The Year of Reading Proust discussion
This topic is about
Marcel Proust
Auxiliary Reading (w/Spoilers)
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Auxiliary Reading Chit-Chat
After Nick's recommendation & reading Kilmartin's reference in his introduction to Marcel Proust Selected Letters Vol II (Kolb) I may just buy Le Carnet de 1908 but it's only available from used book dealers via Amazon Fr for about 60 Euros. I'll wait for the morning & read Carter's chapter, "The Notebook of 1908": my counting to 10. You'll review Monsieur Proust?
@Proustitute, @Eugene and @Nick,I cannot join you in this discussion because I have not read La recherche yet, but all these issues interest me.
I have the Rogers, the Milly, and the Shattuck books. I also have this other one, bought ages ago:
Recherche De Proust
It has an article by Barthes called "Une idée de recherche". Nick, do you think this is the one White is referring to?
The Cambridge Companion looks interesting. May consider it later on in the year, but I think for the moment I am set, but eventually will want to participate.
Thank you.
Proustitute wrote: "I caved and just bought Monsieur Proust."I've had that forever and still haven't read it. Also "Madame Proust." This might just be the right time. I have "Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen" but that's a novel. It was a gift. Probably not a good one.
Indeed. The more the merrier.Good job on finding those three volumes, Eugene. I like the Bales and Cocking. Bales has varied essayists and works very well. The novel and P himself gets situated historically, there's bits in JS and Ruskin, before it moves into ISOLT proper, with some engaging essays.
Cocking is a one man essayist and the collection I used was "Collected Essays on the Writer and his Art" I think is the title. I skipped a big essay he did in Art but found the others were good.
Edmund White recommends "The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust" which he lists as a type of critical work sadly no longer produced. I recall I saw a copy listed in my university library when first ready g Proust but have never read it. I might look for a copy.
I didn't realise the Pugh was 1000 pages long and expensive. Obviously as you say it sounds like a very serious engagement with the text shall we say. I quite understand the desire to read a work that's done the job for you.
Kalli: Yes I think that is the exact one!
Proustitute and Cynthia, I am sure you will find Monsieur Proust a diverting read. Lets just say it is readily apparent that Celeste isn't called "his loyal servant" and "devoted housekeeper" and so on for nothing! It has some nice insights and is quite touching in places.
I was wondering what auxiliary read to do next. Magic Lantern seems like a good one. Looks like this thread is a content filled one. I'm going to have to spend some time reading through here. It's mentioned here some posts back but, which Pugh were you talking about, Nick?
Slight frustration, typed a nice comment but Goodreads crashed/said "there was an error"! Anyway, yes that must be the text. If one is interested in the genesis and subsequent growth of the Search then I imagine that book must be quite valuable. Amazon says Pugh pitches his text sometimes at odds with critical consensus, which is sometimes a warning sign, and sometimes indicative of a truly eye opening book.
I fully understand Eugene's wish to KNOW more about how the Search came to be.
I had looked into buying Magic Lantern myself, running off to Abebooks, then google. Whilst using google I found this!
http://archive.org/details/magiclante...
A place where you can download the book for free! I was pretty astonished, and am happy to share it with the forum (as long as UoFlorida is too!)
This has happened more than once in my search for Proust texts. It seems "making books available to readers" (and often not as legitimate/legally as the above) via the internet is big business.
(Seems like they have some of his Father's medical papers too!)
Nick wrote: "Edmund White recommends "The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust" which he lists as a type of critical work sadly no longer produced. I recall I saw a copy listed in my university library when first ready g Proust but have never read it. I might look for a copy."Alibris has a good used copy in Fife for $17.73 and new in Warks for $30.27. Don't know UK geography, so have no idea where those are, let alone in what proximity to you. I also like to use the WorldCat link here to see what libraries near me have a copy.
Apologies for that typo ("ready g Proust") I type on my iphone, which sometimes leads to terrible errors despite my checking replies.Please see my latest post though, as I found a copy for free on the internet, listed in an internet archive, from the University of Florida! I have begun to read it and it is lovely.
Nick wrote: "Please see my latest post though, as I found a copy for free on the internet, listed in an internet archive, from the University of Florida! I have begun to read it and it is lovely. "Excellent! Free is better!
I must say that I had not planned on anything Proust beyond ISOLT. You folks have an infectious attitude on the subject. I don't know that I'll be able to incorporate much of what I see here into my reading, but I do know that The Lemoine Affair is available from The Seattle Public Library. And I might find myself looking for Monsieur Proust and I already have Monsieur Proust's Library on my Kindle, and ...
It does become an "and...and...and!" process, for me. I think I said this elsewhere in the group but the reason I had got so many aux-texts was because I wanted to prolong the joy of having read Proust; to nod agreement with fellow readers and to re-experience and re-visit the images, sentences and moments (as well as the whole thing) as much as possible, without re-reading! I am not sure that makes sense though (basically I wanted to enjoy without re-reading :P) Maybe you will come to feel the same when you are advancing through the work!
Proustitute wrote: "Trust me when I say this will change once you start ISOLT. You'll be making a list of all the literary references in the novel, and want to start reading them right away. ISOLT will see you adding books TBR like there's no tomorrow. "You already had me pushing up Flaubert's Sentimental Education. Another group challenge has allowed me to read quite a bit of French literature Dec-Feb. Where do I sign up for another reading lifetime?
I just spent all morning adding all of the group's books and making purchasing plans.
Nick wrote: "Slight frustration, typed a nice comment but Goodreads crashed/said "there was an error"! Anyway, yes that must be the text. If one is interested in the genesis and subsequent growth of the Searc..."
Thank you Nick, I just downloaded it. I have to start now planning my aux reading... I have to identify the more general and contextual first and leave the technical for later on.
Proustitute wrote: "...I think it's impossible to spoil Proust...his prose and his philosophy are what is at the center of the novel."Hear, hear...
Martha Nussbaum works in moral philosophy and Aristotelian virtue ethics. She has a deep interest in the role great literature plays in our moral development. I recall in my undergraduate days long ago reading her book Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature, that it contained a good deal in regard to Proust's fiction, but apparently not a specific essay devoted to him. It would be worth a flip through and a perusal of the Proust entry in the index by anyone interested in the moral aspects of Proust. Unfortunately I no long have a copy of the book myself. There are also many further reasons to recommend Nussbaum, a wonderfully human philosopher.
(The curious reader can find Pugh's massive book @ GoogleBooks. Let's just say that it doesn't seem a book you could read cover to cover with ease. My mind boggles at the effort that must have gone into it.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LD...)
Sounds good, Nathan. Love was a big subject for Proust, I can quite understand why she chose him. I have definitely heard her name before.
Nick wrote: The curious reader can find Pugh's massive book @ GoogleBooks...http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LD..."
It is massive & detailed. The online copy is a preview with pages omitted. Rather than buy a whole, tangible copy I'll wait for the upcoming show at the Morgan Library in NYC, February 2013, which, so it seems, will cover the same topics but probably in less depth than the Pugh.
"Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary
http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/...
...with a fascinating selection of the author's notebooks, preliminary drafts, galley-proofs, and other documents from the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France..."
Thanks Nick for the link.
Counting to 10, reading Carter's chapter on The Notebook of 1908, I decided not to buy a used copy of Le Carnet de 1908 for 60 Euros and reading that chapter in a used copy of the Carter biography, as I do with almost all used books, I read the previous owner's underlinings:"In his critical remarks about Sainte-Beuve, Proust is writing as himself in a fictional situation, imagining a conversation with his mother before she died. This invented setting for a real person (Proust) commenting on another real person and his work (Sainte-Beuve) served as the incubator for the emergence of the Narrator's full voice. In the Sainte-Beuve passages describing involuntary memory, Proust began to transmute his lived experience and his invented ones into the Narrator's life. We can clearly see the transition from essayist to novelist in many of the notations from Le Carnet de 1908. A strange but remarkably fecund symbiosis is being created in which Proust is himself and not himself as the Narrator. By the time he had finished, Proust had created what is perhaps the richest narrative voice in literature, a voice that speaks both as child and as man, as actor and as subject, and that weaves effortlessly between the present, past, and future. 22"
Here is footnote 22:
"There are other aspects of this voice. For example, the Narrator as a man reflects on his childhood and his present. Sometimes when he considers the past from the viewpoint of the present, he draws certain conclusions that are corrections of what he thought earlier, but then may add, "however, as I was to learn later...." After the Narrator discovers his vocation as an artist, he reflects on the work he is about to create in relation to the story which we have just read."
Happy New Year.
Eugene wrote: "Nick wrote: The curious reader can find Pugh's massive book @ GoogleBooks...http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LD..."
It is massive & detailed. The online copy is a preview with pages omitted. R..."
Looks kind of dry and scholarly. I guess you would have to be a Proust scholar to read that.
I think so, Aloha. Reading more on Pugh it seems he's a bit unhappy that all the Carnet/Cahiers/Notebooks are now trasnferred to microfilm. He cites an interesting story where a Japanese research student discovered that the keepers of the now precious books (at BNdF)had "restored" some of them as they saw fit, leading to some pages being out of order, and therefore, the microfilm being wrong. He says to have seen this error you needed colour (not on microfiche) and to have been able to turn the page over (also not possible). Proust wrote in red ink for only a few days/weeks or so it seems, and a crucial part of these notebooks got muddled up cause no one could see the red ink as they were working from the microfilm! A big thing for him, and scholars I guess.
For those interested in the story, and a few more insights, it's here:
"Manuscripts on Microfilm: The Disturbing Case of Proust"
Anthony R. Pugh
http://www.mla.org/resources/document...
Anway, his massive book does seem dry as dust, but a labour of love. Quite right, Aloha. One for scholars and very very serious students of Proust, I think indeed!
Happily, it seems I will be in NYC April 5-6th 2013 at least, so I hope to see some of these magical rare artefacts of Mr. P's. The museum in Illiers didn't have any galley proofs or any of the massive cut and paste manuscripts.
Finally, I had also noted that same section in Carter, Eugene. A brief paragraph on his final decision to write the Search, a little hint of what still could be expounded on. Don't blame you for giving the 1908 Carnet a miss. I'll keep an eye out for good candidates to answer the question you (and now I too) have. If I had access to scholarly journals, I know there'd be lots in there of worth.
Nick wrote: "I think so, Aloha. Reading more on Pugh it seems he's a bit unhappy that all the Carnet/Cahiers/Notebooks are now trasnferred to microfilm. He cites an interesting story where a Japanese researc..."
I'm looking at it again and reading some of the details. The facts are fascinating. I would get it if it wasn't so pricey. The microfilm problem reminds me of the restoration of the Sistine Chapel. Luckily, they were sensitive to the original work. New technology and time always presents a problem. Do you know whether they've digitally scanned the notebooks, since technology has gotten so much better.
I know they have done fascimile copies, i.e. accurate transcriptions (I saw an advert for one last night: http://ebookbrowse.com/proust-c71-pdf...) but as to straight digitisation, I don't think so (or rather, I don't know if they have! :) )However, for 200Euros a pop I think I would settle for Pugh :P!
@Proustitute You linked me to Cailbre, thank you. Will that app permit me to 'copy' from a Kindle text? There are sentences in Davis that I want to 'diagram' by pasting them into a text editor & pushing the parts of speech around to determine the verb, the subject & the object/attribute. If not Calibre, is there such an app, a way?
I can always scan the hard copy of the book and proceed accordingly...
Eugene wrote: "@Proustitute You linked me to Cailbre, thank you. Will that app permit me to 'copy' from a Kindle text? There are sentences in Davis that I want to 'diagram' by pasting them into a text editor & ..."
Hi Eugene:
I use Calibre, and you can copy and paste passages -- you would simply highlight a passage using your mouse or track pad (it will appear in yellow), and then use the usual command keys to copy and paste (I use Command-C and Command V). Be aware though that DRM from some publishers makes it impossible to copy and paste text. You will need to configure Calibre to read any mobi or epub files you bought that are locked down by DRM anyway -- otherwise they will appear in your Calibre library but you won't be able to open them.
Thanks Kris. I see that Calibre won't work on an iPhone which is where all my Kindle books are. I like reading on the iPhone as I feel like I'm reading a column width of the paper edition of the NYT & it's handier than an iPad. I'll figure out how to get my kindle books to the iMac without losing them on the iPhone & proceed.
Eugene, I think you use Calibre on the desktop. You can get Kindle for your desktop and download your eBook into the desktop Kindle from your Amazon library. Unfortunately, you cannot copy any text from a DRM protected Kindle book. That's why I prefer my eBooks without DRM. More flexibility with what I can do with it.
Fascinating review by Michael Wood in the LRB of Jacqueline Rose's Proust among the Nations: From Dreyfus to the Middle East:
‘Psychoanalysis proper begins, one could argue, with two insights whose relationship will then colour the whole of psychoanalysis to come: the mind is divided, but the boundaries between one part of the mind and another are strangely porous.’ At first Freud seems to have thought that parts of the mind could be got rid of. Later he understood that ‘the foreign body will not be expelled.’ This is because it is not a foreign body, only our not wanting to know it has made it one. The political resonance of this arrangement is horribly clear, and Rose is writing these words in a chapter called ‘Partition, Proust and Palestine’.
I'm hoping it's one of the articles they have made available to everyone on the LRB website - not sure because I'm logged in using my subscriber account. Can others read it?
That's a pity. They do sell their articles as downloadable PDFs for £2.75:
http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?...
http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?...
Major spoiler warning for that essay link btw :) first sentences.Only a few days ago, I activated a free trial 24hr registration (not paid subscription) with LRB to gain full access to their archives. Today I got an email that says they've extended my access to 7 days (clever...). With the free access, I can read that article.
Might be a handy tip for those wanting to read the review. Michael Wood is the author they usually call upon for Proust related reviews. You can read a lot of really high quality reviews and opinions with their free access. Well worth a go.
Nick wrote: "Major spoiler warning for that essay link btw :) first sentences."...
That's good info about the registration! Thanks Nick. As well as Michael Wood, Christopher Prendergast (general editor of the Penguin editions of the Recherche) writes for the LRB sometimes.
Spoilers: true, but this auxiliary reading forum is spoiler-friendly :)
That's good info about the registration! Thanks Nick. As well as Michael Wood, Christopher Prendergast (general editor of the Penguin editions of the Recherche) writes for the LRB sometimes.
Spoilers: true, but this auxiliary reading forum is spoiler-friendly :)
Yup, it sure is. I thought it a good idea to re-iterate though in case anyone casually dipped into the link without realising. :DI trawled through their archives for lots of juicy Prousty stuff. Really a bit of a treasure trove. Quite a lot of my fave books from recent times have a review, and most of my fave authors will have at least an essay on something they've done :)
The LRB is indispensable, IMO. No way I could read everything that gets a review, but the pieces are sufficiently indepth that you get a good idea of what the books are about.
LRB and NYRB are always worth checking for the welter of free articles they offer every month. (Aldaily is worth a mention too. A good aggregator of interesting, selected articles on many interesting subjects.)
I just ordered that Jacqueline Rose book you mentioned, Proustitute. I'll start a new thread for it once it arrives - or if anyone else feels like doing so ahead of time, please feel free (I'm in Australia and it takes a while for books to arrive from overseas).
Proustitute and co-moderators:A photographer to be investigated is Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He is mentioned in The Proustian Quest. Although younger than Proust, some of his photographs give a testimony of Proust's age.
Here is the most famous one:
Wow. That's an amazing photo!
Kalliope wrote: "Proustitute and co-moderators:A photographer to be investigated is Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He is mentioned in The Proustian Quest. Although younger than Proust, some of his photographs give a t..."
I remember that terrific photo. I remember him mentioned in the Proustian Quest. I'll check up on that later, Kalliope. Thank you.
Kalliope wrote: "Proustitute and co-moderators:A photographer to be investigated is Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He is mentioned in The Proustian Quest. Although younger than Proust, some of his photographs give a t..."
One of my favorite French photographers. His childhood work is some if his freshest and most exciting.
Jim wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Proustitute and co-moderators:A photographer to be investigated is Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He is mentioned in The Proustian Quest. Although younger than Proust, some of his pho..."
Yes, and since he lived to an old age, he must have been a major player in the development of photography.
Here is another Lartigue included in this Carter book:
Proustitute wrote: "Thanks for that, Kalliope!Should we perhaps create a thread, something like "Proust and His World" for images and factoids like this to be posted to?"
Good idea... I can repost these there. If these cannot be moved.
When Jean Cocteau visited (the dead Proust in his bedroom to pay his respects), he remarked on the tall stacks of notebooks near the bed: “That pile of paper on his left was still alive, like watches ticking on the wrists of dead soldiers”.From Elyse Graham, The Modernism Lab
http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wi...
Interesting note from Proust about how he built his novel like a church. This excerpt is from Literary Architecture, which you can download from the link for free. It looks like a terrific book.When, in 1919, Marcel Proust wrote to the Comte Jean de Gaigneron, he commended, with almost excessive ingenuousness, the Comte's insight into his novel A la recherche du temps perdu . Proust also confided to the Comte what now seems but a gratuitous revelation, that the structure of A la recherche is like a cathedral.
"When you speak to me of cathedrals, I cannot but feel touched at the evidence of an intuition which has led you to guess [deviner ] what I had never mentioned to anyone, and here set down in writing for the first time—that I once planned to give to each part of my book a succession of titles, such as Porch, Windows in the Apse , etc. . . . so as to defend myself in advance against the sort of stupid criticism which has been made to the effect that my books lack construction, whereas I hope to prove to you that their sole merit lies in the solidity of their tiniest parts. I gave up the idea of using these architectural titles because I found them too pretentious, but I am touched at finding that you have dug them up by a sort of intelligent divination.[1]"
The Comte de Gaigneron had divined what became public and explicit only subsequently, in the posthumous publication of the last volumes of A la recherche . There, in now celebrated passages, Proust's narrator declares his structural purpose, taking care to avoid the pretension Proust expressly eschewed in selecting his titles. Architect and dressmaker, Marcel balances the enormity of his "architectural labours"—to "build" a book "like a church"—with the humility of a seamstress's craft. He plans to work in the manner of his nurse, Françoise:
As all the unpretentious persons who live close beside us acquire a certain intuitive comprehension of our work . . . I would work near her [Françoise] and almost in her manner—at least as she used to, for she was now so old she could scarcely see any more—for, pinning on an extra sheet here and there, I would construct my book, I dare not say ambitiously "like a cathedral," but simply like a dress.
(II, 1113)
But once he has thus qualified his ambitiousness, Marcel abandons the simile of artist-dressmaker, elaborating instead his task as church architect...
Proust was influenced by the art critic John Ruskin, who went in detail about gothic architecture. In his essay, The Nature of Gothic, he listed the characteristics of Gothic architecture:I believe, then, that the characteristic or of Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance :
1. Savageness.
2. Changefulness.
3. Naturalism.
4. Grotesquenes.
5. Rigidity.
6. Redundance.
These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building; as belonging to the builder they would be expressed thus :1. Savageness or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature 4. Disturbed Imagination. 5.Obstinacy. 6.Generosity. And I repeat that the withdrawal of any one, or any two will not at once destroy the Gothic character of a building, but the removal of a majority of them will. I shall proceed to examine them in their order.
The Year of Reading Proust
Books mentioned in this topic
Narrative Discourse Revisited (other topics)Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (other topics)
The world and the book: A study of modern fiction (other topics)
Proust Among the Stars (other topics)
The Proustian Quest (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Gabriel Josipovici (other topics)Jacques-Henri Lartigue (other topics)
Anna Kavan (other topics)
Thank you Nick, I just went on a used Proust book binge buying from resellers listed by Amazon: Bales, Cocking & Houston, spending $19.63 including the shipping: $3.99 X 3 = $11.97.
I have Volume 2 of Proust's Letters (Kolb) translated by T Kilmartin & another volume of letters translated by M Curtiss.
But I was hoping for 'fast food', a book that did the work for me about Proust's thinking as he composed; Pugh is promising but might be too scholarly at 1120 pages & a new copy at $159.45 is too dear, too risky.