One Year In Search of Lost Time ~ 2015 discussion

Week I of Sodom and Gomorrah ending July 11th

"Thus it was that Mme de Marsantes, when someone from a different world entered her circle, extolled before him those discreet people 'whom one finds when one goes in search of them who keep themselves to themselves the rest of the time', just as in a roundabout way, you advise a servant who smells that bathing does wonders for the health" (~12.05%).

Finishing the short last part of volume 3, i probably won't be able to stop myself from starting Sodom and Gomorrah early :)

Simon wrote: "Finishing the short last part of volume 3, i probably won't be able to stop myself from starting Sodom and Gomorrah early :)"

I started it last night, but I promise I will not discuss until it's time to!

I finished the introduction and was struck by the timeliness of the theme. To a certain extent, he could be writing of today.

Teresa wrote: "I finished the introduction and was struck by the timeliness of the theme. To a certain extent, he could be writing of today."

Also meant to say the beginning of the intro is very funny -- our narrator is such a snoop! ;)

Teresa wrote: "Teresa wrote: "I finished the introduction and was struck by the timeliness of the theme. To a certain extent, he could be writing of today."

Also meant to say the beginning of the intro is very f..."

Yes...the "snooping" began in the garden of Aunt Leonie's house, when the young narrator was yearning for his goodnight kiss.

"I had formed a resolution to abandon all attempts to go to sleep without seeing Mamma, had made up my mind to kiss her at all costs, even though this meant the certainty of being in disgrace with her for long afterwards—when she herself came up to bed. The calm which succeeded my anguish filled me with extraordinary exhilaration, no less than my sense of expectation, my thirst for and my fear of danger. Noiselessly I opened the window and sat down on the foot of my bed. I hardly dared to move in case they should hear me from below."MP

Aunt Leonie was a master observer. Then, the accidental voyeurism outside Montjouvain...and so on throughout the novel.

I didn't really understand the musings after the homoerotic scene with M. Charlus and Jupien, i'm not even sure it was a musing about life as a homosexual. Vices, "inverts", men that are women inwardly... with this strange terminology and the usual long sentences, I was often lost.
And more saloon scenes, oh well...

There was a hilarious scene though where a lady got flooded with water from the fountain, soakingly wet, to get laughed at by a duke's roaring bass like a whole military troup. Then his attempted reparation of "Bravo, old thing!"

Simon wrote: "I didn't really understand the musings after the homoerotic scene with M. Charlus and Jupien, i'm not even sure it was a musing about life as a homosexual. Vices, "inverts", men that are women inwa..."

More sexual references in the "fountain passage:"

The Proustian Quest by William C. Carter (page 87-88)
https://books.google.com/books?id=heI...

Thanks for mentioning that! The eroticness of the fountain scene is interesting and i like that part of the analysis, but the rest i find ridiculous academese over-interpretation.
Sex is close to death? How? And i have to admit that I find Freud mostly obsolete fantasy, too, so the whole Search and Combray, and all of reading as (continuous) orgasm is stupid in my eyes, as well as masturbating being narcissistic.
In my eyes Proust just made a kinky, witty allusion to orgasm in the fountain scene, and that's it. But again i have to admit that this is my attitude against interpretation and academese influenced by Susan Sontag.

Simon wrote: "Sex is close to death? How?"

Perhaps it's a French thing that's hard for others to understand. ;) After all the phrase is la petite mort though my understanding is that it doesn't just apply to orgasm. Of course we don't know how one feels after "le grand mort". (I don't know French, so excuse me if I've phrased that incorrectly.)

I just read the enjoyable part where the author/narrator has a little conversation with the reader about forgetting names and whether one's memory will get worse as one ages. Very funny to witness this stage "aside."

Barbara wrote: "I just read the enjoyable part where the author/narrator has a little conversation with the reader about forgetting names and whether one's memory will get worse as one ages. Very funny to witness..."

I particularly liked this part of the aside, as it addresses aspects of the narrator (his digressions, his identity) the reader has no doubt wondered about:

"All this," the reader will remark, "tells us nothing as to the lady's failure to oblige; but since you have made so long a digression, allow me, gentle author, to waste another moment of your time in telling you that it is a pity that, young as you were (or as your hero was, if he be not yourself), you had already so feeble a memory that you could not recall the name of a lady whom you knew quite well."

I've just read this section (better late than never...!) Marcelita, thanks for your reference to how his snooping here follows on from the similar scenes early on - and also for the article about the fountain passage. I hadn't spotted the sexual references there at all.

I thought the opening section here, with its discussion of the loneliness of gay people at that time and how they had to lead a hidden/double existence, is one of the greatest sections so far.

And I also loved that aside - especially as I often forget people's names myself.:)