Imprinted Life discussion

The cover illustration of William C. Carter's Marcel Proust: A Life by Jacque-Émile Blanche is one of many black-and-white photographs grouped within the text. According to the biography's Preface, (Marcel Proust (1871-1922), a French, twentieth-century novelist, is known for "À la recherche du temps perdu" (trans. In Search of Lost Time as well as Remembrance of Things Past: Proust 6-pack), which depicts the entire span of Proust's life. A glance at its Index indicates these people will be important in the narrative: Céleste Albaret (housekeeper), Lucien Daudet, Reynaldo Hahn, Comte Robert de Montesquiou, Anna de Noailles, Adrien Proust, Mme Adrien Proust, Robert Proust (brother), Jacques Rivière, and Mme Émile Straus.

Barry wrote: "I got this at the library and am beginning it today - anyone else reading it? should i be reading it when i'm only thru the first two Lost Time books? thanks and happy reading!"

Barry, if this is any encouragement, I read the first Lost Time book and am reading Carter's biography!

Barry wrote: "yes! it is! thansk, i'm really liking it so far (25 pages in)"

Good for you, Barry...I'll be adding my comments about the book soon. OK?

Everyday I learn more about the world through books I read. A series on modernism, named for the art critic Henry McBride, contains this biography of Proust and other titles. According to the introductory material, Modernism (of which the avant-garde is a part) is the most significant cultural movement after Romanticism. And, Á La Recherche du Temps Perdu the greatest novel of the twentieth century.

The French title is translated as Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time, the period spanning the eventful years 1871-1922. As Barry noted above whether reading this book prior to Carter's biography is necessary, it could corroborate the Preface's description that Proust

characterized his era as the "age of speed" and showed in the Search how these remarkable inventions changed daily life and the way people perceived time and space.

As is often the case, I like the mention of real places--Proust Museum (La Maison Tante Léonie), Illiers near Chartres, Beg-Meil, Belle-Île-en-Mer.

Part I (of VII) begins with several of Proust's forebears, placing these ancestors in the context of their social distinction, connections, and activities. Especially outstanding is Proust's father's scientific career in public health. Spurred on by the great cholera epidemic of 1866, Dr Adrien Proust was an epidemiologist through his efforts to discover the route of the fatal infection from India to Egypt and Europe and to quarantine ships in the Suez (cordon sanitaire). These events around the time of the fall of the Second Empire, the defeat at Sedon.

If the rest of the biography is similar, the reader will always have an idea of social, political, cultural events of the period, especially as the lives of Proust, his family and friends, are touched by them.

After the opening about Marcel Proust's forebears, the biography goes into his birth and childhood in France's Third Republic (the Belle Epoque), in particular his attachment to his mother, his penchant for reading and writing, and his absorption in the sights and smells of nature's trees, flowers, clouds, water--the flowers especially an indication of "beauty", "desire", and "sexuality"(31). This biography, which I originally thought might touch on changes in French social, political, and cultural life, actually does something quite different, pointing out people, places, and incidences in his childhood, which he remembered and adapted for Jean Santeuil and the Search. Present are those

scallop shells...madeleines, a symbol of a key revelation in the Narrator's quest [in the Search] to find his vocation as a writer(30)

and those homes in Auteuil and Illiers reinvented as

...Combray, a place that exists only in the pages of his book.

During his childhood he suddenly developed a very severe asthmatic condition that put a damper on most of his excursions outdoors with the exception of the seashore. From somewhere, my first impression of Proust was of a fragile man who stayed in his room, abhorring any fresh air. His nearly fatal attacks of asthma explains why his jaunts in the country fields outside of Paris were curtailed. Now I understand him differently.

Proust had a rigorous schooling in languages and culture from his mother and grandmother, later being admitted to the Lycée Condorcet, where he developed in essays the themes of his adult writing: "prisoners" and "captives", "exiles", "perversion", "guilt", "the loss and recapturing of time" (44, 48, 49). As he grew more physically weak, he went to a spa at Salies-de-Bearn, honing his writing style and being fascinated with the histories of Augustin Thierry, then returned to the Champs-Élysée.

Among Proust's friends, making up his "salon" at Lycée Condorcet, are Robert Dreyfus, Daniel Halévy, and Jacques Bizet--future historians and writer. Now a teenager, Proust experimented with his budding sexuality, having relations with males and females. In high school, competition for the best grades was stiff, even though Proust was brilliant, making his parents wonder--

Did the boy have the stamina, the will to make his way in life and excel in a profession?(73)

--as, along with physical frailty he favored the values of the "heart" and "intelligent beauty", even "self-scrutiny", to materialism.

The question that tormented Marcel in his senior year, unanswered completely until the concluding volume of the Search, was whether art has intrinsic value. Does art point to any universal, eternal-value? Can it transcend mere materialism and vanity? Proust lived his entire life, however, as if this answer was a resounding "Yes!"(82)

Themes Proust later develops in the Search burgeon in his early short stories. I noted these themes from Carter's biography, jotting them down as I read along:

Admiration for the naturalness and comeliness of the common people;

Absolute subjectivity or blindness of erotic desire and the inevitable disappointment that comes with possession;

A person's eyes as the windows through which her past may be read and hints at the false promises seen therein that the lover will believe;

Struggle of will against the forces of habit;

Loss of innocence to one experienced;

Lesbian seduction;

Time lost and regained--"moments rescued from oblivion."

The Prousts encourage their literary, philosophical, dandyish, seemingly idle son to be disciplined in his studies and to be serious in the choice of a respectable, professional career. Meanwhile, Proust's sociability, mannerliness, and willingness to oblige open the doors of fashionable French salons, attended by writers, musicians, composers, and artists of the time--Oscar Wilde, Anatole France, André Gide...Now, he is writing stories ("La Confession d'une jeune fille", "Avant la nuit", "L'Eventail", "La Mort de Baldassare Silvande", "La Fin de la jalousie", et al.) and poems ("Mensonges") for his book Pleasures and Days: And Other Writings, and submitting high society news; his interest in human psychology, specimens of nature, and childhood places and experiences will be remembered and transformed into Proustian characters and events, Proustian defined as

...stereoscopic vision, allowing him to see outward and inward, in the present and in the past, through a microscope and through a telescope that eventually enabled him to create that particular, complex way of seeing the world...(174).

Between 1895 and 1899--

Proust publishes Pleasures and Days: And Other Writings with Anatole France's preface and Mme Lemaire's illustrations. The combination of its mixed reviews and high cost does not make it much read. Reading, writing, and philosophy are what he does best but do not earn him a living to makeup for his extravagant social expenses. He continues his close attachment to his mother Jeanne Proust, corresponding with her at least once a day, sometimes more often, and she doing likewise.

New technologies such as electric lighting, telephone, and mail service change people's daily lives.

Barry wrote: "...what I'm finding fascinating about this book is all of the techniques the biographer is using. On the treadmill today I read a passage where he describes the Prousts holiday breakfast, down to the grapes - ! - how would this biographer know that?! ..."

I was reading and reading this book, making good progress I think. The story really flows just right and the illustrations are lovely. It's amazing the way people preserved seemingly every letter, which was the only way to communicate personally until a telephone here and there appeared. Proust and his mother corresponded more than once a day! I like the way that you observed the biographer's craft, Barry. I find that this in-depth biography will make my reading of the entire Search so much better as Proust writes autobiographically. And, this biography, I noticed, associates the incidences of Proust's life and the characters, settings, and events of Proust's famous novel. How did the biographer know that??

It's really an incentive to know that another human being, Barry, is reading this well-written, fast-paced, rather long book--kind of a gentle reminder when several books say, "Read me, too, Asmah." The Proust biography is actually one of my favorites.

My public library has a copy of Christian Braad Thomsen's Fassbinder: Life and Work of a Provocative Genius. Meanwhile, I'll diminish my pile of reading books, soon, if only to enjoy Proust's biography and to post something :)

Although I'm not able to be an active part of the reading this time around, I wanted to mention two Proustian things (forgive me if you know these already!) Firstly, Proust fans visiting Paris should pop in to the Carnavalet museum to see la chambre de Marcel Proust ca 1910, where he wrote a large part of La recherche du temps perdu. The whole bedroom has been recreated, complete with his furnishings.

Also, there's a lovely novel about Proust by Kate Taylor, Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen. I would highly recommend it.

cheers,
Mary

I'll make sure to visit the Musée Carnavalet, Mary. Though a photo isn't the same experience, there is a picture of Proust's room http://carnavalet.paris.fr/en/collect...
The Musée published Au temps de Marcel Proust French Edition. The English Edition didn't pop up.

MADAME PROUST AND THE KOSHER KITCHEN, a combination of fiction and historical letters. A+

That's it, Barry. I'm going to read it. I didn't know that you are reading both books!

8 The Duelists: The Dreyfus affair was changing the tenor of society. One example is that friendships and customary associations were reformed. The new social criteria, replacing etiquette of birth and social rank, was whether the person supported Dreyfus's cause. Dreyfusards tended to be a few writers (Zola, who wrote the letter J'Accuse, and Anatole France) and younger intellectuals; whereas anti-Dreyfusards tended to be older prominent citizens. Proust, having a Catholic and Jewish heritage and a strongly professional bourgeois family saw the issues as a matter of "truth and justice" and the "psychological laws that govern human behavior", so he wasn't vehemently political.

9 Am I a Novelist

Some Proustian themes:
the soul's encasement in the body;
the passage of time;
the slow accumulation of memories;
the involuntary, spontaneous memory. Regarding this last,

"moments of vivid, spontaneous memory and their conscious application in the creative process are the real life and that our usual daily life in its habitual and vain actions is a sham existence, a life lived on the surface, and hence, a life lost."

Laconically speaking, a soup tureen can be the catalyst of pleasant daydreams and of creative life.

Barry, you are making good progress, reading book 4 of "In Search of Lost Time". Rah!

Barry wrote: "Finished! It was great. Recommended to all.

Here's my review"

Well, Barry, your achievement deserves the literary readers' award, ✍✍✍✍✍

Check out the Proust group and Mari's topic which suggests commemorating November 18, the day of Proust's death in 1922. My comment is there as well.

Proust's commemorative day is over by one hour forty-one minutes, two madeleines, and a biographical chapter (10. Ruskin and Certain Cathedrals). Marcel Proust: A Life truly is a fine biography, relating what MP loved about Paris, strolling through that city despite his hay fever. His visiting French and Venetian cathedrals, inspired by John Ruskin's writing about them, was like visiting them myself; his adoring medieval/Gothic structures just as contemporary moderns do makes him seem one of us.

At the same time, MP is so terribly a nonconformist, so he might actually resemble very few people indeed. His parents ask why can't their oldest son adapt to a schedule?

"...his parents...must have long since abandoned any illusions about Marcel's ability to perform tasks requiring regular attendance, minimal organizational skills, and professional exchanges with colleagues."

Even though he says he wants to marry one of the dazzling society women, his marriage would not be traditional.

As I read about his odd behavior (bizarre hours, health problems, hectic social calendar), his charming personality, and his enthusiasm to translate Ruskin, I decided that I liked MP the person and that nonconformity is possibly the badge of an artist. The one heartbreaking revelation so far was his "frustrating search for companionship and affection..." As I'm going to read more (11. His Blue Eyes) even though the madeleines are gone, I'll find out whether his writing of the great novel will cancel that search.

At this point of Proust's life, he has yet to conceive and write his own literary masterpiece. Rather, he is translating and publishing another's work, that of the Englishman John Ruskin, whose works on art and architecture Proust is translating for French readers while reading about and visiting many medieval/gothic cathedrals. Many of his friends are already publishing their personal literary work unlike Proust. In his habits and interests, he also differs remarkably from his father and brother, both who are prominent physicians. At his brother Robert's wedding, Proust makes a strange best man, given his odd clothing and pale skin, characteristics plainly evident to the bridesmaid he will escort:

...when Marcel appeared for the noon wedding at the church of Saint-Augustin, the effects of sleepless nights were obvious. Mme Proust, incapacitated by rheumatism, was transported ot the church in an ambulance. The bride must have wondered about the strange behavior and delicate health of Robert's mother and brother. Valentine Thomson, a young Proust cousin, had been asked to be a bridesmaid. The pretty girl of eighteen was thrilled to be a member of the wedding and was especially proud of her beautiful dress and the large bouquet Jeanne had sent her. Valentine's anticipation turned to horror when she saw the escort whose arm she must cling to throughout much of the ceremony, including the slow and humiliating trip up and down the aisle, while Marcel passed the collection plate. As Valentine later recalled, Proust arrived at the church grotesquely attired. Deathly afraid of drafts and cold air, he had stuffed his tuxedo with termogene wadding and put on three topcoats. Marcel looked as though he were headed to the North Pole rather than to an indoor wedding whose guests included many of Paris's most distinguished and fashionable citizens. Valentine was also amazed at the extraordinary pallor of this man who hardly ever went out in sunlight, ate little, and exercised not at all. The bridesmaid thought the best man looked as horrible as Lazarus must have upon emerging from the grave.

Besides Valentine's reaction to Proust, this excerpt shows the smooth writing of the biography's author. I can't say often enough what a charming book this is to read.

Comment about Chapters 14-16:
Proust's nervous, arthritic, and asthmatic conditions, his drug usage, and his eye strain did not prevent his specializing in and translating the oeuvre of John Ruskin, the English social and art critic, prior to Proust's starting his own personal literary work, "In Search of Lost Time". So, there's a bit of information here about Ruskin, about Proust's collaborating, and a lot about Proust's visiting medieval French cathedrals. In addition, there's a passing mention of "the affinities between Monet's and Proust's visions"(370). There's also his emotional satisfaction to the official end of the Dreyfus affair and to the public appreciation of Picquart who maintained Dreyfus' innocence.

Proust's health conditions and his "bizarre" behavior and hours limited but did not eliminate his social life and correspondence. At the same time, he understood the "dangers of society" and of "vanity" to undermine what he valued more--"reading", "meditation", and "creativity". And to write his great imaginative work, he needed to make "the leap from reader to writer"--an enthusiastic writer, the only kind to beget "beauty, genius, and truth". Posterity attributes to him the theory of involuntary memory.