The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 12 May of The Guermantes Way, to page 183 (to the paragraph beginning: “I was wretched at having failed to say good-bye...”)

Just a wee note for those reading in French: it's not easy to find the end of this week's section, because the sentence we're looking for is NOT at the beginning of a paragraph, at least it isn't in the Folio Classique edition that I'm reading. It's in the middle of quite a long paragraph. After the narrator has spoken to his grandmother on the phone (LOVED that part! the telephone!) and decides to go to Paris, and he's wretched (désolé) that he was unable to say goodbye to Saint-Loup.

I hope that's right, anyway, as I say it wasn't quite so easy to find the marking sentence this time. If I'm way off, I'd appreciate correction, thanks.

Karen wrote: "Just a wee note for those reading in French: it's not easy to find the end of this week's section, because the sentence we're looking for is NOT at the beginning of a paragraph, at least it isn't i..."

Thanks Karen. This is always a problem for me and at this stage, I just read eighty or so of the pages in my edition each week and then wait to see when the line quoted at the top of the discussion, (or something that sounds vaguely like it!), turns up.
You've obviously finished this new section already!

Proustitute wrote: "Didn't Richard post beginning/ending phrases and stopping-points in the French readers' thread? I thought so. I'll have to check it out when I'm at a computer next."

Excellent voluntary memory!
I found Richard's message #22, which was on the French thread, and posted in the Lounge.

Thanks, Proustitute and Marcelita. The pagination is a bit different, is all.

It's just that normally I stick a little post-it note in at the point I need to get to, it helps me to have something to aim for. So usually I go forward around 60-70 pages and scan the first lines of the paragraphs to find the necessary. And this time I couldn't find anything, so just went on reading until it hit me in the middle of a paragraph. Nothing drastic, we're managing fine.

I've just come across another episode which is like a window into a different kind of writing, this time not a naturalist genre but a surrealist one: the Narrator is meditating on the nature of sleep and casually inserts an interesting but quite unnerving nightmare situation involving his parents and a rat cage. The details are very precise and together with the surprise element of finding it nestling amid this thoughtful meditation on sleep, gives it the exact characteristics of a surreal text - mixing dream and reality suddenly in an absurdly precise manner and involving odd creatures - ahead of its time.

Karen wrote: "Just a wee note for those reading in French: it's not easy to find the end of this week's section, because the sentence we're looking for is NOT at the beginning of a paragraph, at least it isn't i..."

Yes, the end of the second week is not the beginning of a paragraph. I also had a hard time finding it. But the rest are ok. (well, at least for the first half of the rest because I have 2 vol for the Guermantes book). I also mark the sections.

We awake, look at our watch, see ‘four o’clock’; it is only four o’clock in the morning, but we imagine that the whole day has gone by, so vividly does this nap of a few minutes, unsought by us, appear to have come down to us from the skies, by virtue of some divine right, full-bodied, vast, like an Emperor’s orb of gold.

... and how many of us have come awake and it really is 4 in the afternoon! Even in these situations, Proust's description is valid. And instead of a nap of a few hours, it is the deep sleep of the dead, and the last dredges of the day are upon us.

Or perhaps, as later in this same text, the dream world calls us to action, while the outside world clangs away, such as with his dreamworld grandfather, and the regimental band.

It's not that these occurrences are unique or special, but in the way that Proust tells them, and brings them to vivid life (be that in a dreamworld or awake.) But what is dream? What is reality? What is past, or future, or present?

In was reading the May 6th issue of New York magazine, when I came across Maira Kalman’s 'Dream Place'.

The Meaning of a Dream
" The room Kalman drew for us is filled with a cast of characters and objects that includes Proust. (“He talks a great deal about objects and rooms and the people in the rooms and the emotions in the people in the rooms”);"
http://nymag.com/homedesign/articles/...
http://nymag.com/homedesign/spring201...

Then, I smiled remembering how Proust would bring objects to life. Was this the Celtic belief of souls trapped in inanimate objects?

"When I came to the end, the bare wall in which no door opened said to me simply: “Now you must go back, but you see, you are at home here,” while the soft carpet, not to be outdone, added that if I could not sleep that night I could perfectly well come in my bare feet, and the unshuttered windows looking out over the countryside assured me that they would keep a sleepless vigil and that, at whatever hour I chose to come, I need not be afraid of disturbing anyone."

"And behind a hanging curtain I came upon a little closet which, stopped by the outer wall and unable to escape, had hidden itself there shamefacedly and gave me a frightened stare from its little round window, glowing blue in the moonlight." (Page 105)

Marcel Proust wrote: Not far thence is the secret garden in which the kinds of sleep, so different one from another, induced by datura, by Indian hemp, by the multiple extracts of ether—the sleep of belladonna, of opium, of valerian—grow like unknown flowers whose petals remain closed until the day when the predestined stranger comes to open them with a touch and to liberate for long hours the aroma of their peculiar dreams for the delectation of an amazed and spellbound being. ML p. 108

I read the sleep/dream sequence in this week's reading as realism, a lyrical realism that is uncommon to Proust, but dreams and their description breed strange song. His lyricism is a factual account of drug induced sleep and awakening from it aided by "datura, by Indian hemp, by the multiple extracts of ether—the sleep of belladonna, of opium, of valerian" and other sleeping potions he was taking or familiar with as chronicled in letters to his mother and others as revealed by Carter and other biographers.

In fact, every previous sleep sequence, even from the first pages of Swann's Way, has made me think his descriptions of dreaming and awakening were drug induced.

This is not to fault Proust, as was said in writing workshops at St. Marks, "You get it anyway you can," but these revelations help to "de-canonize" ISOLT which is an aim of Antoine Campagnon in his Proust in 1913 lectures at le Collège de France.

Eugene wrote: "...In fact, every previous sleep sequence, even from the first pages of Swann's Way, has made me think his descriptions of dreaming and awakening were drug induced..."

Yes, indeed. I had also picked up the possibility that they might sometimes be fever induced.

And who else but Proust, with or without opium, could thread remarks about art appreciation into a dense discussion of military strategy!

And, I've just come upon the word palimpsest and it is exactly the image I'd been searching for to describe the layer structure of the entire Recherche. Not an onion but a palimpsest. Perfect.

Fionnuala wrote: And who else but Proust, with or without opium, could thread remarks about art appreciation into a dense discussion of military strategy!

The Narrator is a strategic lover: look at the planning, the reconnoissance and the maneuvers he put into his loves of Gilbert and Mme Guermantes, not to mention Mme Swann.

Eugene wrote: "The Narrator is a strategic lover: look at the planning, the reconnoissance and the maneuvers he put into his loves of Gilbert and Mme Guermantes, not to mention Mme Swann."

Wonderful, Eugene. I missed that parallel, so caught up was I in the actual military history.
But of course, this entire battle theory diversion was punctuated by the Narrator's skirmishes with Saint-Loup over the storming of the citadel that is Mme De Guermantes.

Jaye wrote: "I had this also! I love surrealism so I just about hopped up and down and had to check I hadn't picked up the wrong book! It was lovely. Not to be obnoxious but for personal taste I wouldn't mind if all of Proust was like that! "

Just saw this comment, Jaye. I do understand your dilemma but all I can say is, would we really want Proust to write any differently? I'm more and more entranced with his writing just the way it is.

Eugene wrote: "The Narrator is a strategic lover: look at the planning, the reconnoissance and the maneuvers he put into his loves of Gilbert and Mme Guermantes, not to mention Mme Swann. "

Not to mention his mother.

Marcelita wrote: "In was reading the May 6th issue of New York magazine, when I came across Maira Kalman’s 'Dream Place'.

The Meaning of a Dream
" The room Kalman drew for us is filled with a cast of characters an..."

Objects carry the vibes of the people that have possessed them.That is why my loft is minimalistic and I have only new objects unless i knew the person that had it before.

Eugene wrote: "Marcel Proust wrote: Not far thence is the secret garden in which the kinds of sleep, so different one from another, induced by datura, by Indian hemp, by the multiple extracts of ether—the sleep ..."

Not a shadow of a doubt do i have they were drug induced.In those years those drugs were sold in drugstores (never a better name) freely .In Argentina they were sold freely too until the end of the Conservadores gvt. in the 1930´s.Curiously that was when the decadence of my country started with military coups until the present.

Fionnuala wrote: "Eugene wrote: "...In fact, every previous sleep sequence, even from the first pages of Swann's Way, has made me think his descriptions of dreaming and awakening were drug induced..."

Yes, indeed. ..."

BTW, the military part is the most boring part! thank goodness i read it at the hairdresser were there is nothing else to read but Hello with Queen Maxima´s coronation! so i had to stick to it and finish.

Fionnuala wrote: "Eugene wrote: "The Narrator is a strategic lover: look at the planning, the reconnoissance and the maneuvers he put into his loves of Gilbert and Mme Guermantes, not to mention Mme Swann."

Wonderf..."

maybe if i look at that *art of war part* that way it wouldn´t be so boooooooooooringgg!Attacking Mme G citadel through her cousin! well,o.k. not so boring then

Patricia wrote: "maybe if i look at that *art of war part* that way it wouldn´t be so boooooooooooringgg!Attacking Mme G citadel through her cousin! well,o.k. not so boring then "

Go for it, Patricia!

Eugene wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: And who else but Proust, with or without opium, could thread remarks about art appreciation into a dense discussion of military strategy!

The Narrator is a strategic lover: look a..."

"...look at the planning, the reconnoissance and the maneuvers he put into his loves..."

Oh, yes...remembering all the suggestions and 'secondary considerations' the narrator employed, so he would to be able to take Albertine in one of the "governess-carts." (WBG p. 691) That is the same type of thinking a general would need in battle...every possibility, with contingencies...in order to conquer.

Fionnuala wrote: "Go for it, Patricia..."

Patricia needs her own reality show! The Real Proust-reading Housewife of Argentina!

ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Go for it, Patricia..."

Patricia needs her own reality show! The Real Proust-reading Housewife of Argentina!"

Yes, very much so.

And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near and far, I found, as I hurried across the courtyard with its glimpses of glowing kitchens in which chickens were turning on spits, pigs were roasting, lobsters being flung, alive, into what the landlord called the ‘everlasting fire,’ an influx (worthy of some Numbering of the People Before Bethlehem such as the old Flemish masters used to paint) of new arrivals who assembled there in groups, asking the landlord or one of his staff (who, if he did not like the look of them, would recommend lodgings elsewhere in the town) whether they could have dinner and beds, while a scullion hurried past holding a struggling fowl by the neck.

The Numbering at Bethlehem, Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Richard wrote: "And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near and far, I found, as I hurried across the ..."

Thank you Richard. This is perfect. I have not started with ghe Guermantes section in Karpeles book. I don't know whether he included this one.

KALL,REEMK FIONNUALA, got me gals.That´s exactly who I am:the Real Proust Reading Housewife of Arg.!!!

But "cross my heart" I´ll finish the 7 vols!I think they are a trip.

Please take into consideration I read while at work in my store.

www.beck-and-martin.com.ar

Btw,I´ll be in Weston Florida from June 12 to July 2 at my daughter´s if anybody cares to visit you are welcome for 3/4 nights(1*).
She's got a huge house -7 bedrooms and like 4 bathrooms- no smoking ,2 children 4 and 11 (on holidays),1 work-at-home-husband."Lasciate ogni speranza voi chi entrati qui",or something like it; what Dante read on the front door of Hell.
Like a true southamerican housewife I don´t drive but the 16-year-old-boy of a neighbor drives me around for a few dollars.So we can have a good time.I don´t do drugs or drink but I have nothing against people who drink or smoke pot outside in the garden.The only problem is we have to take the kids with us because both parents will be working except weekends.
I know the coolest watering holes and palaces in Miami,Palm Beach and Ft.Lauderdale where amzing people lived in the past.I have a sholl friend Diana Horton ,who lives there and on Fridays goes dancing in Hollywood Fl. with the black persons of Haiti who are very polite and neat.

NO MEN ADMITTED

Richard wrote: "And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near and far, I found, as I hurried across the ..."

I love Brueghel!

SO SORRY! I thought I was in the Lounge Forum.

There is a tapestry of parting or of a weaving of death that Proust designs into his narrative; from the restaurant scene with Saint-Loup and his comrades in arms (ML p. ~160) and the jealousy of Saint-Loup because of the engrossment of the Narrator and a new found friend at dinner as manifested by Saint-Loup passing the Narrator on the road strangely not noticing him with a friend beside: a parting.

Speaking to Granny and his "...premonition...of an eternal separation!" after on the telephone for the first time and to his arrival to see her in Paris, she of "...whom I did not know.": a death. (ML p. 188)

There are minor interludes of separation in the woof and warp of this story sequence: the change of plans of Saint-Loup: meeting his mistress rather than. as the Narrator had hoped, introducing him to Mme Guermantes; the departure of new found friends at Doncières...

Eugene, yes, a 'tapestry.' I have always found these Doncières passages so unsettling, especially this one....the narrator so cunning and so honest.

“'You wouldn't care to give me her photograph, I suppose?'
I had meant to ask him only for the loan of it. But as I was about to speak I was overcome with shyness, feeling that the request was indiscreet, and in order to hide my confusion I formulated it more bluntly and amplified it, as if it had been quite natural.
'No, I should have to ask her permission first,' was his answer.
He blushed as he spoke. I could see that he had a reservation in his mind, that he attributed one to me as well, that he would further my love only partially, subject to certain moral principles, and for this I hated him.'" (p. 131)


"Saint-Loup" by David Richardson. Website: "Resemblance: The Portraits & etc"
Warning...Spoilers lurk. Here: http://resemblancetheportraits.blogsp...

Marcelita, in that passage you quote, the original French is even more shocking: at the end he says "et je le detestai" NOT 'for this', but just 'I hated him'. Far more forceful and disturbing.

And I love that the Dreyfus affair is now beginning to raise its head, at long last. I was promised before I started that this affair would play a role, it's been a while coming.

Eugene, I do appreciate your remarks about the strategy of war and their comparison with the strategy of conquering an object of desire. (And also the web of leave taking.) Marvellous observations.

I thought at first only of the 'art', the art of war and how it might be compared to other forms of art. And also the kind of encyclopaedic style of this novel, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.
Mind you, we may still get a philosophical disquisition on plumbing and enamel wash basins, we've had the telephone, so why not?

Marcelita wrote: "Eugene, yes, a 'tapestry.' I have always found these Doncières passages so unsettling, especially this one....the narrator so cunning and so honest.

“'You wouldn't care to give me her photograph,..."

Marcelita, as the Narrator says in the Les jeunes filles, the art of a painter dates the sitter to the age of the painter, rather than to the sitter's. For me Richardson's style does not convey Proust's world. Sorry.

With regard to the 'sleep' theme of this week's reading and the question of how much Proust may have been influenced by opiates, here are some interesting extracts from Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, first published in 1821, which I've been reading recently for unrelated reasons:
I had devoted the labour of my whole life, and had dedicated my intellect, blossoms and fruits, to the slow and elaborate toil of constructing one single work...begun upon too great a scale for the resources of the architect...at night, when I lay in my bed, vast processions passed along in mournful pomp; friezes of never-ending stories, that to my feelings were as sad and as solemn as if they were stories drawn from times before Oedipus or Priam, before Tyre, before Memphis. And at the same time a corresponding change took place in my dreams; a theatre seemed suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented nightly spectacles of more than earthly splendour...as the creative state of the eye increased, a sympathy seemed to arise between the waking and the dreaming states of the brain in one point - that whatsoever I happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon the darkness was very apt to transfer itself to my dreams...For all this and other changes in my dreams were accompanied by deep-seated anxiety and gloomy melancholy, such as wholly incommunicable by words...the sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c., were exhibited in proportions so vastly as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive....the minutist incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived...I find it impossible to banish the thought of death when I am walking alone in the endless days of summer...the following dream...a Sunday morning in May...Easter Sunday..right before me lay the scene which could really be commanded from that situation, but exalted, as was usual, and solemnised by the power of dreams...the hedges were rich with white roses and no living creature was to be seen.
There are many other parallels to be seen between the experiences and reactions of de Quincey and Proust, including a love of attending the opera, of hearing Racine declaimed by the finest actress/singer of the day...

Fionnuala wrote: "With regard to the 'sleep' theme of this week's reading and the question of how much Proust may have been influenced by opiates, here are some interesting extracts from Thomas de Quincey's Confessi..."

This is very interesting. I should add Quincey to my TBR.

Proust and the Narrator are very interested in the various altered states of consciousness, whether these are the dreams, or alcohol or
medical drugs. Something that later will become a focus of exploration for the Surrealists.

So far, that I recall, two characters have realized something about themselves or their lives after a dream... And of course Proust with his hypochondria and his eventual addiction to Veronal must have made him think about this.

On going to sleep and the language used for this process, I have just ordered a book on Spanish lexicon which devotes one chapter to the language and the words used for talking about this process...., the going to sleep. I can't wait to get the book.

Kalliope wrote: ".. I have just ordered a book on Spanish lexicon which devotes one chapter to the language and the words used for talking about this process...., the going to sleep. I can't wait to get the book. "

The language of 'going to sleep'? I wish I was fluent in it...

In this section we are also getting a great deal of attention to the Dreyfus affair, which ran from 1894 until 1906. We know Proust played an important role in the defense of Dreyfus in the public opinion. He instigated Anatole France, who was then a great deal more famous than the young-writer-to-be, to spearhead an initiative amongst the intelligentsia to publicize their defense of Dreyfus.

I had not expected though that it would figure so prominently in his novel. By the time he wrote it, the Dreyfus affair formed already part of a less honorable history of French politics.

Richard wrote: "And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near and far, I found, as I hurried across the ..."

Yes, this painting is included in Karpeles's book. It is lovely.

Fionnuala wrote: "With regard to the 'sleep' theme of this week's reading and the question of how much Proust may have been influenced by opiates, here are some interesting extracts from Thomas de Quincey's Confessi..."

Actually, now that I think of it, the Surrealists were interested in De Quincey... Perfect analogy, Fionnuala.

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "With regard to the 'sleep' theme of this week's reading and the question of how much Proust may have been influenced by opiates, here are some interesting extracts from Thomas de ..."

Wasn't it in this week's section that we got that amazing meditation on how when you go off into a deep sleep, it's almost like the brain gets reset completely, and it's a miracle when you wake that you find all your own neural connections and not someone else's? I thought that was fantastic, like looking on the brain as a computer that might lose all data and be reset.

Karen wrote: "and it's a miracle when you wake that you find all your own neural connections and not someone else's? I thought that was fantastic, like looking on the brain as a computer that might lose all data and be reset. "

Yes, Karen, that was quite a weird and futuristic bit which I couldn't quite get my head around. I could imagine that we might lose access to our own neural connections, but that instead we might pick up someone else's? Hmm.

Kalliope, interesting that you've found that de Quincey might provide us with a possible link between Proust and surrealism.

ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Go for it, Patricia..."

Patricia needs her own reality show! The Real Proust-reading Housewife of Argentina!"

Agreed! And she would get a great audience.

Richard wrote: "And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near and far, I found, as I hurried across the ..."

Great illustration, Richard. I am a bit confused about the pagination but I think that it is in the same section that the narrator describes the "exquisite dishes set before us..... the little piece of nature from which they had been extracted, the rugged holy-water stoup of the oyster..." I just loved that passage. It reminded me of the description of the table at the hotel in Balbec when the waiters were cleaning up. Proust is such a master at seeing the beauty in the ordinary.

Marcelita wrote: "Eugene, yes, a 'tapestry.' I have always found these Doncières passages so unsettling, especially this one....the narrator so cunning and so honest.

“'You wouldn't care to give me her photograph,..."

The portrait of St Loup is a definite spoiler. It just killed the sweet fantasy I had about him!

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: ".. I have just ordered a book on Spanish lexicon which devotes one chapter to the language and the words used for talking about this process...., the going to sleep. I can't wait t..."

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "With regard to the 'sleep' theme of this week's reading and the question of how much Proust may have been influenced by opiates, here are some interesting extracts from Thomas de ..."



On the topic of sleep I also liked the author likening awakening to a resurrection after "that beneficent attack of mental alienation which is sleep….and perhaps the resurrection of the soul after death is to be conceived as a phenomenon of memory. "

And I too wish I were fluent in the language of sleep. The only word I know is insomniac!!

Here it is in French, Jocelyne. I put in my updates of the book because I loved it so much, it is a still-life, it is beautiful: Ils donnaient autant de plaisir à mon imagination qu'à ma gourmandise; parfois le petit morceau de nature d'où ils avaient été extraits, bénitier rugueux de l'huître dans lequel restent quelques gouttes d'eau salée, ou sarment noueux, pampres jaunis d'une grappe de raisin, les entourait encore, incomestible, poétique et lointain comme un paysage, et faisant se succéder au cours du dîner les évocations d'une sieste sous une vigne et d'une promenade en mer;"

Jocelyne wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "The portrait of St Loup is a definite spoiler. It just killed the sweet fantasy I had about him!
..."

Not blond and no monocle, but more the style....

Proust is prescient now, as he was 100 years ago, about the telephone: I usually let my voice mail pick up when it rings and deal with its information later in time that I choose. We seem to have forgotten the horrors that he describes--the telephone was an unavoidable instrument of progress that we accepted--now we can avoid the 'blushingness', for lack of a better shorter word, of it by the 'modesty' of texting.

The disembodied voice we hear, chilling then, chilling now, speaking to a mental image that is a facsimile of a friend who has become a stranger.

So much to say here but not about Proust.