One Year In Search of Lost Time ~ 2015 discussion

April 4
“If she really did intend to leave him, no doubt she would wait quietly until she had ‘made her pile’, which, in view of the sums doled out by Saint-Loup, looked as though it might take a very short time, although any time, however short, would afford my new friend a little extra happiness — or unhappiness” (~68.1%).

I really liked this week's part, a lot of ideas to think about and two interesting new characters.

Here we get a small hint and direct statement about the narrator's age:

the salient feature of the absurd age I was at – an age which, for all its alleged awkwardness, is prodigiously rich – is that reason is not its guide, and the most insignificant attributes of other people always appear to be consubstantial with their personality.
(...)
There is scarcely a single one of our acts from that time which we would not prefer to abolish later on. But all we should lament is the loss of the spontaneity which urged them upon us. In later life, we see things with a more practical eye, one we share with the rest of society; but adolescence was the only time when we ever learned anything.
(p. 310)

The second part of that is a nice little reflection on youth and was highlighted by 8 others on Kindle (again, i only found out now on my Kindle for PC).

I find these new characters, Saint-Loup and M. or Baron de Charlus quite interesting, two aristocratic, proposedly intellectuals, both flawed though especially in their perception and overestimation of themselves. Saint-Loup is not as openminded as the narrator and disregards people who don't read Nietzsche or listen to Wagner:

Saint-Loup was not intelligent enough to realize that intellectual worth is unrelated to belief in any particular aesthetic doctrine;
(p. 313)

This is also my motivation for a lot of reading:

He was one of those ‘intellectuals’ 39 whose ready admiration keeps them immersed in books, satisfying a hunger for ideas.
(p. 312)

My edition has an annotation on 'intellectuals' that the french term 'intellectuel' "as a noun [only] became widespread in 1898, an acute phase of the Dreyfus Affair".

I also like the whole discussion of how differently others view you compared to yourself, culminating in this advice:

one should make a rule of never speaking of oneself, given that it is a subject on which we may be sure our own view and that of others will never coincide.
(...)
Each time we have spoken of ourselves, we may be sure that our harmless, cautious words, received with ostensible politeness and a pretence of approval, have later inspired a diatribe of unfavourable judgment on us, full of exasperation or hilarity at our expense.
(p. 322)

And here is another great psychological observation that was confirmed and made famous in science not too long ago (1999), now called the Dunning-Kruger effect:

Inaccuracies and incompetence in no way reduce self-assurance. The opposite is more usual:
(p. 351)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%...

Yes, these two new characters have greatly opened up the narrative and probably the narrator's world as well.

Does that annotation on 'intellectuals' resonate at all with your earlier question about the narrator's saying he has no interest in intellectual pleasures?

I don't know Teresa, i don't see how. Why would the term 'intellectuel' being coined in the Dreyfus affair around 1898 have anything to do with the narrator not being interested in intellectual pleasures? Because of the negative connotation? I don't think so, and the narrator went further than that, he said he'd prefer a simple life in nature to all intellectual pleasures, putting nature over reading and discussion, which doesn't seem to fit with what he does all the time.

That original conversation with Bergotte is mentioned in next week's section, as is Dreyfus, though expectedly one has nothing to do with the other.

I haven't written any comments because I'm so far behind. I thought I'd wait until I caught up, but that may be too far off.
I do read your comments, though, and I'm thinking that there might be an over-concern about the narrator's age at any given time.
I think we need to remember that, as constructed, what is presented to us is one narrator's memories. From my own experience, I can be many ages all at once when I am in recollection or I can remember back from the age I am now (old) or a combination of these. I think it's not uncommon, especially with traumatic situations, to be very much in the moment of 25 or 50 years earlier and relive those emotions (think war veterans, especially). I think Proust and the narrator are contemplating the notion of time passage (thus the title). Is it linear or simultaneous? Is it real or constructed in each person's drama in which they star?
Also, as we read, I think we need not always take the narrator at his word but to ask rather, is he a reliable narrator? In truth, he's all we've got, but might the author also be playing with us or with memory or with alternative views existing within a single character in a single moment (think again about your own opinions)?
We are always in the head of the narrator, so that's all we know about any character at any time. And he makes no claim to be omniscient. Yet, there is a lot of irony present. I think we need always to be mindful of that.

Good point, Miki, but the narrator is talking about specific periods of time, sometimes chronological sequences. For instance, when he is at Balbec with his grandmother in this part, or the first time he meets Mme Swann or Gilberte, it's a fact that he is a certain age, and often for a longer part of a book. Still, you have a point, he may jump chronologically in his reminiscences from time to time.

Simon wrote: "Still, you have a point, he may jump chronologically in his reminiscences from time to time."

I think he definitely does. And not only that, many times he gives us his take on what a memory might be like, or how an incident might be changed, if he was older when it occurred, rather than being the unspecified younger age he's remembering.

Yes. I think as readers we need to remember that the narrator is remembering an age more than being an age. No simple narrative this.