic thing, then, that predisposed the narrator’s family to act with such a cold and callous disregard for their child’s needs? The narrator doesn’t really mention what age he was at the point of this oedipal crisis – I mean, if he were six, it would be a very different matter than if he were eleven, say. Perhaps, considering his reading matter, he was inbetween, at an age of eight or nine, even ten, perhaps?
And yet again, as Fionnuala has hinted at, and as Stephen brought up, we have some religious overtones coming in, in the paragraph: But of late I have been increasingly able to catch, if I listen attentively, the sound of the sobs which I had the strength to control in my father’s presence, and which broke out only when I found myself alone with Mamma. In reality their echo has never ceased; and it is only because life is now growing more and more quiet round about me that I hear them anew, like those convent bells which are so effectively drowned during the day by the noises of the street that one would suppose them to have stopped, until they ring out again through the silent evening air.
...but overwhelmingly, what I have read in this quoted section and in Combray in general so far, has been the anguish of a soul steeped in loneliness.
An earlier part where I started to notice religious overtones, and this is where he deals with sense of self and the self’s orientation in terms of space, time and consciousness, was where he says: “… for then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep, and when I awoke in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, I could not even be sure at first who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal’s consciousness; I was more destitute than the cave-dweller; but then the memory—not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived and might now very possibly be—would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself: in a flash I would traverse centuries of civilization, and out of a blurred glimpse of oil-lamps, then of shirts with turned-down collars, would gradually piece together the original components of my ego. ..and note also the distinction he gives to memory. It was his memory that had saved him and helped him to orient himself as to who, what, where and when he was.
It’s interesting how he rationalizes his mother and grandmother’s purposeful neglect of his natural need for affection: “ but they loved me enough to be unwilling to spare me that suffering, which they hoped to teach me to overcome, so as to reduce my nervous sensibility and to strengthen my will”, and very strange, how his father’s quite natural attitude, seems “less courageous” to him: “Whereas my father, whose affection for me was of another kind, would not, I suspect, have had the same courage, for as soon as he had grasped the fact that I was unhappy he had said to my mother: “Go and comfort him.””
I feel it’s monstrous how they attribute his normal emotions to “nerves”. Oh, the malfunction of upper-class European society! It’s taking decades and decades of psychotherapy to try and undo the systemic harm that was done to so many. As for the narrator (Proust?) it is obvious that his mother’s emotional absence is the very thing that drives his deep desire for her emotional presence and signs of her affection. Note that he is more used to anger from her to the point that her gentleness is a new and previously unknown experience for him.
The family and especially the grandmother seems to have very austere ideas and habits which might also point the religious overtones/background mentioned before. There is also quite a lot of moralizing going on by the narrator (or Proust) himself, however, it is not all religious in tone, but somewhat also in fear of “vulgarity” or banality, thereby exposing a deep-seated idealism which sometimes comes across as elitism, especially of the aesthetic variety.
I said earlier that I had liked the grandmother. By now I’m not so sure anymore…
His mention of the Celtic belief that past souls lie imprisoned in objects seems to foreshadow his experience with the madeleine. It’s almost as if there’s an invisible line, throughout the disjointedness of Combray, that yet holds it all together, where the last paragraph of the section seems a fit summary of what comes before.
Aside from a disconnect when I began, am finding this surprisingly readable. The glitch occurred right at first, before I got my footing -- and maybe I was sleepy -- but I did not know I I had gotten from his sleep issues to the political and psychological complications of this family! The Freudian overtones of father and grandfather insisting he leave the dinner table without his kiss; the perceptions of caste; and the comical and disturbing lack of directness -- who could say whether the thanks for the case of wine had been expressed! Looking at that aspect alone, I'm so glad I didn't live in those times. I have only just gotten to the part where Father is telling Mother to sleep in the boy's room tonight.... I have not yet got a picture of M. Swann, understandable given how early this is. His unfortunate marriage: is it really beneath him? For the sake of the daughter? I don't think so.Ordinarily I'd feel compelled to go back and look for the missing link in the action, but I want to read. Later! (maybe)
Jan wrote: " The Freudian overtones of father and grandfather insisting he leave the dinner table without his kiss; the perceptions of caste; and the comical and disturbing lack of directness -.."Indeed! I was finding his embroidering on the whole class thing rather boring, but then discovered the pearls of entertainment in his subtle mockery of all these anti-airs and and graces, or the bending backwards not to be either vulgar or uppity!
I am very pleased to see we have shifted to discussing the issue of how the narrator has depicted his parents. Fascinating, isn't it?It's easy to overlook, but the narrator has come to his narration with a well-defined critique of (French? bourgeois?) society, so much so that it might benefit us to remember that none of the characters - outside the narrator himself, of course - is given much room to speak for themselves. In Overture, three generations of his family are all wedged into a pivotal night of his life. The relationships are demarked with remarkable psychological acuity, but still, a single night does not make a family life, I feel. His family is not given the benefit of being seen making important fiscal, or marital decisions over time, with its consequences, adjustments, lessons, etc. We can see a tremendous amount, a lot more than an ordinary memoirist might let us see, but still, I'd say the events of Overture are really all about the narrator and his place in society. It will be interesting to review our notes on the narrator's family once we see its place in the larger scheme.
With that caveat in mind, I made an attempt (this time around) to see behind what was being said. Traveller, earlier you wondered where it was they said, "The boy is not right." My mistake, no one said that - that was just my ham-fisted way of having the family speak in unison about their worries for the boy. I think Proust handles this matter very well. The coldness Traveller describes, the amount of affection withheld, had to have scarred the narrator, and yet he allows us to see the family's concern about his future without (overly) judging them.
Swann, for instance. The narrator establishes the distance between the fashionable society Swann keeps, and the narrator's family's sense of him. When asked about a painting by an aunt, Swann will appear to have nothing to say. He'll switch the topic, and discuss more light-hearted matter instead. We can't really know what Swann was thinking, because the narrative style deprives us of insight into this, but we are given enough clues to form a narrative of our own. One speculation that popped into my head was that Swann himself needed relief from fashionable society and all their oppressive, artificial rules. The narrator's family sounds well off, but not exactly rich or influential (I have a question about this - how comfortable are they?). Swann had an amiable friend in the narrator's grandfather. Swann may have escaped to Combray for simpler, gentry manners. Little did he know, the narrator suggests, that he has entered a middle class home that is littered with just as many social rules to which Swann is judged, kept morally in check, all the same. So, if we can speculate that Swann came to the narrator's home just to trade stories, be free from social bonds, only to end up being painted in an unflattering light, that probably would say more about the narrator and his family than it does Swann. But we're heading toward a detailed look at his scandalous, jealous affair, so let's see if this is for the sake of truly scandalizing him, or saying more about the narrator's obsessive jealousy character trait himself (like with what he displayed for his mother's attention).
Good question about the narrator's age in Overture, I wondered that myself. It's really important to know, isn't it? I can't say for sure how old he was. Judging by the kinds of books given to him, the ancient, French history, the Sand, his grandmother who felt he deserved intellectual books, I'd say he really can't be a boy, unless he's exceptionally precocious. My thinking is that he was a pre-pubescent boy, or early teens, but like you, Traveller, I can't say for sure. My impression, perhaps informed by my own values more than the book, says that the narrator was at an age where it had become a little strange for him to be crying so freely and readily - thus the family's concern - as opposed to the boy deserving attention for being so young and unformed. But hmm, it's unclear...
I too found the Hindu reference a little strange. Or it stood out, at any rate.
"Our utter ignorance of the brilliant social life which Swann led was, of course, due in part to his own reserve and discretion, but also to the fact that middle-class people in those days took what was almost a Hindu view of society, which they held to consist of sharply defined castes, so that everyone at his birth found himself called to that station in life which his parents already occupied, and from which nothing, save the accident of an exceptional career or of a “good” marriage, could extract you and translate you to a superior caste."
Why Hindu? As well, Proust/the narrator assumes too much about social mobility. As opposed to what and when? As opposed to all those freely social mobile young men that were thrown straight into the trenches of the First World War?
From my reading, it looks like the mother was the one member of the family he painted favorably - that is to say, the one not subject to his penetrating social critique.
The mention of the Celtic belief, and its application to the madeleine and its aftermath was remarkable. I'll hold off expanding on this so that everyone can get caught up. I'd be interested to hear what anyone has to say on this.
Hi Stephen some good points there.Good question about the narrator's age in Overture, I wondered that myself. It's really important to know, isn't it? I can't say for sure how old he was. Judging by the kinds of books given to him, the ancient, French history, the Sand, his grandmother who felt he deserved intellectual books, I'd say he really can't be a boy, unless he's exceptionally precocious."
Hmm, I wouldn't say that reading novels by age 10-ish would be out of the question, I was reading them by that age, but granted, I was myself deemed rather precocious, reading by an early age, and reading history and other articles in the Encyclopedia Brittanica at around age 8, 9 or 10, and most certainly novels by age 9 or 10 - I remember reading the novels in my father's library before I was allowed to, by the public library's rules, to borrow books from the public library's adult section. My parents at some point gave in, and gave me their library cards in order to borrow from the adult section. I am not saying that I understood everything in the novels I read - and my parents were pretty reticent about sex education, so a lot of it went over my head, but after all, similarly, when Proust's mother reads to him, she leaves the love scenes out and he feels puzzled by what is left of the plot with this omission having taken place. So, taking into account that Proust himself started having heavy asthma attacks at around age 9, the narrator is probably at least 9, but judging by his reading material, probably, as you say, Stephen, a bit older than that. Perhaps 10 or 11 - at most 12 on the night of the oedipal drama playing out? He is after all still called a "child". He could have been older in some of the mentions, since he kind of jumps around in time a lot, maybe he is also in the early passages of the section melding in times when he was indeed quite a bit older than that. Also, before neuroscience and developmental psychology really became a 'thing', people tended to treat children like mini-adults.
We either have to accept that he was emotionally badly stunted and intellectually mediocre, or, since his works are so lauded, we could perhaps be gracious and give him a little credit for being intellectually a bit precocious while being emotionally extremely sensitive. His hatred of being alone and his extreme sensitivity, are a bit worrying, but I have barely started with the novel, so I'll reserve my thoughts for later on. :)
Now I feel inspired to read a biography....
While I do look forward to your expanding on the Celtic belief as well as other member's posts on this section, I've made a thread for the next section, so those who want to forge ahead and post comments regarding "Combray section II", can do so here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The narrator's age is indeed a puzzle. I think his anxieties about receiving his mother's goodnight kiss are meant to be something that was present over many years from when he was a small child to when he was a young adolescent. The specific night when his father consented to his mother sleeping in his room may have been when he was eleven or twelve or even older because he says he fears his actions that night might cause his parents to send him to 'collège' as a boarder. I think that means he was already in a day-school/collège and children only went to collège once they were eleven. And Françoise refers to him as 'Monsieur'. The key thing, I feel, is that he is telling us that he always had these anxieties relating to nighttime, and they were so pronounced his parents and grandmother worried about them, each in their own way, and through their reactions, as he describes them, we learn more about each of those characters.
I was very impressed on this second read by the way the narrator uses Swann's visits to give us a clear idea of the way the various levels of French society operated at that time, c. 1890, and how even within one particular layer there could be so many individual variations—the ridiculous subtleties of Céline and Flora's behavior, Bathilde's elevated values, plus the outspoken great-aunt, mostly interested in making fun at everyone else's expense. And then the mention of an older nobler France represented by Françoise's complex codes of behavior.
I feel this first section makes for a very clever foundation stone for the édifice immense du souvenir that the narrator is about to build, a foundation stone that already contains, as if in miniature, many of the themes and many of the character names that will animate the completed edifice.
Fionnuala wrote: "The narrator's age is indeed a puzzle. I think his anxieties about receiving his mother's goodnight kiss are meant to be something that was present over many years from when he was a small child to..."Thanks for those insightful comments, Fionnula. Yes, I am really feeling the lack of not having read the entire novel here.
As for his anxieties about night time, I was wondering if these sufferings are that he cannot stand being alone. I'm not going to pull out any psychological labels here, but apparently some people's brains are wired in a way that makes them highly strung and sensitive to pain, and these people also have a fear of being alone. The narrator does seem to fit the bill.
Regarding his grandmother's concerns about which books she would bestow lest they partake in vulgarity and utility: a concern typical of the times as well as of her idiosyncrasies? According to Susan Orlean, when the L.A. library opened in 1873, "...patrons were discouraged from reading too many novels, lest they turn into what the association labeled 'fiction fiends.' Books considered to be 'of dubious moral effect, or trashy, ill-written ones, or flabby ones' were excluded from the collection."
Jan wrote: " Books considered to be 'of dubious moral effect, or trashy, ill-written ones, or flabby ones' were excluded from the collection."..."My gosh, a flabby book! Now I've heard it all. I wonder what it actually means?
Jan wrote: "Regarding his grandmother's concerns about which books she would bestow lest they partake in vulgarity and utility: a concern typical of the times as well as of her idiosyncrasies..."That's an interesting bit of library history, Jan.
The narrator's grandmother is certainly leaning far towards the intellectual in her book choices. The original books she'd wanted to give him for his name day were very advanced, one of which was Rousseau's essay on George Sand's novel 'Indiana' about a girl brought up close to nature in the style of his own Emile.
And isn't it interesting that the 'François Le Champi' book which she chose instead has an almost incestuous relationship at the heart of it. François is a foundling child who eventually falls in love with the young woman who takes him in to live with her and her father—and she loves him in return. All this adds an extra layer to the scene of the narrator's mother sitting by his bedside reading him this book.
Fionnuala wrote: "Jan wrote: "Regarding his grandmother's concerns about which books she would bestow lest they partake in vulgarity and utility: a concern typical of the times as well as of her idiosyncrasies..."I didn't know that book or its theme, so thanks, Fionnuala. We can imagine his mother left out not only the love scenes but anything that strayed too close for comfort.
A reminder that the next thread starts here: "Combray section II" : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
“Yes, I was rather proud of my remark about ‘nice neighbours’ “ Great aunt Flora remarks at the end of a long comic moment. The words form a kind of punchline. Proust is quite funny.
It starts the day before when Swann delivers a rather large box of Asti wine to the two great aunts, Flora and Celine, obviously a favourite. There is something different about Swann already in the overture. He has married beneath him according to our narrator’s family and suffers as a result, raising a daughter. Yet he is wealthy and well connected in that very 19thC way among aristocrats and artists. He is never invited to the house of the young narrator but he is always expected – everyone goes a little excited when the bell rings at nights because it is always Swann – and the family’s ritual performance is enacted about who it could be, even when it is always Swann.
The two aunts are reminded by the narrator’s father that they must thank Swann. At dinner there are tense moments of expectation, but nothing happens. There is a little exchange about nice neighbours but not gratitude is shown in a direct way. Swann is subject to this indirect gaze. He is not quite like them, though the family is so impressed that he is mentioned in the company of dukes in La Monde. Swann is someone, but the family he visits will barely register their thrill at his success in life. Swann is an outsider, the family too rigid to fully embrace him. In fact, the two great aunts take offence that their little indirect performance wasn’t thought good enough. They thought themselves quite clever in avoiding any obsequious behaviour towards someone they obviously consider beneath them. It is a beautiful irony given Swann’s status in France.
Proust’s satire of the middle classes is wonderful stretched out over the overture chapter – their rigid hierarchy of values is further outlined by comparisons to the more ‘primitive’ caste system of the Indians – as the 19thC French might’ve seen them. An equivalence is identified– these middle classes are as primitive as anyone they might critique themselves.
How old is the young narrator? It’s an interesting question because I think Proust does something very interesting – he disorients us, just like the narrator is disoriented throughout the overture. He behaves in his obsession with his mother’s kiss goodnight like he is 9 or 10. Yet he appears in his intelligence to be closer to adolescence, 12-14. The other clue to the older age theory is that the young narrator is modelling himself on Swann, hence the pre-occupation with Swann as a recollection from childhood. He seeks out a mentor in Swann, an idea that to my mind places the boy a lot older than his behaviour suggests. But then time is a feature, how it operates to elude explanation is exactly the response we all have as readers – we are in an elusive zone.
I am reading in small snatches of time. But savouring every moment. I am impressed again, second time around, it is richer again.
I feel I'm late to the party. I won't be catching up to everyone. I'll comment when I can.
Nick wrote: "I feel I'm late to the party. I won't be catching up to everyone. I'll comment when I can."Nick, with a read like this, there is no way everybody can read in tandem. We are a diverse group and different people have different amounts of time available. So reading at your own pace and commenting when you can, is great! At least you're commenting. I'm going to dig in and read your nice long comment now! And I for one will read all the posts, including yours. Thanks for contributing!
Traveller wrote: "Nick wrote: "I feel I'm late to the party. I won't be catching up to everyone. I'll comment when I can."Nick, with a read like this, there is no way everybody can read in tandem. We are a diverse..."
That's very nice of you to say. The commentary is very good so far, capturing so well what is in the text. Good work, all!
Nick wrote: "They thought themselves quite clever in avoiding any obsequious behaviour towards someone they obviously consider beneath them. It is a beautiful irony given Swann’s status in France.Proust’s satire of the middle classes is wonderful stretched out over the overture chapter ..."
Indeed, and he does it in a rather dry way in this section, cleverly pretending to be looking at it through the innocent eyes of a child, or very young person, which allows him to record irony without seeming to be judgmental.
Nick wrote: "“How old is the young narrator? It’s an interesting question because I think Proust does something very interesting – he disorients us, just like the narrator is disoriented throughout the overture..."
Yeah, I think Proust does a very clever thing. He writes as if he is looking back in a dream-like manner. Like you say, it's a disorienting experience, and his recollections come in snatches, which of course means he could be recollecting things from different points in time, and from where things happened to him at different ages.
In a later section, he does mention that he has not reached secondary school yet, which would place him younger than 11. So I think he is partly perhaps blowing up his intellectual prowess a bit, though there is nothing to say that Proust himself wasn't intellectually precocious. He had, after all, two extremely well-educated parents, and some of that would probably have rubbed off on him. I think it's useful to remember, though, that the narrator is an imaginary person, and as much as Proust is drawing from his own life experiences, Recherche is definitely not a straight autobiography. So I suppose he has the freedom to create situations that would be rather improbable in real life.
Traveller wrote: "Nick wrote: "They thought themselves quite clever in avoiding any obsequious behaviour towards someone they obviously consider beneath them. It is a beautiful irony given Swann’s status in France...."
yes, the precocity is obvious too, making it inconclusive. I forgot the later reference to secondary school. This is my second read.
Recherche is definitely not a straight autobiography. So I suppose he has the freedom to create situations that would be rather improbable in real life.
You know, I never thought of it as autobiography. The wall of illusion is so well constructed.
What always works for me in the best writing is the intimate moment with the reader when the 'aha' moment of recognition to one's own thoughts and experiences happens. Proust gives me so many of those, it's uncanny - the listening to the location of the parent on the stairs by tracking movements in the house, the play of light indicating doors opening and closing, the disorientation of being awake at night, the obsessive thought about the kiss goodnight. and on and on.
I wonder how the translators differentiate between collège and lycée? Both are post-primary, one junior, 11 onwards, and one senior, 15 to about 18. The narrator definitely mentions collège earlier but I haven't come to the mention of lycée yet though I remember him talking of it when I first read the Recherche.
Fionnuala wrote: "I wonder how the translators differentiate between collège and lycée? Both are post-primary, one junior, 11 onwards, and one senior, 15 to about 18. The narrator definitely mentions collège earlie..."
Perhaps Proust will mention it somewhere in the third volume.
Fionnuala wrote: "I wonder how the translators differentiate between collège and lycée? Both are post-primary, one junior, 11 onwards, and one senior, 15 to about 18. The narrator definitely mentions collège earlie..."
Ah, I think you have solved part of the puzzle, Fionnuala. The English versions call Middle School "secondary school", and of course middle school and high school make up "secondary school" for the British.
But Proust specifically mentions "middle school " (collège) in the next section:
"Quand j’irais me mettre sur le chemin de ma mère au moment où elle monterait se coucher, et qu’elle verrait que j’étais resté levé pour lui redire bonsoir dans le couloir, on ne me laisserait plus rester à la maison, on me mettrait au collège le lendemain, c’était certain. Eh bien ! dussé-je me jeter par la fenêtre cinq minutes après, j’aimerais encore mieux cela. Ce que je voulais maintenant c’était maman, c’était lui dire bonsoir, j’étais allé trop loin dans la voie qui menait à la réalisation de ce désir pour pouvoir rebrousser chemin.
(Apologies, in the English translation I have at hand, that would read:
"When I went and placed myself in my mother’s path at the moment she was going up to bed, and when she saw that I had stayed up to say goodnight to her again in the hallway, they would not let me continue to live at home, they would send me away to school the next day, that much was certain. Well! Even if I had had to throw myself out of the window five minutes later, I still preferred this. ")
I didn't think of that. I'll look up what he says in the next section that he mentions school, in the French text.
So, mystery solved of how old he was at that point - he was in middle school already, which would make him at least 11, and probably somewhere between 11 and 14, ( but he did say that secondary school, probably "high school" is still some time away in a later mention; I am going to look for that section now). So our first estimate of about 11, 12, is probably close.
on me mettrait au collège le lendemainYes, Traveller, I think he's already in collège but worried that he might be sent to an 'internat', a collège for boarders.
But now I've just come to the part where he looks forward to going into Philosophy class which happens in the final year of lycée, at around eighteen, but oddly he talks of it being collège. (Proust himself went into Philosophy class at the Lycée Condorcet in 1889 aged 18)
Plus que tout j'aimais sa philosophie, je m'étais donné à elle pour toujours. Elle me rendait impatient d'arriver à l'âge où j'entrerais au collège, dans la classe appelée Philosophie.
Ok, so this is pretty strange. I wonder if the people arranging Proust's text got this right, because in the section where I assumed just now, that the text would say lycée, it says "collège" again...D’après ses livres j’imaginais Bergotte comme un vieillard faible et déçu qui avait perdu des enfants et ne s’était jamais consolé. Aussi je lisais, je chantais intérieurement sa prose, plus « dolce », plus « lento » peut-être qu’elle n’était écrite, et la phrase la plus simple s’adressait à moi avec une intonation attendrie. Plus que tout j’aimais sa philosophie, je m’étais donné à elle pour toujours. Elle me rendait impatient d’arriver à l’âge où j’entrerais au collège, dans la classe appelée Philosophie. Mais je ne voulais pas qu’on y fît autre chose que vivre uniquement par la pensée de Bergotte, et si l’on m’avait dit que les métaphysiciens auxquels je m’attacherais alors ne lui ressembleraient en rien, j’aurais ressenti le désespoir d’un amoureux qui veut aimer pour la vie et à qui on parle des autres maîtresses qu’il aura plus tard.
...and I mean, this is really a part where you'd expect him to be older. Scratching my head here.
The English for this part reads:
From his books, I imagined Bergotte to be a frail, disappointed old man who had lost several of his children and never recovered. And so I would read, I would sing his prose to myself, more dolce, more lento perhaps than it was written, and the simplest sentence spoke to me with a more tender intonation. Above all else I loved his philosophy, I had pledged myself to it for life. It made me impatient to reach the age when I would enter secondary school and enroll in the class called Philosophy. But I did not want to do anything else there but live according to Bergotte’s ideas exclusively, and, had I been told that the metaphysicians to whom I would be devoting myself by then would not resemble him at all, I would have felt the despair of a lover who wants his love to be lifelong and to whom one talks about the other mistresses he will have later.
Fionnuala wrote: "But now I've just come to the part where he looks forward to going into Philosophy class which happens in the final year of lycée, at around eighteen, but oddly he talks of it being collège. (Proust himself went into Philosophy class at the Lycée Condorcet in 1889 aged 18).."Yes, I was busy posting about that when you posted your last post, and I am very puzzled...
Psycho Proustians
Books mentioned in this topic
The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (other topics)Le rire (other topics)
Jean Santeuil (other topics)
Emile, or On Education (other topics)
The Hero With a Thousand Faces (other topics)
I am basically a Proust virgin, so my comments will be very fresh, but you don't have to be new to Proust to comment in this thread. ;)
People, we've decided to do a close reading, and those of you familiar with lit crit will know what that means. We let ourselves be guided by the text and the text only - which is a really refreshing thing to do, but a very hard thing to do when there is so much context as there is with Proust.
So I made a thread for background materials, different translations, and additional reading here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..., so that we can talk to our heart's content about other books and essays with regard to Proust and so on, there, and not in the discussion threads.
Note that nothing keeps us from adding context when we reach it in the text. But the idea is to only introduce those things in these close reading threads when we reach the place where the text mentions it. For example, no mentioning the madeleine until we reach the madeleine!
Since "Combray" is already mentioned as the title of this section, I think it might be okay to mention, for example, that it's a fictional town based on the little town of Illiers, where Proust spent many childhood holidays.