2018: Our Year of Reading Proust discussion
Some Details
But Mme. Swann had chosen, had contrived to preserve some vestiges of certain of these, in the very thick of the more recent fashions that had supplanted them. When in the evening, finding myself unable to work and feeling certain that Gilberte had gone to the theatre with friends, I paid a surprise visit to her parents, I used often to find Mme. Swann in an elegant dishabille the skirt of which, of one of those rich dark colours, blood-red or orange, which seemed always as though they meant something very special, because they were no longer the fashion, was crossed diagonally, though not concealed, by a broad band of black lace which recalled the flounces of an earlier day. When on a still chilly afternoon in Spring she had taken me (before my rupture with her daughter) to the Jardin d’Acclimatation, under her coat, which she opened or buttoned up according as the exercise made her feel warm, the dog-toothed border of her blouse suggested a glimpse of the lapel of some non-existent waistcoat such as she had been accustomed to wear, some years earlier, when she had liked their edges to have the same slight indentations; and her scarf — of that same ‘Scotch tartan’ to which she had remained faithful, but whose tones she had so far softened, red becoming pink and blue lilac, that one might almost have taken it for one of those pigeon’s-breast taffetas which were the latest novelty — was knotted in such a way under her chin, without one’s being able to make out where it was fastened, that one could not help being reminded of those bonnet-strings which were — now no longer worn. She need only ‘hold out’ like this for a little longer and young men attempting to understand her theory of dress would say: “Mme. Swann is quite a period in herself, isn’t she?” As in a fine literary style which overlays with its different forms and so strengthens a tradition which lies concealed among them, so in Mme. Swann’s attire those half-hinted memories of waistcoats or of ringlets, sometimes a tendency, at once repressed, towards the ‘all aboard,’ or even a distant and vague allusion to the ‘chase me’ kept alive beneath the concrete form the unfinished likeness of other, older forms which you would not have succeeded, now, in making a tailor or a dressmaker reproduce, but about which your thoughts incessantly hovered, and enwrapped Mme. Swann in a cloak of nobility — perhaps because the sheer uselessness of these fripperies made them seem meant to serve some more than utilitarian purpose, perhaps because of the traces they preserved of vanished years, or else because there was a sort of personality permeating this lady’s wardrobe, which gave to the most dissimilar of her costumes a distinct family likeness. One felt that she did not dress simply for the comfort or the adornment of her body; she was surrounded by her garments as by the delicate and spiritualised machinery of a whole form of civilisation.
In this paragraph, there are 3 places I don't quite understand:1, those pigeon’s-breast taffetas;
2, "all aboard" ( a grament?)
3, "chase me" ( a hat?)
Could anybody be kind enough to shed some light on them?
Thanks!
Let's take 2 & 3 first: both are allusions to Odette's past life as a prostitute. "Chase me" is sometimes translated as "Come hither." Both are invitations to...well, you know.1. Proust is talking about a tartan-type plaid that is not in the usual colors of green and black, or red and blue, but pink and lilac; and the taffeta fabric has a sort of sheen, much like a pigeon's breast feathers. I mean, she might be a whore, but Odette can sure dress!
It was enough to fill me with longing for country scenes that, overhanging the loose snowdrifts of the muff in which Mme. Swann kept her hands, the guelder-rose snow-balls (which served very possibly in the mind of my hostess no other purpose than to compose, on the advice of Bergotte, a ‘Symphony in White’ with her furniture and her garments) reminded me that what the Good Friday music in Parsifal symbolised was a natural miracle which one could see performed every year, if one had the sense to look for it, and, assisted by the acid and heady perfume of the other kinds of blossom, which, although their names were unknown to me, had brought me so often to a standstill to gaze at them on my walks round Combray, made Mme. Swann’s drawing-room as virginal, as candidly ‘in bloom,’ without the least vestige of greenery, as overladen with genuine scents of flowers as was the little lane by Tansonville."assisted by the acid and heady perfume of the other kinds of blossom, which, although their names were unknown to me, had brought me so often to a standstill to gaze at them on my walks round Combray, "
Elizabeth, my dear friend:
Does this "acid and heady perfume " belong to "the guelder-rose snow-balls" or there is another flower nearby so that it could assist the "guelder-rose snow-balls"?
One thing it might mean is the memory of the scent of the other flowers the Narrator enjoyed (to put it mildly) on his walks around Combray, and particularly (remember the Hawthorns?) as he skirted the borders of Swann's estate of Tansonville. But you're right, there's a bit of ambiguity (Proust's favorite thing) that implies there are possibly other flowers there in her drawing room.And notice the way he rather cattily remarks that the white guelder-roses were there for decoration more than enjoyment.
yes, thanks!I thought either the Hawthorns or something that, if exists, assists the guelder-rose snow-balls, could suggest Gilberte, who wasn't present at the drawing room.
Various young men as they passed looked at her anxiously, not knowing whether their vague acquaintance with her (especially since, having been introduced only once, at the most, to Swann, they were afraid that he might not remember them) was sufficient excuse for their venturing to take off their hats.
Does " vague acquaintance" mean "not introduced formally to Mme. Swann"?
I think so; I take "vague acquaintance" means "they knew she was Swann's wife." This was a very formal society; you will subsequently see in various ballroom/visiting passages, the fury people exhibit when "people them don't know" dare to bow to them. Hah.
Mod
Yes, I also noticed this transformation. The narrator may transfer his love of Gilberte to her mother, which is, I fancy, parallel to his love of the Duchesse de Guermantes. However, it could be due to the love of the daughter, and the mother really tried to help, or even her acceptance of him to her drawing room and treating him well. Anyway, the narrator always implies Mme. Swann's ignoble past. Whoever accepts him and treats him well will not be badmouthed badly though the narrator bad mouthed almost every character.
"But after all the special attraction of the journey lies not in our being able to alight at places on the way and to stop altogether as soon as we grow tired, but in its making the difference between departure and arrival not as imperceptible but as intense as possible, so that we are conscious of it in its totality, intact, as it existed in our mind when imagination bore us from the place in which we were living right to the very heart of a place we longed to see, in a single sweep which seemed miraculous to us not so much because it covered a certain distance as because it united two distinct individualities of the world, took us from one name to another name; and this difference is accentuated (more than in a form of locomotion in which, since one can stop and alight where one chooses, there can scarcely be said to be any point of arrival) by the mysterious operation that is performed in those peculiar places, railway stations, which do not constitute, so to speak, a part of the surrounding town but contain the essence of its personality just as upon their sign-boards they bear its painted name."not understand this : (more than in a form of locomotion in which, since one can stop and alight where one chooses, there can scarcely be said to be any point of arrival)
Is locomotion more or something else? If it is locomotion, it not logic, one can't alight where one choose, because the train or other means of public transportation has designated stops.
I think you've got it. But go back to "the difference between departure and arrival." The heart of this passage lies there. He is examining the tension between "imagination" and "reality."
Mod
Sentence before mentions something to effect that now one would make this voyage by car. (Sorry I don't have English text, only French) So alighting and departing when one wants would make more sense. I also think the subtext has to do with language, staring with one word (or name or sign or person) and alighting upon another in the narrative journey of writing.
I love that you are asking questions of such close reading, April!
Lori wrote: "April wrote: ""But after all the special attraction of the journey lies not in our being able to alight at places on the way and to stop altogether as soon as we grow tired, but in its making the d..."Thanks!
I am assisted almost completely with grammar to arrive my comprehension (thanks god!) , I am sometimes completely lost with some cultural practice, and historical events.
The details, I feel, cann't be overlooked. I can't go on without knowing what it is.
"motorcar" was mentioned earlier.I think perhaps, the narrator felt traveling by public transportation may lower his status, so he makes that statement to indicate that traveling by train has more advantage. It indeed makes ample sense as he states, without any doubt.
just my thinking.
Tell me exactly where he previously mentions "motorcar", OK?
My grandmother, naturally enough, looked upon our exodus from a somewhat different point of view, and (for she was still as anxious as ever that the presents which were made me should take some artistic form) had planned, so that she might be offering me, of this journey, a ‘print’ that was, at least, in parts ‘old,’ that we should repeat, partly by rail and partly by road, the itinerary that Mme. de Sévigné followed when she went from Paris to ‘L’Orient’ by way of Chaulnes and ‘the Pont-Audemer.’ all my three sources say 'print', I don't know what it is.
Elizabeth wrote: "Tell me exactly where he previously mentions "motorcar", OK?"The journey was one that would now be made, probably, in a motorcar, which would be supposed to render it more interesting. We shall see too that, accomplished in such a way, it would even be in a sense more genuine, since one would be following more nearly, in a closer intimacy, the various contours by which the surface of the earth is wrinkled. But after all the special attraction of the journey lies not in our being able to alight at places on the way and to stop altogether as soon as we grow tired, but in its making the difference between departure and arrival not as imperceptible but as intense as possible, so that we are conscious of it in its totality, intact, as it existed in our mind when imagination bore us from the place in which we were living right to the very heart of a place we longed to see, in a single sweep which seemed miraculous to us not so much because it covered a certain distance as because it united two distinct individualities of the world, took us from one name to another name; and this difference is accentuated (more than in a form of locomotion in which, since one can stop and alight where one chooses, there can scarcely be said to be any point of arrival) by the mysterious operation that is performed in those peculiar places, railway stations, which do not constitute, so to speak, a part of the surrounding town but contain the essence of its personality just as upon their sign-boards they bear its painted name.
the 1st line. We may have different versions.
Mod
Re 'print,'--- In French the word is "épreuve." I'm not 100% sure, but in the context it feels to me like the word would mean a trial or a test- to do something that wouldn't be as easy but would be more profitable intellectually - to follow the route taken by Mme de Sévigné rather than a direct route
I think the narrator means what we would call an engraving. E.g., rather than a photograph of Giotto's allegorical paintings (Justice, Envy, Charity, etc), the Narrator's grandmother wants a "print" (i.e. engraving) taken from the photograph. In the same way, when a trip to Balbec is planned, she wants to follow Mme de Sevigne's journey to her son's estate in Normandy...all this stems, he says, from her desire to get the utmost aesthetic enjoyment/enlightenment out of any thing...this gentle fun is the closest the Narrator gets to any kind of criticism of his beloved grandmother, BTW. "By motorcar." As nearly as I can tell, this part was written well before WW I; you will subsequently see in later parts that he uses (and seems to like) automobiles (of course, w/ a chauffeur).
thank you, Elizabeth, for mentioning "an engraving", which may be a valid clue.épreuve f (plural épreuves)
test
ordeal, trial
(sports) event, heat
(typography, coinage) proof
(photography) print
(film, television, in the plural) rushes
"épreuve" is a print out of a photograph? pertaining to photograph, Grandma, in Book I, likes a photograph of a masterpiece by great masters (E.g. Turner) of some natural scenery, instead of a photograph of the natural scenery.
That is to say, she likes a photograph of the painting of Mount Vesuvius by JMW Turner, instead of a photographer's photo of Mount Vesuvius. She thought the former more artistic.
Giotto's allegorical painting is a photograph given to him by Swann, who said the kitchen-aid resembled one of the figures in the painting, not much to "an engraving".
still have difficulty to understand it. I believe reference is somewhere in Books I, but just can't find it.
"Giotto's Charity." Swann (who loves to find analogs of people to works of art) says that's what their hugely pregnant kitchen-maid looks like." 'How goes it with Giotto's Charity?' And indeed the poor girl, whose pregnancy had swelled and stoutened every part of her, even to her face, and the vertical, squared outlines of her cheeks, did distinctly suggest those virgins, so strong and mannish as to seem matrons rather, in whom the Virtues are personified in the Arena chapel."
Also: when he mentions the features of "Justice" and says her "withered face" resembles certain old ladies he always saw at mass, "many of whom had long been enrolled in the reserve forces of Injustice." I grew up in a small-town church, and I know exactly what he's talking about. Life copies art.
More on that poor kitchen-maid. Proust never has a word to say about this, but from my readings of other French authors around that same time, the fact that they employ her, unmarried (you notice that NO infant succeeds her difficult delivery--it had undoubtedly been put out to nurse), is a note on the liberal principles of that family. E.g., Colette mentions that her mother came in for a lot of small-town backbiting and criticism, for hiring "unmarried mothers."
Elizabeth wrote: "More on that poor kitchen-maid. Proust never has a word to say about this, but from my readings of other French authors around that same time, the fact that they employ her, unmarried (you notice t..."when she was hired, she was not pregnant. The narrator seems to suggest that Swan did the job of impregnating her (as I read from other people), though it was never explicit.
For the photograph, I think I will leave it as it is, thank you both! An "old" "photograph", means they will actually go to the place to take a photo instead of taking a train and skip the the "imprinting" . If the quotation marks make those inquiry minds want to dig deeper, it is even better.
Mod
wow I never knew that re Swann and Charity!
Lori wrote: "April wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "More on that poor kitchen-maid. Proust never has a word to say about this, but from my readings of other French authors around that same time, the fact that they emp..."i can't recall where i read it, but i definitely remember i read it from an article.
It is strange but Swann is noted for loving to sleep with servant girls. There are other incidents of the same kind in other chapters.
When, that evening, after having accompanied my grandmother to her destination and spent some hours in her friend’s house, I had returned by myself to the train, at any rate I found nothing to distress me in the night which followed; this was because I had not to spend it in a room the somnolence of which would have kept me awake; I was surrounded by the soothing activity of all those movements of the train which kept me company, offered to stay and converse with me if I could not sleep, lulled me with their sounds which I wedded — as I had often wedded the chime of the Combray bells — now to one rhythm, now to another (hearing as the whim took me first four level and equivalent semi-quavers, then one semi-quaver furiously dashing against a crotchet); they neutralised the centrifugal force of my insomnia by exercising upon it a contrary pressure which kept me in equilibrium and on which my immobility and presently my drowsiness felt themselves to be borne with the same sense of refreshment that I should have had, had I been resting under the protecting vigilance of powerful forces, on the breast of nature and of life, had I been able for a moment to incarnate myself in a fish that sleeps in the sea, driven unheeding by the currents and the tides, or in an eagle outstretched upon the air, with no support but the storm."This was because I had not to spend it in a room the somnolence of which would have kept me awake; "
what is this spirit of the narrator's? Can't sleep in a sleepy room?
Elizabeth wrote: ""Giotto's Charity." Swann (who loves to find analogs of people to works of art) says that's what their hugely pregnant kitchen-maid looks like." 'How goes it with Giotto's Charity?' And indeed the..."
This is really a sarcastic to Swann, glad you brought it up.
April wrote: "Lori wrote: "April wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "More on that poor kitchen-maid. Proust never has a word to say about this, but from my readings of other French authors around that same time, the fact ..."
I think the Narrator is saying that he sleeps better w/ activity (the soothing noises of the train) around him, rather than a still room. Don't you know people who like to keep a fan on, to help them sleep?
Elizabeth wrote: "April wrote: "Lori wrote: "April wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "More on that poor kitchen-maid. Proust never has a word to say about this, but from my readings of other French authors around that same t..."There is at least one incident in Books 3 or 4 that Swann had a relationship with a servant under Guermante, and he asked her help to sort the things out.
“So it was that nothing could have reminded me less than these dreary names, made up of sand, of space too airy and empty and of salt, out of which the termination ‘ville’ always escaped, as the ‘fly’ seems to spring out from the end of the word ‘butterfly’— nothing could have reminded me less of those other names, Roussainville or Martinville, which, because I had heard them pronounced so often by my great-aunt at table, in the dining-room, had acquired a certain sombre charm in which were blended perhaps extracts of the flavour of ‘preserves,’ the smell of the fire of logs and of the pages of one of Bergotte’s books, the colour of the stony front of the house opposite, all of which things still to-day when they rise like a gaseous bubble from the depths of my memory preserve their own specific virtue through all the successive layers of rival interests which must be traversed before they reach the surface.”extracts of the flavour of ‘preserves,’
just don't understand, why "extracts of the flavour of ‘preserves'"? not "the flavour of ‘preserves'"?
it is a flavour, but what are the extracts of the flavor?
April: extracts are stronger, way stronger. Think about it. Vanilla extract, e.g. Where the flavor of a particular fruit or flower is condensed and amplified to the utmost degree. Sort of what Proust was doing w/ literature!
Thanks, Elizabeth!they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.
"who hear voices in the air,"
What does this mean? Is this indicating a real mad man or just a metaphor?
Elizabeth wrote: "I think the Narrator is saying that he sleeps better w/ activity (the soothing noises of the train) around him, rather than a still room. Don't you know people who like to keep a fan on, to help th..."I think the narrator hates a hotel room, speciously, he is going to live in one for a while. He would rather sleep in a train compartment.
or rather he is just like to write this way. Sometimes, I find Marcel Proust's writing is for writing's sake.
April: "slaves of some defunct economist." This so reminds me of my years teaching HS. The fads that came and went...and 99% of them were merely the products of some poor putz trying to get his PhD..."voices in the air"; I think this is a metaphor; this passage drips w/ contempt for "practical men" and I do not think Proust would give them credit for being interesting enough to be mad...
Remember: all art is, ultimately, only about art. Proust's writing, according to this, is about...writing!
True, it invoked, to make them come to the Grand Hotel, Balbec, not only the ‘exquisite fare’ and the ‘fairy-like view across the Casino gardens,’ but also the ‘ordinances of her Majesty Queen Fashion, which no one may break with impunity, or without being taken for a Boeotian, a charge that no well-bred man would willingly incur.’don't understand: the ‘ordinances of her Majesty Queen Fashion...’
Queen ordered people in the hotel to be fashionable? it says it's a quote from the hotel prospectus.
April: Her Majesty Queen Fashion means The Latest Thing, as it were. Balbec is touted as THE place to go in this prospectus.
speaking in the peculiar tone always adopted, when in a strange environment by a pair of colleagues — as exclusive, in this respect, as two young men from the same collegewhat is the peculiarity of "two young men from the same college"?
if it is the peculiarity = the similarity between the two, I may understand.
Are you reading the Moncrieff translation? Or--do I remember right--in French? If Moncrieff, this is a British peculiarity. It means the separate houses (aka colleges) of Oxford & Cambridge, e.g. Balliol, Magdalen, etc. Query: does the Sorbonne have the same thing? I have no idea...At any rate, it comes back to snobbism...
Yes, Moncrieff translation. I know little French.My mother tongue is Chinese。
Thanks a million, Elizabeth, don't give up on me!
Heck, that's what I'm here for! And snobbism is such a central theme in Proust, isn't it?A note on snobbism. The Brits invented it; well, they invented the word, at least. Oxford & Cambridge were formed around the 12th century and for a long time, only members (male only) of the aristocracy were admitted. They had their "rooms" in their individual colleges, w/ their titles on the door. E.g. "The Duke of Earl" "The Honourable James Snodgrass" etc. Then, during the Renaissance, the first scholarship (boys only, still) were admitted. What, oh what, to put on these commoners' doors? They put "without nobility" on the door, but in Latin, and abbreviated: S.Nob. See?
“But I was told that at Ostend they used the royal bathing machine.”What is “the royal bathing machine”, Elizabeth?
Bathing machines were these really, really big...things. Like houses (on wheels) w/ no floor. They could be wheeled into the water, and one could "bathe" (Britspeak for "swim") in privacy. The royal one, of course, was the biggest and most luxurious.
thanks!"...and would at once bring the magnifying lens of the conjugal glasses to bear upon so quaint a phenomenon; "
that is "the conjugal glasses"?
April wrote: "thanks!"...and would at once bring the magnifying lens of the conjugal glasses to bear upon so quaint a phenomenon; "
that is "the conjugal glasses"?"
OK, you've got to give me some context; where is this? What book, what is happening, something so I can find it.
Sorry, I forgot .It is in book 2, chapter 2, Place-Names： The Place
on page 759, by Penguin Classics, 2016
on page 729, by Random House, 1981
online version, search "conjugal":
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/prou...
I would like to exchange some idea with anyone who likes to do it too.