References, resources, etc.

[Lily]

Bookdrum places the Moreau citation on p. 322. (It displays Oedipus and the Sphinx, which is at the Met, NYC.) The reference to Moreau is on p. 277 of Davis (Penguin Classics paperback).

http://www.bookdrum.com/books/in-sear...

[Lily]

The translation used by contributor Johanna Trew for the Bookdrum site may well be the Viking Classics edition illustrated. However, Amazon does not make clear who the translators are (reader reviews imply Davis, Look Inside goes to another edition) and the Vintage Classics site says only: "THE ACCLAIMED FULLY REVISED EDITION OF THE SCOTT MONCRIEFF AND KILMARTIN TRANSLATION" without indicating responsibility for the revision. I have sent an email requesting clarification; will post if I get one.

[Lily]

Lily wrote: "...Proust and Ruskin..."

"Gilles Deleuze believed that the focus of Proust was not memory and the past but the narrator's learning the use of 'signs' to understand and communicate ultimate reality, thereby becoming an artist.[3] While Proust was bitterly aware of the experience of loss and exclusion - loss of loved ones, loss of affection, friendship and innocent joy, which are dramatized in the novel through recurrent jealousy, betrayal and the death of loved ones - his response to this, formulated after he had discovered Ruskin, was that the work of art can recapture the lost and thus save it from destruction, at least in our minds. Art triumphs over the destructive power of time. This element of his artistic thought is clearly inherited from romantic platonism but Proust crosses it with a new intensity in describing jealousy, desire and self-doubt. (The last quatrain of Baudelaire's poem 'Une Charogne': 'Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will Devour you with kisses, That I have kept the form and the divine essence Of my decomposed love!')" From the Wikipedia entry for ISOLT, 12/12/2011

Proust and Signs: The Complete Text

[Lily]

This is more a comment on the intersection of reading and subsequent coincidence than actual resources, but given our contributors sensitivity to links in the main discussion, I'll post here.

I had just finished listening (again) to:

That sense of the complexity of the Bois de Boulogne which made it an artificial place and, in the zoological or mythological sense of the word, a Garden, I captured again, this year, as I crossed it on my way to Trianon, on one of those mornings, early in November, when in Paris, if we stay indoors, being so near and yet prevented from witnessing the transformation scene of autumn, which is drawing so rapidly to a close without our assistance, we feel a regret for the fallen leaves that becomes a fever, and may even keep us awake at night...[through at least]

...Nature began again to reign over the Bois, from which had vanished all trace of the idea that it was the Elysian Garden of Woman; 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 passed 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 Dodonaic majesty, seemed to proclaim the unpeopled vacancy of this estranged 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. ... (Closing paragraphs of Swan's Way)

when I encountered the following:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/cat...

and these flickr images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drosera-...

I was intrigued by Proust's use of autumn to signal so many things, even the transition from the days of horses and carriages to those of motor cars. As so often, he manages to weave images of sensuousness, memory, and art into a lovely, long descriptive passage of nature, albeit urban nature.

[Laurel]

I was just window shopping over at Levenger and saw that they have developed a Proust's Questionaire Board Game. Playing pieces are teacups, and reward tokens are madeleines.

http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES...

[Lily]

Laurele wrote: "I was just window shopping over at Levenger and saw that they have developed a Proust's Questionnaire Board Game. Playing pieces are teacups, and reward tokens are madeleines.

http://www.levenger.c..."

Thx, Laurel! Could be fun with the right group of people -- like my old ski house.

In case anyone wants to refresh on those questions w/o going searching, here is the link posted weeks back:

http://www.chick.net/proust/question....

[Lily]

Richard E. Goodkin in his Around Proust has a number of passages on the Moses-related aspects of Swann. I'm not certain I find his analyses particularly satisfying, but certainly tantalizing and thought-provoking. I hope to eventually find others who have addressed the topic.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bH86...

(This may have tidbits from succeeding volumes that some would consider SPOILERS, so beware if you care about such things even when reading a classic like ISOLT. Personally, any such only entice me to keep reading.)

Incidentally, my own original musings about possible analogies between Swann and Moses arose from the centrality of the Botticelli fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It provoked me to look for parallels. But, since the Moses story itself, even just in this fresco, let alone by adding the Biblical references to Zipporah's role, is so multilayered, I haven't been certain what was Proust's intent and what is my imagination. I finally have started to go looking for what the pundits have written.

(I just now realized that Proust has drawn primarily, if not entirely, from one of six frescoes on the life of Moses on the Southern wall of the Sistine Chapel, the one called The Trials of Moses. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_...

It is also interesting to me that series of frescoes does not appear to include the story of the rescue of Baby Moses by the Pharaoh's daughter.)

[Lily]

A fun site. Linked to the syllabus of a course at City University of New York. Includes a number of the pieces of art to which Proust refers, also, fashions of the period and links to Gilles Deleuze, Proust and Signs. Does include material related to all the volumes of ISOLT.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/eng...

[Lily]

http://www.tempsperdu.com/va.html

Have we mentioned yet this wonderful resource? Regardless, time to revisit it.

[Lily]

Lily wrote: "Kristen wrote: "Does anyone have tips on HOW to read this?..."

Kristen -- I've been waiting to see what others might say, but since none have appeared yet, I'll put these four on the table:

1. L..."

Kristen, having completed SW, I'll add a fifth: Keep on trying. It can be worth it. It was for me. I'm ready to read more. (I now have listened to all of SW at least twice since we started.)