ضد سنت بوو

by Marcel Proust, Ahmad Parhizi (Translator)

مارسل پروست شیفتهٔ ادبیات و کتاب بود «ضد سَنت – بوو» را نوشت تا به خوانندگان ادبیات بیاموزد چگونه کتاب بخوانند و نیز می‌خواست آنان را در لذت مطالعه شریک کند بدین خاطر زبانِ پروست در این کتاب ساده‌تر و آشکارتر از دیگر نوشته‌های اوست اما در پشت این سطرهای واضح نبوغِ او به چشم می‌آید. خودش در نامه‌‌ای این اثر را «رمانی عظیم» نامیده است. «ضد سنت بوو» اکنون اثری کلاسیک در ادبیات معاصر محسوب می‌شود. بخش‌هایی از این کتاب نقد بی‌رحمانه و صریحِ پروست بر دیدگاه‌های سنت بوو مشهورترین منتقد ادبی فرانسوی آن دوران است و در باقی فصل‌ها نویسنده با زبانی شاعرانه و گاه طنزآمیز از زنان مردان و قلم به دستانی می‌گوید که دوست شان دارد. گاه خاطره می‌گوید و گاه قصه و زمانی حدیث نفس می‌کند. با این کتاب به واقع وارد دفتر کار مارسل پروست می‌شویم تا ببینیم یکی از بزرگ‌ترین نویسندگان قرن بیستم چگونه می‌نوشت چگونه می‌اندیشید و چگونه روزگار می‌گذراند. نخستین طرح‌های اثر سترگ پروست «در جستجوی زمانِ گمشده» نیز در این کتاب دیده می‌شود. ضمن آن که عشق اضطراب جدایی گذشته مطالعه و نیز معنای هنر و ادبیات از جمله مفاهیم اصلی کتاب هستند.

Genres: France, French Literature, Essays, Nonfiction, Literature, Literary Criticism, Criticism

310 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Marcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.

Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.

Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.

Reviews

[sAmAnE · Rating 4 out of 5]

سنت بوو یک منتقد ادبیات بوده که پروست او را نقد کرده و بخش‌هایی از این کتاب، نقد بی‌رحمانه و صریح پروست بر دیدگاه‌های سنت بوو است. این کتاب را من در تکمیل کتاب در جستجوی زمان از دست رفته خواندم. خواندنی بود.

[Brodolomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prusta uvek čitam gladnim očima, desnim okom napredujem, levim okom bacam pogled unazad za slučaj da sam propustio nešto u slici kako drvo graba pravi senku ili neku boju na haljinama grofica, čisto da posrčem sadržaj do kraja i da nisam propustio neki detalj. Dok čekam trenutak da po treći put pročitam Traganje, dohvatio se ovog (romanesknog) eseja.

“Protiv Sent Beva” je pronađen među Prustovim rukopisima, nezavršen i fragmentaran, napisan u više verzija, svedoči o metamorfozi piščevih opsesija iz pokušaja da napiše svoj estetski simvol vere. Početna namera bila je da napiše teorijski esej u kome bi iskritikovao Sent Beva, najuticajnijeg francuskog književnog kritičara 19. veka, ali se autor toliko razbokorio da je početni naum pojeden i postao toliko nebitan kao r u marlboru. Od viškova i precvetavanja će nastati „Traganje za izgubljenim vremenom” – prvi deo eseja će se transformisati u „Kombre” i „Imena mesta”, potonji delovi u „Oko Germantovih”, esej o homoseksulanosti u početni deo „Sodome i Gomore” (ali još uvek bez fantazmagorijskog seksa između cveta i insekta), dok će neki teorijski aspekti, pa čak i delovi koji se baš tiču kritike Sent Beva prerasti u „Pronađeno vreme”. Stoga, veliki deo uzbuđenja tokom čitanja ove knjige proizilazi iz radosti prisustvovanju rađanja remek-dela iz patrljaka, pa i onih usklika nad čudesima radionice: “Bogo moj, Marsel je pre madlene umakao dvopek u čaj!” ili “Puževe mi kućice, ne mogu da zamislim da se baron Šarlis nekad zvao grof de Kersi!”.

Naravno, knjiga nudi i više od “pratraganja”. Tu su interesantni eseji o Balzaku, Nervalu i Bodleru u središnjim poglavljima (koji, kao i uvek, mnogo više govore o Prustu nego o njima), izlaganje poetičkih načela, kritika razuma i pozitivizma, zapažanja o čitanju, kritičarima, pa naposletku, iako se ovo određuje kao esej, Protiv Sent Beva u sebi ima i likove, pa i rudimentarni zaplet te se može čitati i kao nežni roman o svemu i ni o čemu, upakovan u delikatnu prozu u formi dijaloga dekadenta i njegove Mame (kad je Prust u pitanju sasvim je opravdano da se Mama piše velikim početnim slovom).

Želeti - to znači tumarati vezanih očiju mestom za koje se zna da bi postao raj kad bismo se u njega mogli vratiti, ali koje ni po čemu nećemo moći da prepoznamo.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book for the Proust fanatic, this is a sort of dry run for what would later become La Recherche. The limpid prose, the endlessly gorgeous sentences and the intimate character portraits are here. But, I would not start here, the real meat of Proust, the real reading pleasure is in La Recherche. I would be more inclined to recommend on of the biographies or commentaries that I reviewed here on GR if you wish to immerse yourself in Marcel's world.

[poncho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contre Sainte-Beuve is an essayistic-narrative project by Marcel Proust, author of À la recherche tu temps perdu, written about one year before his magnum opus began to take shape. In fact, this is the key that took Marcel to the development of his famous work on many vanguardist topics such as memory, time and, well, the human mind in general, as well as other controversial topics such as homosexuality. The edition I read was a Spanish edition, in which it's stated that there's no final text for this project; it rather consists in the compilation of the sketches written by Proust, along with many of his correspondences. The work begins with Marcel speaking about the souvenirs d'une matinée (the subtitle often given to this work), about his sleeping habits, starting off with a paragraph that resembles so much the famous opening lines in Du côté de chez Swann. Then there's an event that occurs at the second half of ISOLT, and it's the publication of his article in Le Figaro. This leads Marcel to a conversation between him and his mother (remember she was the one who brought him the newspaper) in which they begin discussing our narrator's talent for literature and after being praised by his mother, he tells her about some ideas he's been sketching in his mind for a while: an essay against Sainte-Beuve's method. Like the madeleine — the pastry of that french writer, whose pleasing taste brought joy into the world of literature — this article is what makes the whole stream of consciousness emerge. The importance given to the attachment of any object, as well as the one given to hearsay, remains constant throughout the book — I think he has made that clear in his whole literary legacy. For example, the author says how a renown connoisseur may feel attached to certain oeuvre that is not necessarily a masterpiece, but, for him, that work might have some affective meaning which is greater than any critic's opinion.

For Proust, there's only a secondary place for intelligence, being past impressions what has a greater weight in a writer's work — maybe in anyone's work, regardless of their vocation. Even though intelligence is the means to translate those evocations, it's our memory the main carrier, the ambassadress between the world we perceive and the spectral world of our experiences, always waiting for their awakening to be restored in life. All these are theories posed by Proust, of course. So its whilst speaking of this when the author brings the madeleine up — not as significant as it would later be though, but not less beautifully described. Like this episode, already familiar for the reader who has already read (even partially) ISOLT, there are many others that are slightly different — even some inconsistencies like the ever-changing Françoise's name — but it's actually this what makes the book an enriching reading since one can appreciate how those magnificent ideas written in his masterpiece took shape. I would think of this as In search of lost time: Volume Zero. Maybe as the aperitif before the great dinner-party that closes with a flourish in Finding time again: the disclosure for all the subjects at some point embraced. For me, it was marvellous to read how Proust had everything perfectly planned and how he developed it all in such a memorable way.

According to Sainte-Beuve, however, in order to fully understand a writer's work one would have to know in detail the author's private life, the former being a reflection of the latter. Why, that's what Proust is against. For him, acquaintance doesn't mean comprehension: there's a mask upon the writer while creating, such that not even their closest friends can unveil it. I absolutely agree with Proust here. I am no artist, and I never was — far from it, I'm pretty sure — but there was a time when I used to make music and when I did it, I felt like a different self: someone truer speaking from profound regions of my soul; and when my friends listened to the lyrics I wrote, they didn't see me, the one they knew, which might have made them reflect on how little they knew me. So maybe Sainte-Beuve's method works as a support, but what's higher in a writer, nay, in any one, is their intimacy as individuals rather than the one we acquire as society; it's the closeness with night and silence what releases our souls — something like Christ's motion for prayer:

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
—Matthew 6:6 (KJV)

But enclosing a writer in a method is to reduce him to a soulless automaton.

Let's remember Elstir and Bergotte in ISOLT and how the narrator's impressions upon them changed the more he saw them interact in society. However, there was something within him that couldn't believe it was them who created some of the great pieces he was fond of. Proust writes about Baudelaire and his relationship with Sainte-Beueve and I couldn't believe the author of such somber and raging verses was so humble and meek, that he who was exhaled by his family rejection was so concerned about being part of the Académie; but that makes a great example out of how the way the writer behaves says so little about what he pours through his pen. Proust thinks of our souls as Heaven in Catholic Theology: composed by many regions and the higher one is the one whence the creative process comes from.

Books are the work of solitude and the offspring of silence.

Last but not least, I would like to say some words about something that comes almost to the end of the book and it's a chapter called The damned race. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever read; it's an apology for homosexuality. We know Proust waited until Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah to expatiate on this subject and then keep going till the end of the series. Well, this chapter condensed the sorrows of his inverts, the place they take in the world. It is saddening that this was written many years ago and even though there have been several improvements, the same kind of rejection remains — by those who are not damned and even those who are but disrespect the "less masculine". But Proust writes all this so beautifully that whenever someone wants to understand homosexuality I'd recommend this specific chapter for them to know that it's not all about flamboyance and that it is definitely not a choice — who would like to be through the kind of sorrows described in it?

[A]ffectionate beings excluded from friendship, because their friends might suspect something more than friendship, when they only feel a pure friendship for them, and they would not understand if they confided them something else […] Homosexuality is never talked about more than before a homosexual, until the ineluctable day in which sooner or later he’ll be devoured […], forced to cover his feelings, to modify his words, to feminize his sentences, to excuse himself before his acquaintances, to justify his rages, more uncomfortable because of the interior need and the imperious order of his vice than because of the social need of not letting his likings betray him.

Balzac said he would like to achieve success either by La comédie humaine or by getting married. Maybe Proust did not success in a happy-ending-wedding (perhaps he didn't even want it), being himself part of that lonely race, but he did gain success by writing such an outstanding marvel drafted in this project as an essay against Sainte-Bueve. And it's funny that actually Proust spared us some effort in order to link his life and his work: he had already portrayed the former in the vast landscape of the latter.

But that night, while we were talking about some trifles, I told her that, contrary to what I hitherto believed, recent scientific discoveries and the most advanced philosophical researches cast materialism down, that they considered death was something merely ostensible, that souls were immortal and some day they reunited…

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selbstbefreiungsgeste neue poetische Wege zu gehen – leider ein Fragment geblieben

Zwischen 1908 und 1910 schrieb Marcel Proust, just im Schwange die ersten Bände seines Zyklus Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit zu verfassen, an einer poetologische Selbstverortung, indem er sich an dem prototypischen Kritiker schlechthin abarbeitete, der, ohne wirklich selbst literarisch in Erscheinung zu treten, dennoch das Gespräch, die Urteile, die Atmosphäre der Literatur seiner Zeit maßgeblich beeinflusst und lenkt. Proust wählt Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804 – 1869) als Paradebeispiel für diejenigen, die im jeweiligen Roman nur eine Art Widerspiegelung des jeweiligen, real-existierenden, in der Gesellschaft interagierenden Ichs erkennen wollen:

Daß [Sainte-Beuve] die Naturgeschichte der Geister betrieben, daß er von der Biographie eines Menschen, von der Geschichte seiner Familie, von allen seinen Besonderheiten Aufschluß über seine Werke und die Natur seines Genies erbeten hat, erkennt jedermann als seine Originalität an und erkannte er sich selbst zu, womit er im übrigen recht hatte. Taine selbst […] sagt in seinem Lob über Sainte-Beuve nichts anderes. »Sainte-Beuves Methode ist nicht minder kostbar als sein Werk. Darin ist er ein Neuerer gewesen. Er hat in die Geistesgeschichte die Verfahren der Naturgeschichte eingeführt. Er hat gezeigt, wie man es anfangen muß, um den zu erkennen […]

Proust aber, ganz und gar kein Positivist der Comteschen Provenienz, widerspricht zutiefst. Für ihn arbeitet sich im Schreiben das jeweilige Ich gerade gegen das sozial Erscheinende Ich, die Person, ab, also das Selbst gegen die Person, um eine höhere, allgemeinere Form des Ichs zu etablieren, eine Form des durchschrittenen Phantasmas, für das die Person, das in Konversation befindliche Sein, nur eine falsche, verzerrende Abbildung abgibt:

In keinem Augenblick scheint Sainte-Beuve das Besondere begriffen zu haben, das in der Inspiration und der literarischen Arbeit liegt und das sie von den Beschäftigungen der anderen Menschen und den anderen Beschäftigungen des Schriftstellers vollständig unterscheidet! Er unterschied nicht die literarische Betätigung, bei der wir in der Einsamkeit und indes wir die Worte zum Schweigen bringen, die anderen ebenso wie uns geh��ren und mit denen wir, auch wenn wir allein sind, die Dinge beurteilen, ohne wir selbst zu sein, bei der wir uns selbst gegenübertreten und versuchen, den wahren Ton unseres Herzens zu hören und wiederzugeben und nicht die Konversation!

Gegen Sainte-Beuve diente als Abwehrgeste und blieb ein Fragment. Es diente den Schreibbemühungen Prousts, um sich durch die Ablehnung des Diskurses von seiner Form der Ich-Erzählung zu vergewissern, sich in ihr bestärken zu können. Sein Ich, das der Recherche, hat mit ihm, dem sozial interagierenden Marcel Proust, nichts gemein, und so muss ihn keine Achtung, kein Respekt, keine Wahrhaftigkeit fesseln, außer der, die von ganz alleine durch die Zeilen selbst entsteht. Vor allem aber wehrt er sich, erfolgreich sein zu müssen, dem geltenden Geschmack, repräsentiert durch Allüren von alter egos von Sainte-Beuve, genügen zu sollen. Proust tröstet sich dann, dass die von Sainte-Beuve gefeierten Bücher keiner mehr liest, die aber von ihm verachteten, die von Charles Baudelaire, von Balzac, von Flaubert und Gérard de Nerval noch immer Beachtung finden.

Wenig auf den Punkt, sehr schwadronierend, sehr unklar im Salonduktus verfasst, kaum je ein heftiges, stichhaltiges Argument hervorbringend, eher fein über die Dinge schwebend, gleitet Proust als nebulöser Theoretiker über das Problem von Faktizität und Geltung, aber gewinnbringend, inspirierend und frei in seiner Form, nicht enden wollende Sätze zu fabrizieren. Leider dennoch: nur ein Bruchstück und Fragment, aber ein sehr schillerndes, in sich bewegtes.

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro de Proust que ele nunca escreveu. A ideia do livro, que começa como sendo um artigo de jornal de 1908, foi sendo desenvolvida por Proust nos meses seguintes mas depois abandonado. Apenas em 1954, Bernard de Falois publicada uma versão possivel, "inventada", desta https://www.instagram.com/p/CwSZKQ2sB...

[Danyal · Rating 2 out of 5]

1/

کتاب حاضر نقد ادبی‌ست (بخوانید: نظری ضد روش سنت بوو) که پروست جدا از «در جستجو» به آن پرداخته اما با آن منافات ندارد چرا که می‌دانیم «بن‌مایۀ آثار پروست یکسانند، انچه تغییر می‌کند فُرم است»، اما نکتۀ قابل اعتنا این‌ست که پروست برای ارائه تزها، تحلیل‌ها و ایده‌های ادبی خود به این کتاب پرداخته است زیرا خود صراحتاً معتقد است پرداختن به تزهای روشنفکری (اسنوبیسم و..) در قالب رمان مثل برچسب قیمت روی اجناس است(!)، بنابراین ترجیح می‌دهد نقد ادبی‌ خود را خارج از رمانش بنویسد. ابتدا قرار بود مقاله‌ برای روزنامه فیگارو باشد، که به سی‌صد صفحه افزایش یافت و او آن را «رمانی بس عظیم» خواند.

2/

پروست آن نوع از منتقدانی که آثار نویسندگان را براساس پیشینه، زندگی گذشته، آبا و اجداد نویسنده و دیدگاه‌های پیشین هنرمند، مورد سنجش قرار می‌دهند را رد می‌کند چرا که او خود اساساً اثر را فارق از منی می‌داندکه نویسنده آن را در اجتماع نمایان می‌کند حال چه برسد به گذشتۀ او. بنابراین چنین نقد هارا ناصواب می‌داند. شارل سنت بوو از همین‌گونه منتقدان است. شارل آگوستین سنت بوو (1804)– که از او به عنوان نویسنده، مدرس، منتفد و عضو فرهنگستان فرانسه یاد می‌شود - بر خلاف پروست که میان زندگی و اثر فاصله قائل است، هیچ مرزی نمی‌گذارد، نه تنها نمی‌گذارد بلکه زندگی را مکمل اثر می‌داند، عنصری که می‌تواند به درک بیشتر و بهتر اثر منجر شود. او خود دقیق تر می‌گوید « تا زمانی که درباره یک مؤلف شماری پرسش‌هارا مطرح نکرده‌ایم و به آن‌ها پاسخ نداده‌ایم(..) مطمئن نمی‌توان بود که او را کاملاً شناخته‌ایم. ص109». پروست البته سنت بوو را نه چنان منطقی می‌داند و نه پرت، بلکه به بعضی از نظرات او از جمله اینکه منتقد هرگز نمی‌تواند به کُنه استعداد و فردیت نویسنده دست یابد، معتقد است. منتها از ریشه‌ای‌ترینِ ناسازگاریِ این دو آنجاست که پروست می‌گوید آن منِ ژرفی را نمی‌شود از صندوق پستی در آورد، نمی‌توان با پرسش و پاسخ از نزدیکان مؤلف و.. یافت «اگر بخواهیم تلاش کنیم آنرا بفهمیم، در ژرفنای خود ماست و اگر آن را در خود بازآفرینی کنیم می‌توانیم به شناخت آن توفیق یابیم.» اثر را محصول تنهایی و فرزندان سکوت می‌داند و می‌گوید فرزندان سکوت نباید هیچ‌ شباهتی به فرزندان گفتار و افکاری که زادۀ میل به گفتن چیزی ، بیان گلایه‌ای و ..، داشته باشند

3/

صد صفحۀ نخست که شامل 7 فصل می‌شود – کتاب متشمل بر 16 فصل است – کاملاً از موضوع سنت بوو و حتا پیرامونش پرت است. بحث از اتاق‌ها گرفته تا به یادآوردن خاطرات خوابیدن بموجب انواع خوابیدن، تا فیگارو که شوق و ذوق پروست از چاپ مقاله‌اش را می‌بینیم، و گپی با مامان که مختصری از مقاله‌اش دربارۀ سنت بوو می‌گوید. این عیب بسیار بزرگ است که گویی با مقدمه‌ای نفس‌بُرِ مطول مواجهیم (که حتا بود و نبودشان تأثیری ندارد، گرچه نبودشان بسیار بهتر است) برای فصل‌های پیش‌رو. کتاب را کامل نخواندم، خصوصاً فصل‌های پایانی:منهای فصل هشت، تا حدودی10 11 و نتیجه‌گیری فصل 16.

چاپ اول، زمستان 94

[شمس · Rating 4 out of 5]

She leaves me; but my thoughts return to my article, and suddenly I have an idea for another one. Contre Sainte-Beuve. I re-read him not long ago, I made, contrary to my usual habit, a great many rough notes and put them away in a drawer, and I have some interesting things to say about him. I begin to think out the article. More and more ideas occur to me. Before half an hour has gone by the whole article has taken shape in my head. I want to ask Mamma what she thinks of it. I call, there is no sound, no answer. I call again, I hear stealthy footsteps, they pause outside my door, and the door creaks.
“Mamma.”
“Did I hear you calling me, my darling?”
“Yes . . . Listen! I want your advice. Sit down . . .You’re settled? Good! Now this is what I want to tell you about. I’ve had an idea for an article, and I want your opinion on it.”
“But you know that I can’t give you advice about such things. I’m not like you, I don’t read great books.”
“Now listen! The subject is to be: Objections to the method of Sainte-Beuve.”
“Goodness! I thought it was everything it should be. In that article by Bourget you made me read, he said that it is such a marvellous method that there has been no one in the nineteenth century who could make use of it.”
“Oh yes, that’s what he said, but it was stupid. You know the principles of that method?”
“Go on as if I didn’t . . .” (Ch. 7)
__________
. . . filled with the notion of my talent, convinced that I am to be preferred to all other writers. Above this vista of awakening intellects, the thought of my fame dawning on each mind shines on me with a rosier hue than the manifold sunrise flushing each window. If there is a word or two wrong—well, they will not notice it; and in any case, it is not too bad, and better than what they are used to. (Ch. 5)

Should I make it a novel, or a philosophical study—am I a novelist? (Proust, Diary entry, Carnet de 1908)

__________
How does one describe Contre Sainte-Beuve, a work ostensibly devoted to the critique of the nineteenth century literary critic from whom it takes its name? In the introduction to Marcel Proust: On Art and Literature 1896-1919 , Terence Kilmartin writes

In the preface to his edition of the Carnet de 1908, Kolb quotes a letter in which Proust speaks of having in hand at the same time "a study on the nobility, a Parision novel, an essay on Pederasty (not easy to publish), a study on stained glass, a study on the novel."

Remove the part about stained glass, and, to an extent, the part about the novel, and you could come pretty close . . . but the best way to describe it is in the context of Proust's magnum opus

All his other writings are in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, drafts, sketches, trial runs, first shots, preliminaries for the work that was to come, stages on the road to the final all-embracing masterpiece.

Having read In Search of Lost Time, the comparison is inevitable; you cannot help but feel you are reading an embryonic version of Proust's masterpiece. I would be very interested to read the thoughts of someone who had not read his novel, and are approaching this in the context of, as it is commonly described, an Essay. Surely, as they read on, they must feel slightly confused, as they notice that the work

. . . is so closely intermingled with the memories he continues to call up, that one is constantly obliged to turn back to an earlier page to see where one is, if it is the present or the past recalled. (Ch. 10)

If you have read In Search of Lost Time, you will recognise a lot of the themes Proust touches on, sometimes here in different contexts; if you haven't, I think this would serve as a great introduction; an Apéritif, as another reviewer put it, to the seven-course dinner that is À la recherche du temps perdu.
_____
Read from Marcel Proust: On Art and Literature 1896-1919
__________
I dipped the toast in the cup of tea and as soon as I put it in my mouth, and felt its softened texture, all flavoured with tea, against my palate, something came over me—the smell of geraniums and orange-blossoms, a sensation of extraordinary radiance and happiness . . . Something of greater importance engaged me, I still did not know what it was, but in the depth of my being I felt the flutter of a past that I did not recognise. (Prologue)

These past hours will only hide themselves away in objects where intellect has not tried to embody them. These objects which you have consciously tried to connect with certain hours of your life, these they can never take shelter in. What is more, if something else should resuscitate those hours, the objects called back with them will be stripped of their poetry. (Prologue)
__________
A present writer . . . is not much further forward than Homer. (Ch. 8)

Perhaps, too, they may grant me that ravishing thing: a pleasure of the imagination, a pleasure of no reality, the only true pleasure of the poets . . . And from this impression and others like it something common to them all is liberated . . . And when we recognise this thing, this common essence of our impressions, we feel a pleasure like no other pleasure . . . And after we have read pages containing the loftiest thoughts and the noblest sentiments and have remarked, "That's really quite good," if, suddenly and without our knowing why or wherefore, from some seemingly casual word a breath of that essence is wafted to us, we know that this is Beauty. (Ch. 6)

. . . the writer's true self is manifested in his books alone, and that what he shows to men of the world is merely a man of the world like themselves. (Ch. 8)

As for myself, during those years which I can count happy (before 1848) I endeavoured, and, as I believed, successfully, to shape my existence serenely and worthily. From time to time to write something congenial, to read what was congenial and solid, above all, not to write too much, to cultivate friendships, to reserve some of one's intellect for day-to-day contacts and know how to expend it ungrudgingly, to bestow more on private than on public relations, to keep one's finest, most sensitive part, the cream on oneself, for private life, to employ, discreetly, what remained of one's youth in happy interchanges of intellect and feeling, so did my fancy paint its dream of a gentleman of letters, who possesses a true sense of values and does not allow profession or work on hand to encroach too far on his mental or spiritual development. Since those days, necessity has become my master, and compelled me to renounce what I regard as the sole felicity or the exquisite consolation of the melancholy and the man of wisdom. (Ch. 8)

But alas, at the very moment when I profit by this discharge, my own work pronounces sentence on me. If I see a picture in my words, it is because I meant to paint it; but it is not there. And if in some places I have indeed managed to bring a description to life, even so, unless the description calls up something the reader already knows and loves, he will find nothing there to recognise and welcome. Re-reading one to two good passages I say to myself, Yes, these words convey what I thought, what I saw; I can rest easy, I have done my part, anyone coming on this will see what I meant, he has but to open Le Figaro to find this wealth of thought and imagery. As if thoughts lay on the printed page, as if they had but to meet the eye of a reader in order to be received into a mind where they were not already native. All mine can do is to awaken kindred thoughts in kindred spirits. In others, where my words find nothing to awaken, what an absurd notion of me will be called up! what will they make of it, these statements that mean things which not only will they never be able to understand, but which could never enter their heads? So when they read them they see—what? (Ch. 5)
__________
But this was not all that I would have liked to see again. The train halted there, and as I stood at the window where a smell of coal-smoke came in, a girl of sixteen, tall and rosy-cheeked, walked by with steaming cups of café au lait. There is no spice in the abstract love of beauty, for it imagines beauty in terms of the already known, and confronts us with a made and concluded universe. But what a pretty girl the more has to offer is precisely something we had not imagined—not beauty, something in common with others, but a person, something particular, a thing by itself, and also something individual, which exists and in which we would like to mingle our life . . .

[For because every beauty is a separate type, because there is no one Beauty but many beautiful women, a beautiful woman is an invitation to a happiness which she alone can fulfill.]

. . . I called out “Coffee, please!” She did not hear me. I saw this life in which I counted for nothing, her eyes that had never known me, her thoughts in which I played no part, going away from me; I called her, she heard me, she turned round, smiled and came back, and while I was drinking my coffee and the train was about to start, I stared her full in the eyes; hers did not flinch, staring back into mine with a look of astonishment, where, though, my desire believed it saw fellow feeling. How I would have liked to purloin her existence, to take her with me on my journey, call my own, if not her body, at least her attention, her time, her friendship, her ways. There was no time to spare, for the train was starting. I said to myself, I shall come back tomorrow. And now, two years after, I feel that I will go back there, that I will try to live in that neighbourhood, and early one morning, under a pink sky and looking down on that wild ravine, kiss the apple-cheeked girl who offers me café au lait. (Ch. 3)

. . . traveling on and on among cornflowers and poppies and crimson clover, of knowing that I would arrive at the wished-for place where the woman I loved awaited me. (Ch. 3)
__________
I believed at every moment that I should die. (Ch. 1)

"You know, you've seen it for yourself, how wretched I am without you at first. And then, you know, my life shapes itself differently, and though I don't forget the people I love, I don't depend on them any more, I manage very well without them. For the first week, I am demented. After that, I can go on by myself for months, for years, for ever.” For ever I said; but that same evening, arising out of something quite different, I told her that contrary to what I had previously believed, the latest scientific discoveries and the most advanced philosophic enquiries demolished materialism and made out death to be something merely phenomenal; that souls were immortal, and eventually met again . . . (Ch. 15)
__________
I do not know what mythical race it was which sprang from the mating of a goddess and a bird, but I feel sure that the Guermantes belonged to it. (Ch. 14)

The idea that at some time I might have anything to do with them had not even entered my mind when one day I opened an envelope: "At Home. The Prince and Princess de Guermantes request the pleasure . . .” (Ch. 13)

. . . The fairy-palace spontaneously opening its doors to me, myself an invited guest and mingling with those legendary, magic-lantern, painted-window, tapestry beings with their ninth-century feudalities of pit and gallows, that proud name of Guermantes seeming to come to life, to acknowledge me, to reach out to me—since, after all, it really was my name on the envelope, and in imposing calligraphy—all this seemed too good to be true, and I was afraid it might be a practical joke that someone had played on me. (Ch. 13)

“Aunt, you cannot say that the Cure de Tours, which is the one you mean, isn’t well drawn. That country town, could anything be more like the real thing?” “Precisely,” said the Marquise, proceeding to what was one of her favourite gambits, and the universal test that she applied to literary productions, “and in what way can it interest me to read a treatise about things I know quite as much about as he? People say, It's so like a country town. By all means; but I know all about that, I’ve lived in the country, so why should I be interested in it?” And so proud was she of this line of argument, a favourite of hers, that a smile of arrogance brightened her eyes as she glanced towards her audience, adding, to pour oil on the troubled waters: “You may think it very silly of me, but I must admit that when I read a book, I am weak-minded enough to want to learn something new.” For the next two months, it was retailed, even among the Countess’s remotest cousins, that this particular At Home at the Guermantes’s had been quite the most interesting affair imaginable. (Ch. 12)

At the utterance of some name he would cry out: "But she's my cousin!" as if this were some unhoped-for stroke of luck, and in a voice that made one long to reply: "But I never said she wasn't.” (Ch. 12)

[Maryam Amini · Rating 4 out of 5]

ضد سنت بوو، خاطره‌های بامداد
کتاب در اصل راجع به نقد پروست به سنت بوو هست ولی بخش هایی از کتاب نوشته های روزانه پروست از زندگی خودشه.
اگر جستجو رو خوندین و دلتون برای راوی تنگ شده، بهتون پیشنهاد میکنم این کتابو بخونید، خیلی حس خوبی به من داد بعد از اینکه چند سال از خوندن جستجو گذشته بود. ولی باید بگم که ویراستاری این کتاب افتضاحه. مترجم عزیز ، ویراستار، انتشارات هیچ کدوم کتابو نخوندن؟ دقت نکردن به پاورقیا و شماره گذاریشون؟🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

[Miloš Lazarević · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ako izuzmemo eseje posvećene Bodleru, Balzaku i Sent-Bevovoj metodi, ovo nedovršeno Prustovo delo predstavlja nacrt - u delovima - za „Potragu za izgubljenim vremenom”. Uistinu, odlomci koje će kasnije, izmenjene, implementirati u svoje kapitalno delo, bili su mi najmanje zanimljivi, zato što sam ih pročitao na drugom mestu.

Za čitaoca kome je Prust poznat, kritika Sent-Bevove metode ostaje najvažniji deo i ne odnosi se samo na kritiku jednog književnog vremena, već i na ključne delove Prustove poetike. Bez obzira na to što su stilski pomalo nerazrađeni, eseji fino zaokružuju osobenosti Balzakove i Bodlerove poetike, kao i istančanosti njenog ispoljavanja. No, suštinski - a to je napisano i u uvodu - boriti se protiv krute racionalizacije svega, protiv svođenja na proverive podatke, hladni um, biografizam - to je zadatak dela u celini, a posebno stranica posvećenih Sent-Bevu. Uprkos tome što je biografizam u književnosti pomogao rasvetljavanju elemenata važnih za razumevanje dela, Prust podržava uverenje da su „ja” jednog čoveka koji obavlja svakodnevne obaveze i kreće se svetom i „ja” autora, premda je to ista osoba, različite stvari. Pretendovati na to da poznajemo pisca zato što poznajemo njegovo društveno ispoljavanje, besprizorna je varka.

Posebno obratite pažnju na eseje posvećene Balzaku, Bodleru i Sent-Bevu. Ostalo nije toliko važno, premda možete, između redova, saznati još nešto o poetici Marsela Prusta kao, recimo, u zaključku.

[quim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per Proust sento coses k van més enllà de l'admiració literària

[Ulysse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy book to read. Written in preparation for A la recherche du temps perdu it was probably not meant to be published at all. Literary legend has it this was the book that liberated Proust's genius. As it is it feels fragmented and incomplete. Being Proust, of course, there are some brilliant passages. I read this especially for the embedded essays on Nerval, Baudelaire and Balzac. It confirms what I'd gathered from reading a biography of Victor Hugo: Sainte-Beuve was not only a despicable human being but also a literary critic whose jugement regarding his contemporaries was almost always wrong.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinerend, geweldig vertaald & samengesteld & geannoteerd. Het leek me bij voorbaat vrij saai: Contre Sainte-Beuve is eigenlijk een verzameling ongepubliceerde schetsen, half essay half romanaanzet. Maar het is prachtig en maakt onmiddellijk hongerig naar meer – naar het (her)lezen van de hele Recherche (waarvan dit een eerste embryonale vorm is, en die deze vertalers ook maar eens onder handen moeten nemen).

[Lucile · Rating 2 out of 5]

En vrai 2,5/5
J'aimerais aimer Proust.
J'ai trouvé certains passages très sympas quand il raconte quelques souvenirs. Sinon, je me suis pas mal ennuyée on comprend très vite son point sur Sainte-Beuve. Ce n'est pas hyper stimulant

[Agnes Fontana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Contre Sainte-Beuve" est furieusement desservi par son titre. En réalité, il n'est nul besoin d'avoir lu Sainte Beuve, ni même de savoir qui c'était (cf la perle de lycée : la Sainte avait raison...), pour adorer cet ouvrage de Marcel Proust. Il rassemble, tel un bouquet, des morceaux de souvenirs, où l'on trouve déjà tout, les variation infinies et subtiles sur la mémoire et les jeux de lumière, la puissance évocatrice des noms, les catégories sociales... et quelques morceaux critiques où Proust démolit Sainte veuve pour qui, afin de pénétrer l'oeuvre d'un auteur, il convenait de tout savoir sur sa vie et ses fréquentations. Proust pense qu'au contraire l'oeuvre révèle l'homme intérieur, inconnu de nos voisins et de nos relations. Il analyse, d'abord pour contredire Sainte-Beuve mais qui devient très vite transparent, Baudelaire, Balzac et Nerval (et nous donne envie de lire ce dernier). Puis, retour aux souvenirs et aux impressions.
Ce livre contient, en ébauché, tout ce qui fera la spécificité de La Recherche. Il a, par rapport à cette dernière, le charme des esquisses au crayon par rapport à la peinture à l'huile. C'est hilarant, d'ailleurs (oui, oui, on peut rire en lisant Proust), le fameux chapitre avec la madeleine trempée est déjà là sauf que... c'est du pain grillé, et on imagine Marcel se relisant et disant : "Moui... ce passage est pas mal, je sens que je tiens là quelque chose mais ce n'est pas encore tout à fait ça, il faudrait rendre ça plus visuel, en changeant un détail peut-être, mais quoi ?"

[Pierre E. Loignon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sous ce titre a été rassemblé un ensemble hétéroclite de papiers dont l’un deux concerne bel et bien directement et explicitement Sainte-Beuve, mais, même dans ce chapitre, il s’agit moins d’une critique de Sainte-Beuve que d’une volonté de se positionner, d’exister, d’affirmer, l’impulsion purement subjective qui hantera toujours l’auteur d’À la recherche du temps perdu.
Aussi la critique attendue (car laissée à entendre par le titre) n’impose rien objectivement au lecteur, mais se révèle plutôt comme traits encore mal définis d’une conviction intérieure immédiate.
D’autre part, on retrouve plusieurs passages qui vont être repris dans La recherche du temps perdu et qu’il me semble qu’il vaut mieux aller lire là-bas à moins d’être un expert de Proust ou d’aimer l’érudition pour elle-même.

[Manchester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proust, sos enorme.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Algumas passagens são sem dúvida interessantíssimas. Mas não sou leitora qualificada para grande parte do livro, o que talvez não me permite apreciá-lo completamente.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aquest sí, aquest sí. Llegit en castellà a Alianza, si Los placeres y los días es presentava com una col•lecció d'escrits de joventut -negligibles en la seva majoria-, al contrari Contra Sainte-Beuve és un recull d'escrits el final dels quals conflueix amb l'inici de La Recherche. Hi ha molt de valuós, aquí, i sense haver llegit encara La Recherche puc dir que l'estil ja hi és present, que Proust està preparat per emprendre un viatge del qual és profundament conscient. He gaudit molt amb les lectures de Crítica de la inteligencia i Apenas leía un autor, absurdament precioses, però d'altres petites peces més narratives són igualment extraordinàries: probablement la crítica i l'alabança siguin els fragments més fluixos d'aquest recopilatori heterodox. Proust, amb totes les seves debilitats, estava abocat a construir una obra de meravella.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This unfinished project was collected together from Proust's posthumous papers. Not quite a novel, not exactly literary criticism--never the less an interesting look into the genesis of his masterpiece, A la Recherche. Gives a very good sense of his early ideas on what he wanted to accomplish with the major work. There are many parallel episodes and a good bit of theory. Should you read it before or after Recherche? Read before it makes a much shorter and easier introduction. Read after you can see how he developed his themes and plot. Ideally you would read it BOTH before and after, but then that means you need to read the 3,000 page Recherche twice. But you know it's worth it.

[Cen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Car pour lui exister et être heureux n'est qu'une seule chose."

[Hosna · Rating 2 out of 5]

گمانم کتاب در ترجمه از دست رفته. گویا گردآوری نوشته‌هایی از پروست است که خود او منتشر نکرده چون متن افتادگیها و پرش دارد. با این همه، پروست زیباست.

[Siera Mae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic essay by my *favourite* author, truly wonderful. The translation is a bit dicey. There were a lot of printing errors, and large chunks of the text were untranslated. But very good attempt!

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contre Sainte- Beuve by Marcel Proust



Proust represents a supreme role model, the peak of the highest mountain, the clear blue sky. You cannot get any better, more beautiful or deeper Literature.

This is the masterpiece and the genius at its best.

You can only hope to have the ability, the skill and power to grasp it all.

But, alas, chances are it is too complex and deep to be embraced.

That is an advantage as well as a challenge.

I for one will read Proust again. And again.

Because it will always be beyond my power of understanding and I can only be in awe and admiration at the sheer complexity, magnitude of what is the best work that man has produced.



Even in his essays, it is evident that Proust was a wonderful reader, a keen reader and an amazing critic. He not only notices one structure and the ingenuity of a paragraph, he gets the whole picture.

Proust has preferences for various authors, but whenever the creator is not among his favorites, that does not mean that his work will get rough treatment.

On the contrary, if Flaubert is not among the writers that enjoy special status, his work is still classified among the best.

By the way, I learned that Flaubert is among the best, if not the very best there is. And yet, Proust seems not to be so enchanted by Gustave Flaubert, however much he praised his oeuvre.

But we are subjective by nature. I have read with extreme delight Breakfast at Tiffany’s and that work is not listed among the very best.

There are some passages in the essays that I have enjoyed thoroughly.

Proust describes the joy that we have when we read and the interesting and strange power that we have in relationship with books and writers.

Whenever we feel like ‘shutting up”, say -Beckett, we can. No matter how great and powerful the author was or is, we can always place that book on a shelf and end the “discussion there”.

Some interesting aspects were the special interests that Proust had for various writers or poets. He liked Ruskin so much that he dedicated a lot of time to the study and translation of his work.

Marcel Proust had special relationships with various authors and nobles of Romanian extraction, which is of particular interest to citizens of my country: Antoine Bibesco and Anna de Noailles have been among the intimate friends of the great writer.

Proust writes with admiration about Flaubert, Baudelaire and a number of other great writers, and he is not only objective, but does not spare his praising words and is very generous in his admiration, where others are mean and jealous.

[bibi]

“Le belle cose che scriveremo, se ne abbiamo il dono, sono in noi indistinte, come il ricordo d'un'aria che c'incanti senza che riusciamo a ritrovarne il tracciato, a canticchiarla, e nemmeno a darne un disegno quantitativo, a dire se ci sono pause o serie di note rapide. Coloro che sono ossessionati da questo ricordo confuso di verità che non hanno mai conosciute sono uomini intellettualmente dotati. Ma, se si appagano di dire che odono un'aria deliziosa, essi nulla indicano agli altri, non hanno talento. Il talento è come una sorta di memoria capace di permetter loro di finire col ravvicinare a sé quella musica indistinta, di sentirla con chiarezza, di annotarla, di riprodurla, di cantarla. Giunge un'età in cui il talento s'indebolisce insieme con la memoria, e in cui il muscolo mentale che accosta i ricordi interni e quelli esterni non ha più forza. Talvolta quest'età dura l'intera vita, per mancanza d'esercizio, per troppo rapida contentezza di sé. E nessuno conoscerà mai, nemmeno chi la sente, l'aria che ci perseguitava col suo ritmo inafferrabile e incantevole.”

[Enzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

La classe, la voilà. Un simple article du Figaro qui n’a pu tenir que dans un grand livre de plus de 300 pages, dans lesquelles sont finement exprimés les avis de Proust sur certains auteurs ; plus fascinant encore, son opinion sur la lecture, la littérature et les auteurs vus en général.

La conclusion de l’ouvrage est probablement le plus beau, le plus fin, le plus clair et le plus profond des passages de livre que j’ai pu lire de toute ma vie. Comment ne pas crépiter à l’intérieur de soi en repensant aux formules telles que : « Dès que je lisais un auteur », « Les belles choses que nous écrirons si nous avons du talent en nous », ou encore « Les écrivains que nous admirons […] » ?

Extraordinaire. Tout le monde devrait lire, au moins la conclusion, une fois dans sa vie.

[Joseph Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Les belles choses que nous écrirons si nous avons du talent sont en nous, indistinctes, comme le souvenir d'un air, qui nous charme sans que nous puissions en retrouver le contour, le fredonner, ni même en donner un dessin quantitatif, dire s'il y a des pauses, des suites de notes rapides. [...] Le talent est comme une sorte de mémoire qui leur permettra de finir par rapprocher d'eux cette musique confuse, de l'entendre clairement, de la noter, de la reproduire, de la chanter."

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written & well- thought out as Proust almost always is.

[crbmsq · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.1/5

[Raluca · Rating 4 out of 5]

sainte beuve really thought he was it